Name: Scalloped Dasheens
Ingredients: raw dasheens; butter; coarse sea salt; rich milk

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Scalloped Dasheens

Ingredients

raw dasheens
butter
coarse sea salt
rich milk

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Pare and slice the dasheens.

Assemble and bake

Layer the slices in a buttered baking dish, seasoning each layer with butter and coarse sea salt.
Cover nearly with rich milk.
Bake until tender, about two-thirds the time it takes to scallop potatoes.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Dasheens: Form the bulk of the dish, turning tender and starchy as they bake.
Rich milk: Provides moisture and fat that cook down into a creamy, savory sauce.
Butter: Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor through the layers.

“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.