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Scalloped Potatoes

A baked potato dish with butter, flour, milk, salt, pepper, and bread crumbs.

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 ↓

Scalloped Potatoes

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the sauce

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Melt the butter in a saucepan. Add the flour and mix until smooth.

  3. Stir in the milk and cook, stirring constantly, until it boils.

Assemble and bake

  1. Add the salt and pepper, then mix with the potatoes.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a baking dish. Cover the top with stale bread crumbs and dot with butter.

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

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

  3. Potato + peppertop 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. Milk + breadtop 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

Diced cold boiled potatoes
Form the bulk of the dish and absorb the sauce as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor, and helps the topping brown.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth, cohesive white sauce.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, giving creamy texture.
Stale bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping when baked.

The step that matters

Cooking the milk and flour until it boils. Flour thickens milk only when it is stirred and brought to a boil, which swells the starch granules. Stopping early leaves a thin, grainy sauce that will not cling to the potatoes.

Swap the potato

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

  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 butter, flour, milk, pepper, 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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