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Potatoes, Mashed

A simple mashed potato dish made by boiling potatoes, seasoning with salt, butter, and milk, then mashing until smooth.

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 ↓

Potatoes, Mashed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Boil or steam the potatoes until cooked and mealy.

  2. Remove any discolored spots and place the potatoes in a bowl.

Mash and serve

  1. Beat the potatoes with a wooden spoon for 2-3 minutes, adding salt, butter, and boiling milk or cream.

  2. Continue beating until the mixture is smooth and free of lumps.

  3. Transfer the potatoes to a saucepan and beat over low heat for 1-2 minutes until hot and light.

  4. Dish the potatoes lightly and roughen the surface with a fork.

  5. Optionally, press into a buttered mold and brown in the oven 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 + 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 soft, fluffy and mashable when cooked.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Milk or cream
Adds moisture so the mash becomes smooth and light rather than stiff.

The step that matters

Beat until smooth, then keep the potatoes hot. Overworking starchy potatoes can make them gluey, while under-beating leaves lumps. Beating with hot liquid and gentle heat keeps the starch loose and the mash light and hot.

“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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