recipe: potato supreme (funeral potatoes, cheese potatoes)

This is a take on "funeral potatoes," which is a Mormon thing. Someone I follow at Twitter asked for the recipe. I had to call Auntie to get exact quantities and sizes, as Mom's old recipe card is not very precise.

INGREDIENTS

1 cube (1/2 lb) salted butter

1 can condensed cream of chicken soup, 10 1/2 oz.

16 oz. sour cream (pint)

bunch of green onions, chopped (use all of the white and most of the green)

3/4 lb. shredded cheddar cheese (a good brand that melts well, like Tillamook)

2 1/2 lbs. russet potatoes, peeled, boiled, and cooled

INSTRUCTIONS

Peel the potatoes and cut into pieces about half the size of your fist. Do your best to make the potato sizes uniform on at least one axis; it doesn't matter if they are rounds in two or six inches in diameter, so long as the thickness is the same.

Put them in a large pot, cover entirely with cold water, and throw in a tablespoon of salt or a bouillon cube (I like Knorr's vegetable). Put the pot on the stove on high heat. When the water comes to a rolling boil, turn it down to a simmer/gentle boil and cover. Boil until they are easy to stab with a fork all the way through. (The smaller the pieces, the faster they cook, so the timing varies; check first at ten minutes and check every five minutes after that.) Drain.

Preheat the oven to 350 F.

Once the boiled potatoes are cool enough to handle, grate them into a 9x13 Pyrex dish.

In a saucepan, melt the butter. Add the soup and green onions and mix. Remove from heat and add the sour cream, straight from the fridge. Mix well and let cool, then mix in the shredded cheese. You do not want the cheese to be melted.

Doing one section at a time, spread the cheese-soup mixture over the grated potatoes. Use a fork to stab down through the mixture into the potatoes so it goes down, but do not stir.

Put a large baking sheet under the Pyrex in case of overflow, and bake in the oven uncovered for 30 minutes. Let it stand for 5 minutes before serving.

VARIATIONS

The green onions are optional; if you don't like them with your other potato recipes, you won't like them here. Auntie has added ham and even Spam to this before. A cousin uses a mix of cheddar and pepper jack cheeses. Once you get a feel for the original recipe, feel free to experiment.