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Cheese Scallop
Soak one cup of dry bread crumbs in fresh milk. Beat into this three eggs; add one tablespoon of butter and one-half a pound of grated cheese ; stew upon the top sifted bread crumbs, and bake in the oven a delicat brown. An excellent relish when eaten with thin slices of bread and butter.
A baked cheese custard of the plainest kind, written for cooks who were expected to judge quantities by eye. Two things are left to you: how much milk, and how hot the oven.
- The milk is unmeasuredOne cup of dry crumbs will take roughly a cup of milk before it stops absorbing and starts pooling. Soak until the crumbs are saturated and soft but not swimming; the eggs supply the rest of the liquid and the set.
- "Stew" is a typesetter's slipRead it as strew — scatter dry sifted crumbs over the top before baking. They are what browns.
- Oven temperatureAn egg-and-milk mixture bakes best moderate, 350F. Hotter and the custard curdles and weeps before the top colours; if the top is pale when the centre is set, a minute under the broiler finishes it.
- The cheeseHalf a pound is 8 oz, about two packed cups grated. A firm cheddar is a reasonable modern choice; anything young and rubbery will string rather than melt into the custard.
- Dish and depthUse a shallow buttered baking dish of about a quart. Depth is the enemy here: a deep dish leaves the centre raw while the crumb crust overbrowns.
- DonenessAround 30 to 35 minutes. The centre should be just set and barely trembling — a knife slipped in comes out clean. Baked until firm throughout, it turns grainy as the egg proteins tighten.
- SeasoningThe original gives none. A little salt, pepper and mustard powder suit a dish of this sort and are worth adding, since the cheese alone rarely carries it.
- YieldServes four as the "relish" it is described as — a savoury side or light supper dish — or two as a main course with the bread and butter.
Cheese scallops belong to a large family of nineteenth-century baked dishes built on stale bread: crumbs, milk, eggs and whatever gave flavour, assembled to use up what the household already had. "Scallop" here describes food baked in a shallow dish with crumbs, a usage traditionally traced to the scallop shells such dishes were once cooked in. The word "relish" in this period generally meant a savoury item served to sharpen the appetite or round off a meal rather than a condiment in a jar. The Home Cook Book was a compilation assembled from contributed household recipes, in which practical advice and cookery were freely mixed.