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Potatoes Au Gratin

A baked potato dish topped with cream sauce, bread crumbs, butter, and optional cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Potatoes Au Gratin

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 ↓

Potatoes Au Gratin

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.

Prepare

  1. Prepare the potatoes as for creamed potatoes.

  2. Place the potatoes in a baking dish.

  3. Pour the cream sauce over the potatoes.

  4. If desired, add grated cheese to the cream sauce before pouring it over the potatoes.

Top and bake

  1. Mix the dry bread crumbs with the melted butter.

  2. Sprinkle the mixture over the 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.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  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, becoming tender as they bake in the sauce.
Cream sauce
Provides moisture and a creamy texture that coats the potatoes.
Dry bread crumbs
Form a crisp topping that browns in the oven.
Melted butter
Fat that helps the bread crumbs brown evenly and richly.
Grated cheese
Optional; adds savory flavor and helps the top brown.

The step that matters

Bake at 400°F (200°C) until brown. The top must brown without the sauce drying out or separating. Baking until golden, not just warm, lets the crumbs toast and the sauce set into a creamy layer.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Mustardfits about as well
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Onionfits about as well
  4. Tomatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sauce, bread, butter, 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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