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Deviled Potatoes

Layered slices of boiled potatoes and eggs topped with a cream sauce, bread crumbs, and baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter 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 ↓

Deviled 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.

Make the cream sauce

  1. Melt 2 tablespoons butter.

  2. Add 2 tablespoons flour.

  3. Gradually whisk in 1 pint milk.

  4. Stir in 1 teaspoon salt and ½ teaspoon white pepper.

Assemble and bake

  1. Slice eggs and potatoes into ¼ inch slices.

  2. Mix melted butter into bread crumbs.

  3. In a baking dish, layer potato and egg slices alternately, starting with potatoes.

  4. Lightly sprinkle each layer of egg with salt and pepper.

  5. Pour cream sauce over the layers gradually.

  6. Cover top with buttered bread crumbs.

  7. Bake at 350°F until crumbs are 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. Bread + buttertop 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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

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

  5. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Form the bulk of the dish and hold their shape as the soft layers bake.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add a firm, rich layer that pairs with the potatoes and sauce.
Cream sauce
Adds moisture and richness, soaking into the layers as they bake.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned topping when coated with melted butter.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor to the sauce and to the browned crumb topping.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce by cooking with the butter.

The step that matters

Gradually whisk in 1 pint milk. Adding the milk slowly to the butter and flour roux lets the starch disperse evenly, which prevents lumps and gives a smooth, properly thickened sauce.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Asparagusfits about as well
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream, sauce, bread, butter, milk, flour. 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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