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Delmonico Potatoes or Au Gratin

A baked potato gratin with white sauce, cheese, and breadcrumb topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cheese and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,962 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Delmonico Potatoes or Au Gratin

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.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Grease a pudding dish with butter.

Assemble and bake

  1. Layer the boiled potato cubes, white sauce, and cheese in the dish.

  2. Top with breadcrumbs.

  3. Bake until hot and brown.

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. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  2. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  3. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Potato + cheesetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together959 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  5. Sauce + cheesetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,987 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Boiled potatoes
Form the bulk of the dish and provide a soft, starchy body.
White sauce
Adds moisture and binds the potatoes so the layers stay creamy.
Cheese
Melts into the sauce and browns on top, adding richness and flavor.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, browned crust over the top layer.

The step that matters

Bake until hot and brown. The sauce and cheese must heat through fully, and the breadcrumbs need enough time in the oven to brown. Stopping too early leaves the centre cool and the top pale, while over-baking can dry the sauce and toughen the cheese.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Tomatofits about as well
  3. Onionfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, cheese, 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.

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