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Escalloped Potatoes

A baked potato dish layered with a thickened milk and butter sauce, topped with cracker crumbs and butter bits.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Escalloped Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the sauce

  1. In a pan, combine milk, flour, and butter, then heat until thickened.

Assemble

  1. In a pudding dish, layer the potatoes, seasoning each layer with salt and pepper.

  2. Pour a little of the thickened milk mixture over the potatoes.

  3. Repeat layers until all ingredients are used.

  4. Top with rolled cracker crumbs and bits of butter.

Bake

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 20 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Flour and butter 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

What each ingredient does

Cold boiled potatoes
Form the bulk of the dish and absorb the thickened milk sauce as they bake.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce that becomes creamy as it bakes.
Flour
Thickens the milk and butter mixture into a sauce that coats the potatoes.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the sauce and the browned topping.
Rolled cracker crumbs
Form a crisp, browned topping over the layered potatoes.

The step that matters

Heat the milk mixture until thickened. Flour thickens milk only when it is heated enough for its starch to swell; if the sauce stays thin, it will not coat the potatoes and the dish may turn out watery.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Chivefits less well
  4. Shallotfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, butter, pepper. 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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