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Boiled Potatoes, Italian Style

A baked casserole of boiled potatoes layered with a creamy ham, Parmesan, and egg yolk sauce, topped with breadcrumbs and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Boiled Potatoes, Italian Style

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and lightly fry the chopped onion.

  2. Add the flour and cook for 5 minutes while stirring.

  3. Slowly add the cream to make a thick sauce, cooking for 10 minutes.

  4. Stir in the ham, Parmesan cheese, and chopped egg yolks, then season with salt and pepper.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a deep buttered baking dish, layer the sliced boiled potatoes and cover with the sauce.

  2. Repeat the layers until the dish is full.

  3. Sprinkle fresh bread crumbs on top and add small pieces of butter.

  4. Wipe the edges of the dish and bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 25 minutes.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Parmesan cheese + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,322 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

Potatoes
Form the bulk of the casserole, soaking up the sauce as they bake.
Cream
Makes the sauce rich and thick, giving the layers moisture.
Butter
Fat that softens the onion and enriches the sauce, and browns the top.
Flour
Thickens the butter and cream into a smooth, stable sauce.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help the sauce set as it bakes.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savory, salty flavor and helps the top brown.

The step that matters

Make a thick sauce with the flour. Cooking the flour in butter and then adding cream slowly lets the starch swell evenly and thicken the sauce without lumps. Cooking it long enough removes the raw flour taste and gives the layers body.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, cream, ham, parmesan cheese, egg, pepper):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, cream, ham, parmesan cheese, egg, pepper. 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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