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Mashed Potatoes

Mashed potatoes made with boiled potatoes, cream or milk, salt, optional egg white and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter 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 the potatoes

  1. Wash, peel, and boil the potatoes until easily pierced with a fork.

  2. Drain the potatoes thoroughly and return them to the heat.

  3. Mash the potatoes vigorously for 5 to 10 minutes until light, smooth, and creamy.

Add the liquid and seasoning

  1. Warm the cream or milk in a saucepan.

  2. Add butter if using milk.

  3. Stir in the salt and the well-beaten egg white.

  4. Mix the mixture into the potatoes until very light.

Serve

  1. Serve immediately in a warm dish.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Starch that breaks down into a soft, fluffy body when boiled and mashed.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture and richness, giving the mash a smooth, creamy texture.
Egg white
Adds protein that helps the mash become lighter and hold its airy texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richer flavour and a silkier mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Drain the potatoes thoroughly and mash while hot. Excess water dilutes the mash and makes it gluey or loose. Mashing hot potatoes gives smoother results because the starch is more easily broken down and absorbs the added liquid.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, egg, butter):

  1. Leekfits about as well
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Chivefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, egg, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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