Name: Oak Hill Potatoes
Ingredients: 3 tablespoons butter; 3 tablespoons flour; a dash of pepper; four cold boiled potatoes; five hard-boiled eggs; salt; pepper

Why it works: Pepper and potato 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 ↓

Oak Hill Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

Make the sauce: melt 3 tablespoons butter, stir in 3 tablespoons flour, then add 1 ½ cups milk.
Season the sauce with 1 teaspoon salt and a dash of pepper.

Assemble and bake

Arrange a layer of thinly sliced cold boiled potatoes in a buttered baking dish.
Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
Add a layer of hard‑boiled eggs.
Repeat the potato and egg layers.
Pour the white sauce over the whole dish.
Cover with buttered cracker crumbs.
Bake until the crumbs are brown, about twenty minutes.

Serve

Serve hot.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

802Calories

24 gProtein

18 gFat

134 gCarbs

What these numbers assume: 6 portions

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Flour	1 cup (125g) all-purpose	455
Potato	1 medium (173g) baked	161
Butter	1 tbsp (14g)	102
Egg	1 large egg (50g)	78
Black Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Warren, Pa. Presbyterian church. Second auxiliary missionary society. [from old catalog]. 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. See the original page.

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 + potatotop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,456 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Flour + potatotop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,355 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 casserole and hold their shape as layers while baking.
Hard-boiled eggs: Add richness and a firm, sliceable texture between the potato layers.
Butter: Enriches the white sauce and coats the dish, helping the crumbs brown.
Flour: Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth white sauce that binds the layers.

The step that matters

Make the sauce: melt 3 tablespoons butter, stir in 3 tablespoons flour, then add 1 ½ cups milk.. Cooking the butter and flour together first makes a roux; adding the milk gradually while stirring keeps the sauce smooth and lump-free as it thickens.