Skip to main content
Main

Ham Scallop

A baked casserole of ground ham, sliced eggs, and a creamy sauce topped with cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Ham 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.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt 2 tablespoons of butter over medium heat.

  2. Stir in 4 tablespoons of flour and cook until smooth.

  3. Gradually add 1 pint of sweet milk, stirring until thickened.

  4. Season the sauce with salt and pepper.

Assemble and bake

  1. Butter a baking dish and layer the sauce, followed by the ground ham, sliced eggs, and another layer of sauce.

  2. Top with fine cracker crumbs and small pieces of butter.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 30 minutes, or until browned.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth white sauce that holds the layers together.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and, as small pieces on top, helps the crumbs brown.
Boiled ham
Provides the savory, meaty filling layer.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add richness and a soft, creamy texture to the layers.
Sweet milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which thickens as it heats with the flour.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce. Add the milk gradually while stirring so the flour disperses evenly; adding it all at once can leave lumps, and the sauce must thicken before layering so the casserole sets rather than runs.

“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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes