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Scalloped Potatoes

A baked potato dish layered with butter, milk, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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

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. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Peel and slice the raw potatoes thinly.

Assemble

  1. Butter an earthen dish and add a layer of potatoes.

  2. Season the potatoes with coarse sea salt, black pepper, and butter.

  3. Add chopped onion if desired.

  4. Sprinkle a little flour over the layer.

  5. Repeat layering with remaining potatoes and seasoning until the dish is full.

  6. Pour 1 quart of hot milk over the top just before baking.

Bake

  1. Bake for 45 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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Raw potatoes
Form the bulk of the dish, becoming tender as they cook in the milk.
Flour
Thickens the hot milk into a light sauce that binds the layers together.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the top and edges brown in the oven.
Hot milk
Cooks the potatoes and, with the flour, forms the creamy sauce.

The step that matters

Pour the hot milk just before baking. Adding the milk just before the dish goes in keeps the flour from clumping and lets the sauce thicken evenly as it bakes. Milk left standing with the flour can form lumps and uneven texture.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, butter, pepper, flour, 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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