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Scalloped Potatoes

Scalloped potatoes are layered thinly sliced potatoes with butter, salt, pepper, flour, and cream or milk, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream 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 ↓

Scalloped 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.

Assemble

  1. Slice raw potatoes thinly and place them in a buttered pudding dish.

  2. After each layer, sprinkle with coarse sea salt, black pepper, and butter.

  3. When the dish is full, pour in 1 cup of cream or milk.

  4. Dredge flour over each layer except the top one.

Bake

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for nearly an hour 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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 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

Raw potatoes
Form the bulk of the dish and soften into tender layers as they cook.
Flour
Thickens the cream as its starch swells in the heat, giving the sauce body.
Cream or milk
Provides the liquid that cooks into a creamy sauce around the potatoes.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the top turn golden brown.

The step that matters

Bake until the potatoes are fully tender. Thin potato slices need the full time in the oven for their starch to soften and the sauce to thicken. Pulling the dish early leaves firm potatoes and a thin, watery sauce.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Spinachfits about as well
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Potatothe original
  4. Chivefits about as well

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