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Delmonico Potatoes

A baked potato casserole with butter, flour, milk, salt, pepper, cheese, and diced potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Delmonico Potatoes

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Delmonico Potatoes

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 the sauce

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a saucepan, melt the butter and stir in the flour to make a roux.

  3. Gradually add the milk, stirring constantly until the sauce thickens.

  4. Season the sauce with salt and pepper.

Assemble and bake

  1. Combine the diced potatoes with the sauce and mix well.

  2. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and sprinkle with grated cheese.

  3. Bake until the top is light 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.

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

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

  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. Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  5. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Enriches the roux and adds richness to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a sauce when cooked with the butter as a roux.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce that coats the potatoes.
Potatoes
Provide the bulk and starchy body of the dish, soft within the sauce.
Grated cheese
Melts into the sauce and browns on top during baking.

The step that matters

Gradually add the milk while stirring constantly. Adding milk slowly while stirring keeps the roux smooth and lets starch granules hydrate evenly, so the sauce thickens without lumps.

Swap the potato

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

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

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