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Scalloped Meat

A baked meat dish topped with buttered crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Scalloped Meat

Why it works: Pepper and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Scalloped Meat

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 the meat

  1. Mix the seasonings with the chopped meat.

  2. Make a brown sauce and add the meat mixture.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place half of the buttered crumbs in the bottom of a greased baking dish.

  2. Pour in the meat mixture and cover with the remaining crumbs.

  3. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until browned.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Meat + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,364 recipes

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

  3. Flour + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Meat + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,777 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chopped cooked meat
Forms the bulk of the dish and provides its main flavor.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a brown sauce that moistens the meat.
Stock
Liquid that, combined with flour, creates the sauce that keeps the meat moist.
Buttered crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping and bottom layer through browning in the oven.

The step that matters

Bake until browned. The dish is assembled with a hot oven and is done when the crumb topping browns. Baking too briefly leaves the crumbs pale and the sauce underheated, while the fat in the buttered crumbs is what drives browning.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, pepper, flour):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, pepper, flour. 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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