Name: Escalloped Potatoes with Cheese
Ingredients: 4 raw potatoes, sliced very thin; 1 cup crushed crackers; 1 cup grated cheese; 2 tablespoons butter, cut into pieces; ¼ teaspoon salt; ¼ teaspoon pepper; 2 cups sweet cream or milk

Why it works: Butter and cream 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 ↓

Escalloped Potatoes with Cheese

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

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Assemble and bake

In a baking dish, layer sliced potatoes, crushed crackers, grated cheese, butter pieces, salt, and pepper alternately.
Pour sweet cream or milk over the layers to cover.
Bake for one hour until potatoes are tender.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,962 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,456 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Potato + cheesetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together959 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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 and soft as they bake.
Crushed crackers: Add crumb texture and help thicken the dish as they absorb liquid.
Grated cheese: Melts into the layers, adding richness, savory flavor and browning.
Sweet cream or milk: Provides the liquid that cooks the potatoes and forms a creamy sauce.

The step that matters

Slice the potatoes very thin. Thin slices cook through within the baking time and soften evenly, while thick slices can stay firm in the center.

“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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Escalloped Potatoes with Cheese