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Potatoes Au Gratin

A baked dish of diced potatoes topped with white sauce, cheese, and buttered cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Potatoes Au Gratin

Why it works: Cheese and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,962 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Potatoes Au Gratin

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).

Assemble

  1. Place the diced potatoes in a shallow serving dish.

  2. Add the cheese and white sauce over the potatoes.

  3. Cover with cracker crumbs moistened with melted butter.

Bake

  1. Bake until the crumbs are browned.

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

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

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

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

  3. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Potato + cheesetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together959 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  5. Sauce + cheesetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,987 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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, providing starchy body that holds the sauce and cheese.
White sauce
Adds moisture and creaminess, coating the potatoes so they stay tender as they bake.
Cheese
Melts into the sauce, adding richness and savory flavor to the layers.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp topping that browns in the oven, adding texture and color.

The step that matters

Browning the crumb topping. Butter-moistened crumbs brown through Maillard reactions and caramelization at oven heat. Pale crumbs mean the topping is underbaked, while over-baking can scorch them before the potatoes heat through.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Tomatofits about as well
  3. Onionfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, cheese, 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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