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Scalloped Potatoes

Scalloped potatoes are baked with a creamy milk and flour sauce, butter, salt, pepper, bread crumbs, and butter topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

Scalloped Potatoes

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.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine milk and flour; boil until thickened.

  2. Add butter, salt, and pepper to the mixture.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a pudding dish, layer the potatoes and dressing alternately.

  2. Top with bread crumbs and small bits of butter.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 30 minutes.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 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. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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, absorbing the sauce and giving it a soft, tender body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which thickens into a creamy binder.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth white sauce that holds the layers together.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps the topping brown in the oven.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping as they bake over the dish.

The step that matters

Boil the milk and flour until thickened. Flour must be cooked in hot liquid until the starch swells and thickens the milk. If it is under-cooked, the sauce stays thin and can taste of raw flour, so it will not hold the layers together.

Swap the potato

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

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

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