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Scalloped Meat

Scalloped Meat is a baked dish of meat, tomato sauce, butter, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Scalloped Meat

Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

Scalloped Meat

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Cut the cold meat into small pieces.

  2. Take clean scallop shells and add a layer of melted butter or white sauce at the bottom.

Assemble

  1. Add a layer of meat and a little tomato sauce.

  2. Repeat the layers until the shell is filled.

  3. Sprinkle baked breadcrumbs on top and add a small piece of butter.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until the breadcrumbs are golden 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Cold beef or veal
Provides the main protein, which is bound and warmed through in the shells.
Tomato sauce
Adds moisture and acidity that keeps the meat layers from drying out.
Melted butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the layers taste savoury and moist.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping through browning in the oven.

The step that matters

Browning the breadcrumb topping. The crumbs need enough heat and a little butter to brown without burning. Browning comes from Maillard reactions at the surface, so the top should be watched while the filling heats through.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, sauce, butter, bread):

  1. Tomatothe original
  2. Onionfits about as well
  3. Potatofits less well
  4. Shallotfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, sauce, butter, bread. 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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