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Scalloped Potatoes

Layered potatoes baked with butter, flour, milk or cream, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Scalloped Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Peel and thinly slice the potatoes.

Assemble

  1. In a 2-quart deep dish, layer half of the potatoes.

  2. Dredge the first layer with flour, then add a second layer of potatoes.

  3. Dredge the second layer with flour and sprinkle with salt and black pepper.

  4. On the third layer, cut the butter into small pieces and distribute over the potatoes.

  5. Pour in enough milk or cream to cover the potatoes, leaving room for expansion.

Bake

  1. Bake slowly for 2 hours, adding more milk or cream if the potatoes absorb it.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  3. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Butter and flour 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, softening as they bake into a tender layered body.
Flour
Dusted between layers, it thickens the milk or cream into a creamy sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavor and helps the top brown.
Milk or cream
Liquid that gently cooks the potatoes and, with flour, forms the creamy sauce.

The step that matters

Slow baking with added liquid. Baking slowly at a low temperature lets the potatoes cook through evenly without the dairy curdling or scorching. Adding more milk or cream as the potatoes absorb it keeps the layers moist so the dish does not dry out.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Chivefits less well
  4. Shallotfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, pepper, 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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