Skip to main content
Main

Mashed Potatoes

Mashed potatoes are boiled potatoes mashed with butter, pepper, sea salt, and cream or rich milk.

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

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Mashed Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the old potatoes until tender.

  2. Place the potatoes in a wooden bowl and mash them until soft using a potato masher.

Season and serve

  1. Add butter while the potatoes are still hot.

  2. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  3. Stir in a little cream or rich milk.

  4. Keep the serving dish over hot water until ready to 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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

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

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

  4. Potato + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Butter + peppertop 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

Old potatoes
Starch that breaks down into a soft, fluffy mash when boiled and mashed.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and coats the potatoes for a smooth texture.
Cream or rich milk
Adds moisture and fat, loosening the mash and making it smoother and creamier.

The step that matters

Mashing while the potatoes are still hot. Potatoes that cool become stiff and gluey when mashed, and overworking releases starch that makes them gummy. Mash them soft and warm, and add butter while hot so it melts in evenly.

“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.

More mashed potatoes recipes

Baked 15Cheese 5Browned 4Garlic 4with Onions 4Baked Salmon Over 3 See all 312 →

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipesSweet Potato CroquettesSweet Potato Croquettes53 recipes