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Scalloped Potatoes

A baked potato dish layered with butter, milk, salt, breadcrumbs, and optional onion.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Scalloped Potatoes

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Grease a baking dish.

Assemble and bake

  1. Layer sliced potatoes in the dish, adding small bits of butter between layers.

  2. For added flavor, mix finely grated onion with the potatoes.

  3. Pour milk over the layered potatoes.

  4. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and top with fine bread crumbs.

  5. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 1 hour.

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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  5. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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 become tender as they cook in the milk.
Milk
Provides liquid that cooks the potatoes and forms a creamy sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that helps the top brown and the flavor develop.
Fine bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping through browning in the oven.

The step that matters

Layer the potatoes evenly. Slices of similar thickness cook at the same rate, so the potatoes become tender throughout. Thick or uneven layers can stay firm in the center while the top over-browns.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, butter, milk, bread):

  1. Asparagusfits about as well
  2. Tomatofits about as well
  3. Onionthe original
  4. Chivefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, butter, milk, 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.

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