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Meat Scallop

A casserole of chopped meat topped with seasoned mashed potatoes, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Meat Scallop

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the meat filling

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and sauté the minced onion until hot.

  2. Add the flour and stir until smooth, then gradually add the hot water, seasoning to taste.

  3. Mix in the chopped cold meat until well combined.

Top and bake

  1. Transfer the mixture to a baking dish and cover with a layer of seasoned mashed potatoes.

  2. Wet the potatoes with a little milk and optionally mix in the beaten egg white for better texture.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes or until the top is light brown.

Serve

  1. 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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  4. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the hot water into a smooth, cohesive filling that holds the meat together.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour to the onion and helps the filling feel rich.
Egg white
Optionally beaten in to help the potato topping set and improve its texture.
Cold meat
Forms the main body of the filling, held together by the thickened sauce.

The step that matters

Thickening the flour with hot water. Flour must be stirred smooth before the hot water is added gradually; adding it all at once can leave lumps, because flour starch needs to be dispersed before it thickens.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, meat, potato, pepper, milk, egg. 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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