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Sweet Potatoes Au Gratin

A baked dish of sliced sweet potatoes layered with butter, breadcrumbs, cheese, and seasonings.

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

Sweet Potatoes Au Gratin

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 potatoes

  1. Parboil the sweet potatoes, then peel and slice them while hot.

Layer and season

  1. Butter a deep dish generously and layer the sliced potatoes.

  2. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and pepper, then dot with butter.

  3. Add a layer of bread crumbs and season again.

  4. Repeat the layers until the dish is full.

  5. Pour in 4 tablespoons of warm water to generate steam.

  6. Top with a final layer of bread crumbs and grated cheese.

Bake and brown

  1. Cover the dish closely and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour.

  2. Uncover and brown the top.

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

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

  4. Sweet potato + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sweet potato + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together67 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet potatoes
Form the bulk of the gratin, becoming soft and tender as they cook.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavor and helps the top brown.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping layer that contrasts with the soft potatoes.
Cheese
Melts and browns on top, adding savory flavor and a golden crust.
Warm water
Creates steam under the cover that helps the potatoes cook through evenly.

The step that matters

Cover the dish closely while baking. The covered steam cooks the dense potato slices through before the top browns. Uncovering too early can leave the centre firm and the top dry or burnt.

Swap the sweet potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Sweet potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, bread, 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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