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Mashed Potatoes

Mashed potatoes are boiled potatoes mashed with butter, milk, and coarse sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

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 the potatoes

  1. Peel the potatoes and soak them in cold water for 30 minutes.

  2. Steam the potatoes over boiling water until they are tender.

  3. Mash the potatoes well with a potato masher.

Season and finish

  1. Season with coarse sea salt and add a generous piece of butter.

  2. Mix in 1 cup of rich milk until well combined.

  3. Transfer to an earthen basin or bright tin pan to keep warm.

Brown and serve

  1. Optionally, top with butter and place in a 400°F (200°C) oven to brown the top.

  2. Alternatively, shape the mashed potatoes in a mold, fry in hot lard until golden brown, and serve.

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 + 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
Form the main body of the dish, becoming soft and fluffy when steamed and mashed.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, contributing flavour and a smooth mouthfeel.
Rich milk
Adds moisture and creaminess, loosening the mash into a smooth texture.

The step that matters

Mashing the potatoes well. Thorough mashing breaks down the cooked starch cells evenly, producing a smooth texture. Under-mashed potatoes stay lumpy, while overworking after adding liquid can make them gluey.

“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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