Name: Wild Turkey
Ingredients: 1 wild turkey; ½ cup bread crumbs; 2 tablespoons fat pork, chopped fine; ¼ teaspoon pepper; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt

Why it works: Turkey and pork work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 830 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Wild Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Draw and wash the turkey's inside carefully.
Wipe the cavity with a dry, soft cloth.
Prepare a stuffing with bread crumbs, chopped fat pork, pepper, and salt.
Moisten the stuffing as needed and fill the turkey cavity.

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.

Turkey + porktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together830 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Turkey + breadtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together822 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Bread + porktop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,371 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Turkey + peppertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,636 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,121 recipes

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