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Potato Slices

Baked potato slices coated with egg yolk and breadcrumbs, served warm.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Potato Slices

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. Cut the cold mashed potatoes into slices nearly an inch thick.

  2. Glaze the slices with the beaten egg yolk.

  3. Sprinkle the slices with bread crumbs.

  4. Place the slices in a well-greased pan.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until browned.

  2. Add a little butter on each slice.

  3. Serve on a warm platter.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Potato + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together434 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold mashed potatoes
Form the base of the slices, holding their shape while they bake.
Egg yolk
Glaze that promotes browning and gives the surface a golden color.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned crust on the outside of the slices.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the surface brown.

The step that matters

Bake until browned. Baking in a hot 400°F oven sets the crumb coating and drives browning; pulling the slices too early leaves them pale and soft, while leaving them too long can dry the potato.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, bread, 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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