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Mashed Potatoes

Mashed potatoes are boiled potatoes mashed with hot milk, butter, 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

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Peel the potatoes.

  2. Boil the potatoes until tender.

Mash and season

  1. Mash the potatoes in the same pot.

  2. Add hot milk, butter, and salt to taste.

  3. Beat with a fork until smooth.

  4. Transfer to a hot dish.

Finish and serve

  1. Optionally glaze with butter.

  2. Brown in a 400°F (200°C) oven if desired.

  3. Cut across the top to prevent the crust from binding.

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 starchy base that becomes the body of the mash.
Hot milk
Adds moisture and softness, and keeps the mash smooth when warm.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, silkier texture.

The step that matters

Beat with a fork until smooth. Overworking cooked potatoes can release starch and make the mash gluey, while under-mixing leaves lumps. Mash gently, then beat only until smooth, and add the warm liquid gradually so the texture stays even.

“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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