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Cheese and Mashed Potatoes

A simple dish of mashed potatoes mixed with cheese and a little gravy or sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,611 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Cheese and Mashed Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Bake the potatoes in their skins until tender.

Make the mash

  1. Peel and mash the potatoes, thinning them with milk or stock to a porridge-like consistency.

  2. Mix in the cheese and add a little gravy or sauce.

  3. Serve warm.

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

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

  2. Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  3. Potato + cheesetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together959 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Cheese + saucetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,987 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Potato + saucetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,073 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 mash, providing starch that gives a soft, fluffy body.
Cheese
Adds richness and savoury flavour, and melts into the mash for a creamy texture.
Gravy or sauce
Adds moisture and savoury depth to the mashed potatoes.

The step that matters

Thinning the mash to a porridge-like consistency. Potato starch sets as it cools and firms up, so the mash should be loosened enough while hot to stay smooth and spoonable. Adding liquid gradually lets you control the texture.

Swap the potato

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

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

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