Name: Escalloped Potatoes with Peppers
Ingredients: 4 medium-sized cold boiled potatoes; 1 cup white sauce; 1 slice onion, minced; 1 chopped red pepper; 1 chopped green pepper; 1 tablespoon parsley, minced; salt and pepper to taste; 1 tablespoon butter; 1 cup soft bread crumbs

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Escalloped Potatoes with Peppers

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Cut the potatoes into 1-inch cubes.
Layer half of the potatoes in a buttered baking dish.
Mix the minced peppers, parsley, onion, salt, and pepper.

Assemble and bake

Add a layer of the pepper mixture over the potatoes.
Repeat the layers with the remaining potatoes and pepper mixture.
Pour the white sauce over the top.
Melt the butter and mix it with the bread crumbs, then sprinkle on top.
Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 25 minutes.
Serve hot.

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.

Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,855 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together25,843 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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 and soft as they bake.
White sauce: Adds moisture and creaminess that coats the potatoes as they bake.
Soft bread crumbs: Buttered topping that browns in the oven, adding a crisp top layer.
Red pepper and green pepper: Add sweetness and mild flavour to the layers.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, sauce, pepper, parsley, butter, bread):

Capsicumfits better
Carrotfits better
Shallotfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, sauce, pepper, parsley, butter, bread. 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.