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Mashed Potatoes with Cheese Sauce

Mashed potatoes topped with a cheese sauce served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Mashed Potatoes with Cheese Sauce

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Boil the potatoes until tender, then mash them.

  2. Add 1 tablespoon of butter, salt, and pepper to taste, along with ½ cup of milk.

  3. Shape the mixture into cones using an ice cream scoop or small cups rinsed in cold water, and place on a platter in a 200°C (400°F) oven to keep hot, leaving the door partly open.

Make the cheese sauce

  1. In a double boiler, melt 1 tablespoon of butter for the sauce, then add 1 tablespoon of flour and blend thoroughly.

  2. Stir in 1 cup of hot milk, a dash of paprika, and salt to taste until smooth.

  3. Add 1 cup of grated cheese to the sauce and keep it hot until the potatoes are ready.

Serve

  1. Serve the potatoes on a platter with the cheese sauce in a gravy boat.

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. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

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, when mashed, give it a soft, fluffy texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the mashed potatoes and to the sauce base.
Milk
Adds moisture so the mashed potatoes are smooth and the sauce flows evenly.
Flour
Thickens the butter-based sauce so it becomes smooth and coats the potatoes.
Grated cheese
Melts into the sauce to add savory flavor and a rich, creamy body.

The step that matters

Blending the flour into the melted butter. Flour must be fully mixed into the fat before the hot milk is added; otherwise it clumps and the sauce turns lumpy instead of smooth.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Mustardfits about as well
  4. Tomatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, milk, sauce, flour, cheese. 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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