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Scalloped Cheese

A baked cheese dish with bread crumbs, butter, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Scalloped 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).

  2. Grease a baking dish with butter.

Assemble

  1. Layer bread crumbs and cheese slices alternately in the dish.

  2. Sprinkle celery salt or chopped celery, pepper, and small pieces of butter over the layers, finishing with bread crumbs.

  3. In a bowl, mix the beaten egg and cream, then pour over the layered ingredients.

Bake and serve

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

  2. Serve hot.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cheese
Melts into the layers to give the dish its rich, savoury flavour and creamy body.
Egg
Binds the cream and helps the custard set as the dish bakes.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the bread crumbs into a tender custard.
Bread crumbs
Form the body of the dish and soak up the custard as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the top brown as it bakes.

The step that matters

Pour the egg and cream evenly over the layers. The egg and cream must reach every layer so the bread crumbs soak up the custard. Uneven pouring leaves dry pockets and pooled liquid, and the egg sets unevenly in the oven.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

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