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Potatoes Au Gratin

A baked dish of sliced boiled potatoes topped with a cheese sauce and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Potatoes Au Gratin

Why it works: Parmesan cheese and cheese match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,041 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

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. Slice cold boiled potatoes and lay them in a baking dish without crowding.

  2. In a saucepan, make a rich cream sauce and stir in the grated Parmesan and Gruyère cheese.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pour the cheese sauce over the potatoes, ensuring it fills the crevices.

  2. Sprinkle more cheese on top and add bits of butter.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until delicately browned, then serve in the same dish.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Parmesan cheese + cheesetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,041 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

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

  3. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  4. Parmesan cheese + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Cold boiled potatoes
Form the bulk of the dish and hold the sauce between their slices.
Cream
Forms the base of the sauce, adding moisture and a smooth, rich texture.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savory flavor and helps the top brown as it bakes.
Gruyère cheese
Melts smoothly into the sauce and adds nutty flavor and stretch.
Butter
Adds fat and richness and promotes golden browning on the surface.

The step that matters

Making the cheese sauce. If the cream is boiled too hard or the cheese is added to very hot liquid, the sauce can turn grainy or separate. Keeping heat gentle lets the cheese melt into a smooth emulsion that coats the potatoes evenly.

Swap the potato

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

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

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