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Scolloped Chicken or Turkey

A casserole of cold chicken or turkey with boiled rice or macaroni, topped with sauce and buttered crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,769 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

Scolloped Chicken or Turkey

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

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Assemble and bake

  1. Layer equal parts of cold chicken or turkey and boiled rice or macaroni in a baking dish.

  2. Cover the layers with poulette or tomato sauce, well seasoned.

  3. Top with buttered crumbs.

  4. Bake until the crumbs are a rich 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. Chicken + ricetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,769 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  2. Rice + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Chicken + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,031 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold chicken or turkey
Forms the main protein body of the casserole, providing bulk and savory flavor.
Boiled rice or macaroni
Adds starchy bulk and soaks up sauce, giving the casserole a soft, cohesive texture.
Poulette or tomato sauce
Supplies moisture and seasoning that keeps the layers from drying out during baking.
Buttered crumbs
Browns in the oven under dry heat, creating a crisp golden topping and contrasting texture.

The step that matters

Bake until the crumbs are a rich brown. Browning comes from Maillard reactions and caramelization at the surface under dry oven heat. Pulling the dish too early leaves the topping pale and soft, while leaving it too long can scorch the crumbs and dry the sauce beneath.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, rice):

  1. Potatofits about as well
  2. Tomatothe original
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, rice. 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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