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Potatoes Au Gratin

A baked dish of diced potatoes in white sauce topped with cheese, breadcrumbs, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Potatoes Au Gratin

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Potatoes Au Gratin

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. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Combine the diced potatoes with the white sauce, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and grated cheese. Mix carefully.

  3. Transfer the potato mixture into buttered gratin dishes.

  4. Smooth the surface with a knife.

Bake and serve

  1. Sprinkle bread crumbs and small bits of butter on top.

  2. Bake in the preheated oven until the surface is browned.

  3. Serve in the same dish.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Potato + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

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, giving it a hearty, starchy body.
White sauce
Adds moisture and creaminess so the potatoes stay soft and cohesive.
Grated cheese
Melts into the sauce and browns on top, adding savory flavor and color.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the crumb topping brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Bake until the surface is browned. Baking long enough lets the surface brown through Maillard reactions, which add flavor and color. Pulling it early leaves the top pale and the sauce underdeveloped.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, sauce, pepper, cheese, bread, butter):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Garlicfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, sauce, pepper, cheese, bread, butter. 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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