Name: Forcemeat for Turkey
Ingredients: 4 ounces stale bread (crumbed); 1 ounce lemon rind (grated); 1 ounce mixed savory herbs (2/3 parsley, 1/3 thyme, minced); ½ teaspoon salt; pepper or cayenne to taste; 2 ounces butter (cut into small pieces); 1 egg yolk

Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Forcemeat for Turkey

Ingredients

4 ounces stale bread (crumbed)
1 ounce lemon rind (grated)
1 ounce mixed savory herbs (2/3 parsley, 1/3 thyme, minced)
½ teaspoon salt
pepper or cayenne to taste
2 ounces butter (cut into small pieces)
1 egg yolk

Directions

Grate the lemon rind finely and mix it with the bread crumbs, herbs, salt, and pepper.
Add the butter pieces and the egg yolk.
Work the mixture with your fingers until smooth.
Ensure the lemon rind is fresh to avoid unpleasant flavors.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,057 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Lemon + thymetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,973 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Stale bread: Crumbs make up the bulk and absorb moisture, giving the forcemeat its body.
Butter: Adds fat that enriches the mixture and keeps it moist and tender when cooked.
Egg yolk: Helps bind the crumbs, butter and herbs into one cohesive mixture.
Lemon rind: Contributes bright citrus aroma that lifts the savory flavor of the stuffing.
Mixed savory herbs: Parsley and thyme add aromatic, herbal flavor that complements the turkey.

Swap the thyme

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, lemon, parsley, pepper, butter, egg):

Marjoramfits about as well
Thymethe original
Tarragonfits about as well
Sagefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, lemon, parsley, pepper, butter, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.