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Escaloped Ham

A baked ham dish with milk, egg, butter, and cracker crumbs, seasoned with cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Escaloped Ham

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.

Make the custard

  1. Scald the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Remove from heat and stir in the chopped ham.

  3. Add the beaten egg and mix well.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a well-buttered baking dish.

  2. Sprinkle cracker crumbs over the top.

  3. Dot with butter and season with cayenne pepper.

  4. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Ham + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold boiled ham
Provides the meaty flavor and bulk that the dish is built around.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that sets into a soft, creamy custard.
Egg
Binds the mixture and helps it set into a custard when baked.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the top brown in the oven.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp, browned topping over the soft custard.

The step that matters

Adding the egg to the hot milk. Eggs can curdle or scramble if added to very hot liquid too quickly. Stirring well after removing the milk from the heat lets the egg blend in smoothly, so the custard sets evenly rather than turning grainy.

“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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