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Escalloped Potatoes with Cheese

A baked dish of thinly sliced potatoes layered with crushed crackers, grated cheese, butter, salt, pepper, and cream.

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

Escalloped Potatoes with Cheese

Ingredients

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

  1. Slice the raw potatoes very thin.

  2. Crush the crackers and set them aside.

  3. Grate the cheese.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a baking dish, layer the potatoes, crushed crackers, grated cheese, pieces of butter, salt, and pepper alternately.

  2. Pour sweet cream or milk over the layers to cover.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for one hour.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Potato + cheesetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together959 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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, softening as they bake in the liquid.
Crushed crackers
Soak up some of the liquid and add a savory, slightly crumbly texture.
Grated cheese
Melts into the liquid, adding richness, savory flavor and golden browning.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the top brown as it melts.
Sweet cream or milk
Cooks the potatoes and thickens into a creamy, sauce-like binding.

The step that matters

Pour the cream or milk to cover the layers. The potato slices need to be submerged so they cook through evenly. Exposed slices dry out and darken, and the liquid is what turns into the creamy sauce as it bakes.

“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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