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Boiled Potatoes

Boiled potatoes mashed with butter, milk, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Boiled Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Wash potatoes and remove any eyes or black specks.

  2. Cut a small piece of skin from the pointed or eyed ends.

Boil and dry

  1. Place potatoes in a pot of boiling salted water, covering them completely.

  2. Cover pot and simmer until a fork easily pierces the largest potato.

  3. Drain potatoes thoroughly.

  4. Let potatoes sit uncovered near the fire for five minutes to dry.

  5. Shake potatoes occasionally while drying.

Mash and serve

  1. If mashing, peel potatoes.

  2. Mash potatoes in a tin, wood, or earthen vessel.

  3. Mix in pepper, salt, a tablespoon of melted butter for every dozen potatoes, and enough hot milk or water to achieve a soft dough consistency.

  4. Beat the mixture with a large fork.

  5. Serve in a hot dish, shaping it into a smooth mound.

  6. Optionally, place the dish in the oven to brown the top before serving.

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

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

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

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

  4. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Starchy base that cooks until soft and mashes into a smooth, fluffy dough.
Melted butter or dripping
Adds fat for richness and a silky mouthfeel to the mashed potatoes.
Hot milk or water
Adds moisture so the mashed potatoes reach a soft, workable consistency.

The step that matters

Drain and dry the potatoes thoroughly. Excess water left on boiled potatoes dilutes the mash and makes it loose and watery. Letting them steam dry lets surface moisture evaporate, so the mash holds together and takes up butter and milk well.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, 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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