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Potatoes Au Gratin

A baked potato gratin with cheese, bread crumbs, and a creamy milk sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Potatoes Au Gratin

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 ↓

Potatoes Au Gratin

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the Irish potatoes in salted water until nearly done.

  2. Cut the potatoes into squares and butter a baking dish.

Make the sauce

  1. Heat the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Thicken the milk with a paste made from the flour and a little cold milk.

  3. Add the butter to the thickened milk.

Assemble and bake

  1. Layer the potatoes and grated cheese alternately in the dish.

  2. Sprinkle grated bread crumbs on top.

  3. Pour the mixture over the potatoes and bake 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. 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. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Irish potatoes
Form the bulk of the dish, becoming tender as they cook in the baked layers.
Grated cheese
Melts between the potato layers and adds richness and savory flavor.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce that holds the dish together.
Milk
Forms the sauce base that moistens the potatoes during baking.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp topping that browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Thicken the milk with the flour paste. Flour must be mixed smoothly with cold milk before being added to hot milk, otherwise it clumps. Stirring the hot milk while adding it helps it thicken evenly into a smooth sauce.

“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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