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Turkey Scallop

A baked casserole of turkey meat with bread crumbs, gravy, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

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 the turkey

  1. Remove the meat from the cold turkey and break the bones.

  2. Cover the bones with 2 quarts of cold water and boil for 1 hour.

  3. Chop the turkey meat and season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

Layer and bake

  1. In a bake dish, layer buttered bread crumbs.

  2. Layer the minced turkey.

  3. Moisten with gravy.

  4. Add more buttered crumbs, wet with milk.

  5. Cover with seasoned cracker crumbs, wet with oyster liquor (or milk) and beaten eggs.

  6. Dot with butter on top.

  7. Bake covered at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

  8. 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. 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. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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 casserole, providing protein and savory flavor.
Eggs
Bind the moistened crumbs and set during baking to hold the layers together.
Gravy
Moistens the turkey layer, adding moisture and savory flavor throughout the dish.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and form a soft, layered base that holds moisture during baking.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the top brown during the final uncovered baking.

The step that matters

Uncover to brown. Baking covered traps steam and keeps the top pale and moist. Uncovering lets surface moisture evaporate so the crumbs and butter can brown, which gives flavor and color.

“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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