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Royal Scallop

A baked casserole of diced meat, eggs, and breadcrumbs topped with a white sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Royal Scallop

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Butter a baking dish.

Layer the casserole

  1. Add a layer of crumbs.

  2. Add a layer of diced meat and chopped eggs.

  3. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and cayenne.

  4. Cover with another layer of crumbs.

  5. Repeat the layers (meat, eggs, crumbs).

Make the sauce and bake

  1. Make a white sauce.

  2. Pour the white sauce over the meat mixture.

  3. Cover with crumbs.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) until 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked meat or fish
Provides the main protein and savory flavor of the filling.
Hard cooked eggs
Add body and richness to the filling as they set when cooked.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a white sauce that binds the layers together.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the white sauce, adding moisture and creaminess.
Buttered crumbs
Form crisp layers that brown on top and add texture.

The step that matters

Make the white sauce. Flour must be cooked smoothly into the butter and then milk added gradually so the sauce thickens without lumps; undercooked flour leaves a raw starchy taste.

“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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