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Mashed Potatoes

Mashed potatoes are boiled potatoes mixed with butter, milk or cream, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Mashed Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the potatoes

  1. Steam or boil potatoes in salted water until soft.

  2. Drain the potatoes and let them dry completely.

Mash and finish

  1. Sprinkle with salt and mash the potatoes.

  2. Melt a small piece of butter in hot milk or cream.

  3. Pour the milk mixture onto the potatoes and stir until light and fluffy.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Provide the starch and body that make up the mash.
Hot milk or cream
Adds moisture and richness so the mash becomes smooth rather than dry.
Butter
Adds fat for flavour and a silkier mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Let the potatoes dry completely after draining. Excess surface water dilutes the mash and makes it gluey or loose. Letting steam escape keeps the texture thick and fluffy when the liquid is added.

“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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