Name: Scalloped Turkey
Ingredients: cold turkey meat, chopped fine; cracker crumbs; milk; stuffing; pepper; coarse sea salt; butter; gravy from the turkey; 2 eggs

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Scalloped Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turkey

Remove the meat from the bones of a cold turkey.
Discard the skin and gristle.
Chop the meat finely.

Layer and bake

In a buttered dish, layer cracker crumbs and moisten them with milk.
Spread a layer of minced turkey over the crumbs, adding bits of stuffing, pepper, salt, and small pieces of butter.
Repeat the layers until the dish is nearly full.
Before adding the top layer, pour in the leftover turkey gravy.
Cover with a layer of cracker crumbs soaked in milk, seasoned with salt, pepper, butter, and beaten eggs.
Spread the mixture over the top.
Bake until golden.

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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Turkey + meattop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together540 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Turkey + milktop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together281 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Turkey + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,592 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Turkey + peppertop 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: Bind the topping and help it set into a custard-like layer when baked.
Cracker crumbs: Absorb milk and gravy to form the soft, layered body of the dish.
Milk: Moistens the cracker crumbs and adds moisture so the layers stay tender.
Butter: Adds richness and helps the top brown as it bakes.
Cold turkey meat, chopped fine: Provides the main savory filling, and fine chopping keeps it tender within the layers.

“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.