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Deviled Turkey

A deviled turkey prepared by cutting joints, seasoning with mustard, salt, cayenne, broiling, and serving with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,430 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Deviled Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Make deep gashes in the turkey joints.

  2. Fill the gashes with mixed mustard, coarse sea salt, and cayenne pepper.

Cook and serve

  1. Broil the turkey until heated through.

  2. Serve on a very hot dish and spread with butter.

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

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

  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. Turkey + mustardtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together157 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 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

Turkey joints
Provides the meat that is seasoned and heated through.
Mixed mustard
Adds sharp heat and pungent flavor that penetrates the cuts in the meat.
Cayenne pepper
Adds sharp heat that gives the deviled character to the dish.
Butter
Adds fat and richness that coats the hot meat as it is served.

The step that matters

Broil the turkey until heated through. Broiling is intense, direct heat, so the surface can scorch before the joints heat through. Watch closely and check that the meat is hot at its thickest part.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Mustardthe original

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