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Potatoes Au Gratin

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Potatoes Au Gratin

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Potatoes Au Gratin

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cut cold boiled potatoes into ½ inch cubes.

  2. Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a saucepan.

  3. Add 1 tablespoon of flour and stir until combined.

  4. Pour in ½ pint of sweet milk and stir until boiling.

  5. Remove from heat and add the beaten yolk of 1 egg.

  6. Stir in 3 tablespoons of grated cheese.

  7. Combine the cheese sauce with the cubed potatoes.

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

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

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

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

  3. Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

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

  4. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Swap the potato

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

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Sweet potatofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk, egg, cheese. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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