Skip to main content
Main

Potatoes Au Gratin

A baked dish of sliced potatoes layered with cream sauce, cheese, and cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Potatoes Au Gratin

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 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 your oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Slice the potatoes, either cold or freshly boiled.

Assemble

  1. In a buttered dish, layer the sliced potatoes and season with salt.

  2. Add a layer of cream sauce and sprinkle with grated cheese if using.

  3. Repeat the layers until all ingredients are used.

  4. Finish with cracker crumbs mixed with melted butter on top.

Bake

  1. Bake in the oven until golden and bubbly.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  5. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 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, becoming tender as they bake in the sauce.
Cream sauce
Provides moisture and a creamy texture that binds the layers together.
Grated cheese
Adds savory flavor and helps create a golden, browned top.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp topping that browns in the oven.
Melted butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the cracker crumbs brown evenly.

The step that matters

Finish with cracker crumbs mixed with melted butter on top.. Butter coats the crumbs so they brown and crisp rather than staying pale or soggy. Without enough fat, the topping can dry out or burn unevenly in the oven.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Mustardfits about as well
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Onionfits about as well
  4. Asparagusfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, 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.

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesMacaroni and CheeseMacaroni and Cheese102 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipes