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Escalloped Potatoes

A baked potato casserole with a creamy butter‑flour sauce, cheese, and bread topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Escalloped Potatoes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dressing

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Stir in the flour until smooth but not browned.

  3. Gradually add the cream, stirring until it thickens.

  4. Season with salt and pepper.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a baking dish, layer the dressing, diced potatoes, and grated cheese.

  2. Repeat layers until the dish is full, finishing with a layer of dressing.

  3. Top with small squares of bread.

  4. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden brown.

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. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Enriches the dressing and helps the flour cook into a smooth base.
Flour
Thickens the cream into a sauce that holds the layers together.
Cream
Forms the body of the sauce and keeps the potatoes moist as they bake.
Potatoes
Provide the starchy bulk of the dish, softening as they bake in the sauce.
Grated cheese
Melts into the sauce and browns on top, adding flavour and colour.

The step that matters

Stir in the flour until smooth but not browned.. Cooking the flour and butter into a roux lets it thicken the cream evenly. If it browns, the flavour turns nutty and the thickening power weakens, and if it is not stirred constantly it can form lumps that stay in the sauce.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, cream, pepper, cheese, 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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