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To Boil Potatoes

A simple boiled potato recipe with optional butter, milk, or cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

To Boil Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Select potatoes of similar size and wash them without peeling.

  2. Place them in a pot and cover with water by about 1 inch.

  3. Do not cover the pot with a lid.

  4. When the water is nearly boiling, pour it off.

  5. Replace it with cold water and a generous amount of salt.

Boil and dry

  1. Boil medium-sized potatoes for about 30 minutes and large ones for about 1 hour, testing with a fork for doneness.

  2. Once cooked, pour off the water and cover the pot with a folded napkin or flannel to let them dry for 15 minutes.

  3. Peel the potatoes and serve them without skins.

  4. For older potatoes, peel before boiling and remove blemishes.

Mash and serve

  1. Mash while hot with a potato masher, adding butter, salt, and milk if desired.

  2. Optionally, score and brown the mashed potatoes.

  3. Pour hot cream with melted butter over them 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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Provide the starchy body that softens into the cooked texture of the dish.
Fresh butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor and smoothing the mashed texture.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the mash when used.
Hot cream
Adds richness and moisture when poured over the potatoes before serving.

The step that matters

Pour off the water and let the potatoes dry. Excess surface water left on cooked potatoes dilutes flavor and makes them waterlogged. Drying them briefly under a cloth lets steam escape, giving a fluffier, more concentrated texture.

“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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