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Cheese Potatoes

Cheese Potatoes is a baked mashed potato dish with cheese and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cheese 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 the potatoes

  1. Boil the potatoes in salted water until tender.

  2. Mash the potatoes thoroughly.

  3. Add a little milk and butter to the mashed potatoes.

  4. Stir in 2 tablespoons of grated cheese.

Bake and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture to a pudding dish.

  2. Sprinkle bread crumbs over the top.

  3. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 1 hour or more.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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 fluffy when boiled and mashed.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the mashed potatoes.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the mash a smoother texture.
Grated cheese
Adds savory flavor and, when baked, melts and browns for a rich finish.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping during baking.

The step that matters

Mash the potatoes thoroughly. Thorough mashing breaks down the starch cells so the potatoes turn smooth. Leftover lumps or overworking a starchy potato can make the mash gluey or uneven, so mash well and add the milk and butter gradually.

Swap the potato

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

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

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

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