Skip to main content
Main

Potatoes, Sacked

Baked potatoes are scooped, mashed with butter, cream, cheese, egg, and milk, then refilled and baked again.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Potatoes, Sacked

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.

Bake the potatoes

  1. Wash the potatoes very clean.

  2. Bake them at 400°F (200°C) for about 45 minutes or until soft.

Prepare the filling

  1. Cut a round piece off the top of each potato.

  2. Carefully scrape out the insides, keeping the skins intact.

  3. Mash the insides smoothly.

  4. Mix in butter, cream, salt, pepper, and grated cheese.

  5. Work in milk until the mixture is very soft.

  6. Heat it in a saucepan, stirring to prevent burning.

  7. Stir in the beaten egg for every six potatoes.

  8. Bring the mixture to a boil.

Fill and serve

  1. Fill the potato skins with the mixture.

  2. Replace the caps.

  3. Return them to the oven for 3 minutes.

  4. Serve on a napkin in a deep dish.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  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
Provide the starchy body that mashes into the filling and forms the shell.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the mashed filling a smooth, silky texture.
Cream
Adds fat and moisture, making the filling softer and creamier.
Grated cheese
Adds savory flavor and fat, and helps the filling brown when reheated.
Egg
Binds the filling so it holds its shape when spooned back into the skins.

The step that matters

Heat the filling without burning it. Mashed potato with butter, cream and cheese scorches easily on the pan base, and the milk-rich mixture can stick. Stirring keeps heat even and prevents a burnt taste.

“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.

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesMacaroni and CheeseMacaroni and Cheese102 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipes