Skip to main content
Main

Potatoes Au Gratin

A baked potato gratin with butter, flour, cream, stock, egg yolks, cheese, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
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

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 sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan and mix in the flour until smooth.

  2. Add the cream and stock, then bring to a boil.

  3. Remove from heat and let cool slightly, then stir in the egg yolks, grated cheese, salt, and pepper.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a buttered baking dish, layer some of the sauce, followed by a layer of sliced potatoes, repeating until the dish is full.

  2. Spread the remaining sauce on top, then sprinkle with bread crumbs and additional cheese.

  3. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until golden and bubbly.

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. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 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. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Enriches the sauce and helps the flour cook into a smooth base with flavor.
Flour
Thickens the sauce so it clings to the potato layers instead of running off.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help set the sauce as it bakes into a creamy custard.
Grated cheese
Adds savory flavor and browns on the surface as the dish bakes.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, giving the sauce a silky texture.

The step that matters

Stir the egg yolks in after the sauce cools slightly. Egg yolks scramble if added to a very hot liquid. Letting the sauce cool a little first lets the yolks thicken it smoothly as it bakes.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, cream, egg, cheese, pepper, bread. 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesPotato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesMacaroni and CheeseMacaroni and Cheese102 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipes