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Ham Scallop

A baked casserole of ground ham, boiled eggs, and a butter‑flour sauce topped with cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Ham 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 sauce

  1. Separate the whites from the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs and chop them finely.

  2. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat, then stir in the flour and cook until smooth.

  3. Gradually add the sweet milk, stirring until the sauce thickens. Season with salt and pepper.

Assemble and bake

  1. Butter a baking dish and spread a layer of sauce on the bottom.

  2. Layer the ground ham, chopped yolks, and chopped whites in the dish, then top with the remaining sauce.

  3. Sprinkle fine cracker crumbs and small pieces of butter on top.

  4. Bake in a preheated oven at 350 °F (175 °C) for about 30 minutes, or until 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth white sauce that holds the layers together.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and, on top, helps the crumbs brown in the oven.
Sweet milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which sets as it thickens and bakes.
Hard boiled eggs
Add body and richness to the layers as their yolks and whites set when baked.
Boiled ham
Supplies the savory meat flavor and substance of the casserole.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce. Flour must be cooked in the melted butter until smooth before the milk is added, and the milk stirred in gradually, so lumps do not form and the sauce thickens evenly.

“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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