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Mashed Potatoes

Mashed potatoes made with potatoes, salt, butter, milk, and optional frying or baking, garnished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,855 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. 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

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

  2. Steam the potatoes over boiling water until tender.

Mash and season

  1. Mash the potatoes in a warm earthen basin or bright tin pan.

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

  3. Mix in 1 teacup of rich milk until well combined.

  4. Transfer to a deep dish.

Finish and serve

  1. For finishing, add butter on top and briefly place in a 400°F (200°C) oven to serve hot, or bake until golden brown.

  2. Alternatively, mold the mashed potatoes, fry in hot lard until golden brown, and serve garnished with curled parsley.

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. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  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. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Provide the starchy bulk and the fluffy, soft structure of the mash.
Butter
Adds fat for richness, smooth mouthfeel and savoury flavour.
Rich milk
Adds moisture and creaminess, loosening the mash into a smooth texture.
Lard
Fries the shaped mash, giving a crisp, golden-brown surface.

The step that matters

Mash while the potatoes are still warm. Warm potatoes absorb butter and milk evenly and mash smoothly. Overworking the mash releases starch, which makes it gluey, so mix only until combined.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, butter, milk. 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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