Name: Scalloped Potatoes
Ingredients: boiled potatoes; butter; white sauce; buttered crumbs; hard-cooked eggs (optional); grated cheese (optional); fish (optional); beef (optional)

Why it works: Potato and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,052 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Scalloped Potatoes

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.

Remove the skin from boiled potatoes and cut them into ½-inch thick slices.
Arrange the sliced potatoes in layers in a buttered baking dish.
Cover each layer with white sauce.
Sprinkle the top with buttered crumbs.
Bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 20 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.

Potato + beeftop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,052 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,962 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + fishtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,488 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,456 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Fish + beeftop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together226 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sauce, egg, cheese, fish, beef):

Potatothe original
Tomatofits about as well
Asparagusfits about as well
Onionfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sauce, egg, cheese, fish, beef. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.