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Turkey Salad

A salad of finely chopped turkey dressed with a boiled vinegar, butter, egg, mustard, sugar, salt, and pepper mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Turkey Salad

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Beat the eggs until very light.

  2. Boil the vinegar with the butter until melted.

  3. Stir in the eggs and continue stirring until it boils.

  4. Add the mustard, sugar, salt, and pepper.

  5. Let the dressing cool, then pour it over finely chopped turkey.

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. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Butter + turkeytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,592 recipes

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

  4. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Pepper + turkeytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,636 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Thicken the dressing as they cook, giving it a creamy body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the dressing and balances the richness.
Butter
Adds fat that gives the dressing a smooth, rich mouthfeel.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that cuts through the richness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the vinegar.
Chopped turkey
Forms the salad base that the dressing coats.

The step that matters

Stir in the eggs and continue stirring until it boils. Eggs thicken as their proteins set with heat, but if they are added too fast or the heat is too high they can scramble into lumps. Steady stirring keeps the dressing smooth and evenly thickened.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, vinegar, butter, sugar, pepper, turkey):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, vinegar, butter, sugar, pepper, turkey. 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.

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