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Mashed Potatoes

A simple dish of boiled potatoes mashed with milk, butter, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Mashed Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the potatoes until just tender.

  2. Peel the potatoes and place them in a bowl.

Mash and season

  1. Add just enough milk to mash the potatoes until light and fluffy.

  2. Beat the potatoes vigorously with a spoon.

  3. Season with salt and mix in butter.

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. Milk + buttertop 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 starch and body that make up the mash's structure.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the potatoes into a smooth, creamy texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a silkier mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Beat the potatoes vigorously with a spoon. Vigorous beating ruptures potato starch cells and releases starch, which can make the mash gluey or gummy. Mash gently and only until light and fluffy.

“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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