Skip to main content
Main

Turkey Scallop

A baked casserole of finely chopped cold turkey layered with breadcrumbs, butter, and a thick egg mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Turkey Scallop

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 the layers

  1. Remove the meat from the bones of cold turkey and chop it finely.

  2. In a buttered dish, layer bread crumbs and moisten them with a little milk.

  3. Add a layer of turkey and some filling, then dot with small pieces of butter and sprinkle with pepper and salt.

  4. Repeat layering with bread crumbs and turkey until the dish is nearly full.

  5. Add a little hot water to the turkey gravy and pour it over the layers.

Top and bake

  1. In a bowl, mix 2 eggs, 2 tablespoons milk, 1 tablespoon melted butter, a little salt, and enough cracker crumbs to make a thick spread.

  2. Spread the mixture over the top, dot with butter, and cover with a plate.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 45 minutes.

  4. Ten minutes before serving, remove the plate to let it 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Turkey + breadtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together822 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Turkey + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together540 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the topping and set into a custard-like layer as it bakes.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and gravy to form a moist, soft body between the turkey layers.
Cold turkey meat
Provides the main protein and substance of the dish.
Milk
Moistens the bread crumbs and the topping, adding softness and moisture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and browns on the topping.
Cracker crumbs
Thicken the egg mixture into a spreadable topping that bakes to a firm crust.

The step that matters

Removing the plate to brown the top. Covering the dish traps steam so the topping sets without colour. Removing the plate ten minutes before serving lets dry heat brown the surface, which only happens if the cover comes off in time.

“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.

More turkey scallop recipes

Casserole 4 See all 22 →

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesTurkey SoupTurkey Soup71 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipes