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Turkey, Hashed

A dish of diced roast turkey simmered in a butter‑flour sauce with stock and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Turkey, Hashed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Divide the turkey into small neat joints and set aside.

  2. In a stewpan, combine the bones and trimmings with a small onion, a blade of mace, a few peppercorns, and a little salt. Simmer gently for about 2 hours.

  3. Strain the stock.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan. Stir in the flour.

  2. Add the stock, stirring until boiling. Let the sauce boil gently for about 10 minutes to cook the flour thoroughly.

  3. Season the sauce to taste.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the pieces of turkey. Remove the stewpan from heat. Let it sit just below simmering point for about 30 minutes.

  2. Before serving, add a few drops of caramel to improve the color of the sauce.

  3. Garnish with toasted bread sippets or a border of mashed potato.

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.

  1. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Turkey + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Turkey + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,636 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Remains of cold roast turkey
Forms the main body of the hash, supplying the meat that gives the dish its substance.
Butter
Enriches the sauce with fat, adding richness and smooth mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a sauce as it cooks and gelatinises with the liquid.
Stock
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, carrying the savoury flavour of the turkey bones.

The step that matters

Boiling the sauce after adding the flour and stock. The sauce must boil gently for about 10 minutes so the starch in the flour swells fully and the raw floury taste cooks out. Stopping early leaves a pasty, floury sauce.

“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.

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