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Mashed Potatoes with Cheese Sauce

Mashed potatoes topped with a cheese sauce served warm.

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

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.

Make the potatoes

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

  2. Add 2 tablespoons of butter, pepper, coarse sea salt, and ½ cup of milk to the mashed potatoes.

  3. Shape the potatoes into cones using an ice cream scoop or small cups rinsed in cold water.

  4. Place the shaped potatoes on a platter and keep them warm in a 400°F (200°C) oven with the door partly open.

Make the cheese sauce

  1. In a double boiler, melt 1 tablespoon of butter for the sauce.

  2. Add 1 tablespoon of flour to the melted butter and blend thoroughly.

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

  4. 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
Mashed starch that holds the cone shape and gives the dish its body.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the mashed potatoes and forms the base of the sauce.
Milk
Adds moisture to the mashed potatoes and liquid to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the melted butter into a roux that gives the cheese sauce body.
Grated cheese
Melts into the sauce to add savory flavor and creamy texture.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour into the melted butter and then the hot milk. Cooking flour in butter before adding liquid forms a roux, and adding hot milk gradually while stirring keeps the sauce smooth instead of lumpy as the starch thickens.

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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