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Mashed Potatoes

Mashed potatoes are boiled potatoes mixed with salt, cream or milk and mashed until smooth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,481 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Mashed Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and cut potatoes in halves or quarters.

  2. Boil in water for 30 minutes.

Mash and finish

  1. Drain the water and add salt.

  2. Mash the potatoes until smooth.

  3. Add cream or milk and beat well with a fork and spoon.

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 + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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 becomes the body of the mash.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture and fat, making the mash softer and smoother.

The step that matters

Mash the potatoes until smooth. Overworking cooked potatoes releases starch and can make the mash gluey, while undermashing leaves lumps. Mash while they are hot and add the dairy gradually for a light, even texture.

“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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