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Rabun Potatoes

A casserole of potatoes, bacon, green peppers, and cream sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Rabun 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.

Prepare

  1. Boil and slice the potatoes.

  2. Broil the bacon until crispy.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a casserole dish, layer the potatoes, bacon, and green peppers cut into strips.

  2. Pour the cream sauce over the layers, alternating until the dish is filled.

  3. Top with remaining cream sauce, butter (or drippings), and bread crumbs.

  4. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until hot and serve.

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

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

  3. Pepper + potatotop 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. Bread + milktop 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 and soak up the sauce as it bakes.
Breakfast bacon
Adds fat and smoky, savory flavor that seasons the layers.
Green peppers
Add a fresh, slightly bitter flavor and some texture between the layers.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the cream sauce, giving it a creamy body.
Flour
Thickens the milk so the sauce clings to the potatoes instead of running off.
Bread crumbs
Crisp and brown on top, adding a contrasting crunchy surface.

The step that matters

Broiling the bacon until crispy. Bacon cooked until crisp renders out much of its fat, which keeps the casserole from becoming greasy. Underdone bacon leaves excess fat in the dish, while overcooked bacon turns brittle and loses its savory flavor.

Swap the potato

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

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

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