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Mashed Potatoes

Mashed potatoes are boiled potatoes mixed with butter, salt, pepper, and hot milk or cream until creamy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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

Boil the potatoes

  1. Peel the potatoes and boil them until tender.

  2. If they are very mealy, drain the water and mash immediately.

  3. If not mealy, let them sit covered for a moment to dry out.

Mash and serve

  1. Mash the potatoes well in the kettle they were boiled in.

  2. Add butter, salt, and pepper, then moisten with hot milk or cream.

  3. Beat with a fork or spoon until light and creamy.

  4. Transfer to a warmed serving dish without smoothing.

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 + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  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 + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Their starch gives the mash its body; mashing them while hot keeps it fluffy.
Butter
Adds fat, richness and a smoother mouthfeel to the mashed potatoes.
Hot milk or cream
Adds moisture and softens the mash, and hot liquid keeps it from cooling stiff.

The step that matters

Drying or mashing at the right moment. Mealy potatoes break down easily and turn fluffy when mashed straight away, while waxier ones need a brief rest to lose surface moisture. Mashing wet, watery potatoes makes the result gluey or soggy.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Tomatofits less well
  4. Asparagusfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, 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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