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Mashed Potatoes

Mashed potatoes are boiled potatoes mixed with butter, milk, and coarse sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Mashed Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and cut the potatoes into chunks.

  2. Boil the potatoes in salted water until tender.

  3. Drain the potatoes and return them to the pot.

Mash and season

  1. Add butter and milk to the potatoes.

  2. Mash until smooth and creamy.

  3. Season with coarse sea salt to taste.

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. 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 starchy base that softens when boiled and gives the mash its body.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, silkier mouthfeel.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the mash to a creamy consistency.

The step that matters

Mash until smooth and creamy. Overworking the potatoes releases excess starch, which can make the mash gluey. Mash just until smooth, and add the butter and milk warm if possible so they blend 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.

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