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Scalloped Potatoes

Layered boiled potatoes with onions, salt, pepper, parsley, and milk or broth, baked until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Scalloped 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.

Prepare

  1. Cover the onions and cook them very slowly until softened, stirring occasionally.

Layer the dish

  1. Slice boiled potatoes and layer them in a baking dish.

  2. Sprinkle each layer with some onions, salt, pepper, and parsley.

  3. Continue layering until the dish is filled.

  4. Add milk or broth until it can be seen through the potatoes.

Bake

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 30 minutes.

  2. If using raw or parboiled potatoes, increase baking time to one hour or longer.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Potato + peppertop 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

Potatoes
Form the bulk of the dish and set into tender layers as they bake.
Onions
Add sweetness and savory depth as they soften and caramelize slowly.
Milk or broth
Provides moisture that cooks into a creamy, sauce-like liquid around the potatoes.

The step that matters

Cooking the onions very slowly. Slow cooking softens the onions and draws out their sweetness without burning them. Rushing over high heat can scorch the sugars and leave a bitter taste in the finished dish.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, pepper, parsley, milk):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, pepper, parsley, milk. 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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