Skip to main content
Baking

Scalloped Potatoes

Layered potatoes baked with milk, flour, salt, pepper, and oleomargarine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Potato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Scalloped Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Wash, peel, and slice the potatoes.

Assemble and bake

  1. Layer the slices in a buttered baking dish, sprinkling with salt, pepper, and flour, and dot with oleomargarine; repeat the layers.

  2. Pour hot milk over the top layer until it is just visible.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1½ hours or until the potatoes are soft.

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

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

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

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

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 dish and soften into tender layers as they bake.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a light sauce that binds the layers together.
Oleomargarine
Adds fat that enriches the flavor and helps the top brown lightly.
Hot milk
Provides liquid that cooks the potatoes and forms the creamy sauce.

The step that matters

Pour the milk until just visible. Pouring in too much milk can make the dish soupy, while too little leaves the potatoes dry. Starting hot helps the baking begin evenly.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits about as well
  3. Potatothe original
  4. Parsnipfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, flour, milk. 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.

You might also like

Delicate CakeDelicate Cake246 recipesBoiled FrostingBoiled Frosting69 recipesCitron CakeCitron Cake68 recipesScotch CakeScotch Cake63 recipes