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Mashed Potatoes

Mashed potatoes made with boiled potatoes, butter, salt, white pepper, celery salt, and hot milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,047 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Mashed Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mash boiled potatoes with a wire masher until free from lumps.

  2. Add butter, salt, white pepper, celery salt, and enough hot milk to moisten, then beat vigorously until well combined.

  3. Pile lightly on a hot dish.

  4. Do not put in the oven, as that makes them heavy.

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 + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 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. White pepper + celerytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together853 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

What each ingredient does

Boiled potatoes
Provide the starchy base that mashes into the body of the dish.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Hot milk
Adds moisture so the mash becomes soft and spreadable rather than stiff.

The step that matters

Beat vigorously until well combined. Overbeating a potato mash over-releases starch, which makes it gluey and dense. Beat only until the butter, milk and seasonings are evenly mixed.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, butter, celery, 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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