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Scalloped Vegetables

A baked dish of cooked vegetables topped with white sauce and buttered crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and cauliflower match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 305 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Scalloped Vegetables

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Butter a baking dish and add the cooked vegetables.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pour the white sauce over the vegetables.

  2. Cover with buttered crumbs.

  3. Bake until the crumbs are brown.

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. Cabbage + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together305 recipes

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

  2. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Cabbage + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,001 recipes

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

  4. Potato + cabbagetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together275 recipes

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

  5. Potato + cauliflowertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together36 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked vegetables
Form the bulk of the dish and provide its main texture and flavor.
White sauce
Adds moisture and creaminess, binding the vegetables together as they bake.
Buttered crumbs
Form a crisp topping that browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Baking until the crumbs are brown. The crumb topping browns through dry heat, which gives color and crunch. Pulling the dish too early leaves the topping pale and soft, while leaving it too long can scorch the crumbs and dry the sauce beneath.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, cauliflower, onion, sauce):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Broccolifits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, cauliflower, onion, sauce. 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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