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Scalloped Turkey

A dish of cold turkey strips simmered in a reduced broth, enriched with egg yolks, bread crumbs, and butter, then baked until golden.

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 the turkey

  1. Season turkey strips with salt and pepper and set aside in a cold place.

  2. In a pot, cover the turkey carcass, stuffing, and uneatable bits with cold water.

  3. Stew slowly until the liquid reduces to half.

  4. Strain the liquid.

Make the sauce

  1. 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. Dot with butter.

  2. Bake covered at 400°F (200°C) until bubbling hot. 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
Thicken the mixture and enrich it as they set with gentle heat.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the bread crumb topping brown in the oven.
Fine bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping that protects the moist mixture beneath.
Remains of cold turkey
Provides the meat that gives the dish its body and main flavour.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg yolks gently. Egg yolks thicken when heated, but if the liquid is too hot when they are added, they can scramble into lumps. Stirring them in off the heat keeps the mixture smooth and creamy.

“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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