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Potatoes, with Cheese Sauce

A baked casserole of mashed potatoes topped with cheese sauce, fried bread triangles, and cracker dust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Potatoes, with Cheese Sauce

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, stir the pepper, salt, nutmeg, beaten eggs, and half the cheese into the hot drawn butter.

  2. Heat while stirring constantly until it thickens.

Assemble and bake

  1. Layer mashed potatoes in a flat dish, shaping them to fit.

  2. Cover with the cheese sauce.

  3. Repeat with another layer of potatoes and sauce until you form a mound on top.

  4. Coat the top with sauce, then sprinkle with the remaining cheese and cracker dust.

  5. Arrange the fried bread triangles around the base.

  6. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until 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. 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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Potato + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Beaten eggs thicken the hot butter sauce as they set, binding it into a spoonable custard.
Potatoes
Mashed potatoes form the bulk of the casserole, giving a soft, moist body under the sauce.
Drawn butter
Hot butter carries the flavour and richness and helps the sauce stay smooth and glossy.
Cheese
Dry grated cheese adds savoury flavour and helps the topping brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Heating the egg sauce. Stirring constantly keeps the beaten eggs from scrambling in the hot butter. Gentle, steady heat lets them thicken smoothly into a sauce rather than curdling into lumps.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Parsleyfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Cinnamonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, milk, butter, cheese, egg, pepper, 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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