Name: Mock Turkey
Ingredients: 3 pounds veal; ¼ pound salt pork, finely minced; 1 large coffee cup bread crumbs; 2 eggs; 1 teaspoon salt; 1 teaspoon pepper; a little sweet herbs

Why it works: Veal and pork are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,930 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Mock Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Combine veal, salt pork, bread crumbs, eggs, salt, pepper, and sweet herbs in a bowl and mix well until all ingredients are combined.
Shape the mixture into a turkey form.

Cook

Place in a steamer and steam for 4 hours.

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.

Veal + porktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,930 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
Pork + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,371 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Pork + coffeetop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together220 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,121 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Veal: Forms the main body of the loaf, giving it a meaty texture and substance.
Eggs: Bind the mixture together so it holds its shape when sliced.
Bread crumbs: Absorb moisture and help keep the loaf tender and binding loose.
Salt pork: Adds fat that keeps the mixture moist and richly flavored during steaming.

“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.