Name: Escaloped Potatoes
Ingredients: 1 quart cold potatoes, chopped very fine; 1 pint cream (or milk with 1 tablespoon corn starch and butter); Cayenne pepper (about ¼ teaspoon); Coarse sea salt (to taste); 2 tablespoons chopped parsley; Fine bread crumbs; Butter (for topping)

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Escaloped Potatoes

Ingredients

1 quart cold potatoes, chopped very fine
1 pint cream (or milk with 1 tablespoon corn starch and butter)
Cayenne pepper (about ¼ teaspoon)
Coarse sea salt (to taste)
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
Fine bread crumbs
Butter (for topping)

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.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Assemble

In a dish, mix the chopped potatoes, cream, cayenne pepper, salt, and parsley.
Sprinkle fine bread crumbs and small bits of butter on top.

Bake and serve

Bake for 45 minutes or until golden brown.
Serve directly from the oven.

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.

Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,855 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 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

Potatoes: Form the bulk of the dish and soften into a tender, spoonable body as they bake.
Cream: Adds richness and moisture, and thickens into a silky sauce as it heats.
Bread crumbs: Form a crisp, golden topping that browns in the oven.
Butter: Adds fat that helps the topping brown and enriches the flavour.

The step that matters

Bake until golden brown. Baking too briefly leaves the cream underset and the potatoes firm, while over-baking can dry the dish and scorch the crumbs. Golden colour signals that the topping has browned and the dish is hot through.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, pepper, parsley, bread, butter):

Potatothe original
Carrotfits about as well
Shallotfits about as well
Leekfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, pepper, parsley, bread, butter. 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.

Brown Bread461 recipes

Potato Croquettes255 recipes

White Bread80 recipes

Potato Rolls78 recipes

Like knowing why a recipe works?

The free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.

Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.

Escaloped Potatoes