Name: Scallopped Irish Potatoes
Ingredients: 4 medium potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced; ¼ teaspoon black pepper; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour; 2 tablespoons butter, cut into small pieces; 1 cup sweet milk

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 ↓

Scallopped Irish Potatoes

Ingredients

4 medium potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced
¼ teaspoon black pepper
¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons butter, cut into small pieces
1 cup sweet milk

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

Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

Layer and bake

In a baking dish, layer half of the sliced potatoes.
Sprinkle with pepper, salt, and flour, then add half of the butter pieces.
Add the remaining potatoes and repeat the seasoning and butter layers.
Pour the sweet milk over the layered potatoes.
Bake for 30 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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,611 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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

Potatoes: Form the bulk of the dish and become tender as they bake in the milk.
All-purpose flour: Thickens the milk into a creamy sauce that coats the potato slices.
Butter: Adds richness and fat that carries flavour through the layers.
Sweet milk: Forms the sauce that cooks the potatoes and sets into a creamy base.

The step that matters

Pour the milk over the layers. The flour in the layers only thickens into a sauce when it is hydrated and heated, so the milk must cover the potatoes evenly before baking. Uneven coverage can leave dry, floury spots or undercooked slices.

Swap the potato

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

Potatothe original
Capsicumfits about as well
Chivefits less well
Shallotfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, flour, butter, 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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Scallopped Irish Potatoes