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Scalloped Turkey

A baked turkey dish with broth, eggs, breadcrumbs, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

Scalloped Turkey

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. Season turkey strips with salt and pepper, then cover and refrigerate.

  2. In a pot, combine turkey carcass, stuffing, skin, and uneatable bits with cold water.

  3. Stew slowly until the liquid reduces to half.

Make the sauce

  1. Strain the mixture and stir in the beaten yolks of three eggs for every two cups of meat.

  2. Add the turkey to the mixture, ensuring it is soft and well-seasoned.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover the mixture with fine bread crumbs, season with salt and pepper, and dot with butter.

  2. Bake covered at 400°F (200°C) until bubbling hot, then uncover to 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. Turkey + breadtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together822 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Turkey + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,592 recipes

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

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. 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

Egg yolks
Bind the mixture and help it set into a creamy, sliceable texture when baked.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps the top brown during baking.
Fine bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned topping over the moist mixture below.
Stuffing
Adds body and savory flavor to the liquid made from the carcass.

The step that matters

Bake covered, then uncover to brown. Baking covered heats the mixture through without drying it, while uncovering at the end lets the bread crumbs and butter brown through Maillard browning. Uncovering too early can dry the dish; leaving it covered throughout prevents browning.

“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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