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Baked Potatoes with Cheese

A casserole of baked potato insides layered with cheese and white sauce, baked until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and cheese work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 959 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Baked Potatoes with Cheese

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Bake the potatoes until tender, then scoop out the insides, leaving the skins intact.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a baking dish, layer the potato insides, followed by a layer of grated cheese.

  2. Pour medium white sauce over the cheese, and repeat the layers until the dish is filled.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until the top is browned.

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. Potato + cheesetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together959 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Cheese + saucetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,987 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Potato + saucetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,073 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 give a soft, fluffy filling when scooped out.
Grated cheese
Melts into the layers and browns on top, adding richness and flavor.
Medium white sauce
Adds moisture and creaminess that keeps the layered potato from drying out while baking.

The step that matters

Bake until the top is browned. The sauce and cheese need enough oven heat to bubble and brown evenly through the layers. Too little baking leaves the filling cool and wet, while too long can dry the sauce and toughen the cheese.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, sauce. 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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