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Potatoes Au Gratin

A baked dish of sliced potatoes layered with white sauce and topped with buttered breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Potatoes Au Gratin

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 ↓

Potatoes Au Gratin

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the white sauce

  1. Make a white sauce by melting the butter, then whisking in the flour, salt, and white pepper.

  2. Gradually add the milk, stirring until the sauce thickens.

Assemble and bake

  1. Butter a baking dish and layer in some sauce, followed by a layer of potatoes, seasoning with salt and pepper.

  2. Repeat the layers until all ingredients are used.

  3. Mix the melted butter with the bread crumbs and spread over the top.

  4. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 20 minutes or until browned.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

  3. Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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

Butter
Melted butter in the sauce and topping adds richness and helps the crumbs brown.
Flour
Starch thickens the milk into a smooth white sauce that coats the potatoes.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the white sauce, which keeps the potatoes moist as they bake.
Potatoes
Form the bulk of the dish, absorbing the sauce as they soften in the oven.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp topping that browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Gradually add the milk while stirring. Adding milk slowly while stirring lets the starch in the flour and butter roux disperse evenly, preventing lumps and giving a smooth, thickened sauce.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk, potato, 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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