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Scalloped Potatoes

Layered boiled potatoes baked with butter, onion, flour, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 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.

Assemble

  1. Layer cold boiled sliced potatoes in a suitable dish.

  2. Season with coarse sea salt, black pepper, butter, and chopped onion.

  3. Sprinkle a little flour over the layer.

  4. Repeat layers until you have a sufficient quantity.

  5. Heat enough milk to cover the potatoes and pour it over.

Bake and brown

  1. Cover the dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1-2 hours.

  2. Remove the cover and brown the top.

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 + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

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

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

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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, becoming tender as they bake in the milk.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a creamy sauce that binds the layers together.
Milk
Cooks down around the potatoes to form the creamy sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the top brown during the final uncovered bake.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and aroma as it softens and cooks in the dish.

The step that matters

Heat the milk before pouring it over. Hot milk poured over the layers helps the dish come up to temperature evenly and cook through in the oven, rather than leaving the centre cold and the sauce thin.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, pepper, butter, 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.

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