Name: Scalloped Meat, Fowl or Fish
Ingredients: cold fish, canned salmon, or cold lamb, veal, or mutton; bread crumbs; coarse sea salt; hot water; butter; milk or gravy (optional); hard-boiled eggs (optional); white sauce (optional); potato (optional)

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 Meat, Fowl or Fish

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Cut the cold fish or meat into small pieces, removing bone, fat, and gristle.
Layer bread crumbs in the bottom of a baking dish, followed by a layer of the cut meat and a dash of salt.
Continue layering bread crumbs and meat until the dish is full, finishing with a layer of bread crumbs on top.
Moisten the layers well with hot water mixed with melted butter, or use part milk or gravy.
Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until well cooked and browned on top.
For added flavor, sprinkle chopped hard-boiled eggs throughout the dish.
For a variation, mix the meat or fish with a white sauce before layering.
Alternatively, top the meat with a thick layer of prepared potato.

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.

Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,611 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,668 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

Swap the potato

The recipe marks potato as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, bread, butter, milk, egg, sauce):

Asparagusfits about as well
Potatothe original
Capsicumfits about as well
Tomatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, bread, butter, milk, egg, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.