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Escaloped Potatoes

Layered potato slices baked with butter, salt, pepper, and cream, topped with crushed crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Escaloped 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 and layer

  1. Pare and slice the potatoes thinly.

  2. Layer the potatoes in a pudding pan, about ½ inch deep.

  3. Sprinkle salt, pepper, and bits of butter over the layer.

  4. Repeat layering with remaining potatoes, salt, pepper, and butter.

Add liquid and bake

  1. Pour sweet cream or milk until just visible.

  2. Sprinkle crushed cracker on top.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 30 to 60 minutes.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  3. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  4. Potato + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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, cooking into soft, tender layers as they absorb the cream.
Sweet cream or milk
Adds moisture and richness, turning into a sauce that coats and softens the potato layers.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the top brown as the dish bakes.
1 cracker
Crushed on top, it adds a crisp, browned crust over the creamy layers.

The step that matters

Pouring the cream to the right depth. Cream should just show between the layers. Too little leaves the potatoes dry and unevenly cooked, while too much can make the dish soupy and slow to set as starch from the potatoes thickens the liquid.

“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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