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Potatoes in Cheese Sauce or Waldorf Potatoes

A simple dish of boiled potato cubes mixed with white sauce and grated cheese, optionally garnished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,855 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potatoes in Cheese Sauce or Waldorf Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a bowl, combine the white sauce and grated cheese, adjusting the amount based on desired flavor.

  2. Add the boiled potato cubes to the sauce mixture.

Heat and serve

  1. Heat the mixture carefully over low heat without boiling.

  2. If desired, omit the cheese and substitute with chopped parsley.

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. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  2. Cheese + potatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together959 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Sauce + cheesetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,987 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sauce + parsleytop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,693 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Cheese + parsleytop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,507 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

White sauce
Forms the creamy base that coats the potatoes and carries the flavor.
Grated cheese
Adds savory flavor and richness to the sauce and melts smoothly into it.
Boiled potatoes
Provide the starchy body of the dish, absorbing the sauce and staying soft.

The step that matters

Heat the mixture carefully over low heat without boiling. Cheese sauces can turn grainy or separate when overheated, because high heat causes the proteins and fats in the cheese to clump and squeeze out liquid. Gentle heat keeps the sauce smooth.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, cheese, potato):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, cheese, potato. 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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