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Turkey Scallop

A baked layered turkey dish with bread crumbs, butter, eggs, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Turkey Scallop

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Remove the meat from the bones of cold turkey and chop it finely.

  2. In a buttered dish, layer bread crumbs and moisten them with a little milk.

Layer and assemble

  1. Add a layer of turkey and some filling.

  2. Place small pieces of butter on top of the turkey layer.

  3. Sprinkle with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  4. Add another layer of bread crumbs.

  5. Repeat layers until the dish is nearly full.

  6. Add a little hot water to the turkey gravy.

  7. Pour the hot water over the layers.

  8. In a bowl, mix 2 eggs, 2 tablespoons milk, 1 tablespoon melted butter, a little salt, and enough cracker crumbs to thicken the mixture.

  9. Spread the mixture over the top.

  10. Add bits of butter on the mixture.

  11. Cover with a plate.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 45 minutes.

  2. Ten minutes before serving, remove the plate to let it brown.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Turkey + breadtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together822 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Turkey + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together540 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold turkey meat
Forms the main body of the dish, providing the savory filling layers.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and butter to form soft, moist layers between the turkey.
Eggs
Bind the custard-like mixture so it sets and holds together when baked.
Cracker crumbs
Thicken the egg and milk mixture so it holds its shape on top.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the top brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Covering with a plate and removing it before serving. The covered dish steams and cooks through gently; removing the plate ten minutes before serving lets dry heat brown the surface. Timing this matters for both moisture and colour.

“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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