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Bread

Scallop Cheese

A baked bread dish with grated cheese, eggs, milk, buttered bread, pepper, salt, and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,130 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Scallop Cheese

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Assemble

  1. Layer the buttered bread in a buttered baking dish.

  2. Sprinkle the grated cheese, pepper, salt, and mustard over the bread.

  3. In a bowl, mix the beaten eggs and milk together.

  4. Pour the egg and milk mixture over the layered bread.

Bake

  1. Bake in the preheated oven until golden and set.

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 + cheesetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  3. Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  4. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Cheese + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,805 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Beaten eggs set the custard that binds the layers together as it bakes.
Milk
Milk combines with the eggs to form a custard that moistens the bread.
Bread
Buttered bread forms the structure that soaks up the custard as it bakes.
Grated cheese
Melted cheese adds richness and flavor and browns on the surface.

The step that matters

Pour the egg and milk mixture over the layered bread. Eggs set when heated, so the custard must be evenly distributed over the bread before baking to give a uniformly firm, cohesive dish rather than a runny or patchy one.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, cheese, pepper, egg, milk):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, cheese, pepper, egg, milk. 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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