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Escalloped Potatoes

A baked potato dish layered with cracker crumbs, butter, and cream.

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

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).

Layer

  1. Layer half of the sliced potatoes in a baking dish.

  2. Sprinkle with half of the cracker crumbs and season with salt and pepper.

  3. Dot with bits of butter.

  4. Pour half of the cream or milk over the layers.

  5. Repeat with the remaining potatoes, crumbs, and cream, adding more butter on top.

Bake

  1. Bake until golden brown and heated through.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Potato + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,481 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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 soft and tender as they cook.
Cream or milk
Provides moisture that cooks into a rich, saucy layer around the potatoes.
Cracker crumbs
Add body and help soak up liquid, giving the layers a more substantial texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the top brown as it bakes.

The step that matters

Bake until golden brown and heated through. Potatoes must be cooked through and the dairy fully heated so the layers set into a cohesive, tender dish rather than a watery one. Browning comes from the milk proteins and sugars reacting in the oven's heat, so the top should be checked for color as well as doneness.

“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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