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Escalloped Potatoes

A baked potato casserole with a creamy butter‑flour sauce, eggs, cheese, and buttered crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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

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.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in the flour and thin with cream and stock; cook for five minutes.

  3. Pour the mixture into the beaten eggs and add cheese; season with salt and pepper.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a buttered baking dish, layer a little of the mixture, then sliced potatoes, and repeat until the dish is filled.

  2. Sprinkle buttered crumbs on top.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until 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. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

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

Flour
Thickens the cream and stock into a smooth sauce that holds the potatoes together.
Eggs
Set when baked, binding the sauce so it turns firm and sliceable rather than runny.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the sauce silky and the potatoes tender.
Potatoes
Form the bulk of the dish, soaking up the sauce while staying tender under the browned top.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour to the sauce and crumbs, helping the top brown.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot sauce into the beaten eggs. If the sauce is too hot when added, the eggs can scramble into lumps. Let it cool slightly and pour in gradually while whisking so the eggs thicken the custard smoothly.

Swap the potato

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

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

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