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Hashed Potatoes Au Gratin

A baked dish of hashed cream potatoes topped with cheese and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Hashed Potatoes 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. Butter a baking dish.

Assemble and bake

  1. Add the hashed cream potatoes to the dish.

  2. Sprinkle the surface with grated cheese and bits of butter.

  3. Bake for 10 minutes, or until nicely 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.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  5. Cream + cheesetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,655 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Hashed cream potatoes
Form the main body of the dish, soft and moist when baked.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the surface brown as it bakes.
Grated cheese
Melts over the top and browns, adding flavor and a golden crust.

The step that matters

Bake until nicely browned. Browning comes from heat reacting with the cheese and butter on the surface. Stopping too early leaves the top pale and underdeveloped, while leaving it too long can dry out the potatoes.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Onionfits about as well
  3. Mustardfits less well
  4. Asparagusfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, butter, cheese. 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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