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Mashed Potatoes

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Mashed Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel, wash, and boil or steam the potatoes until tender.

Mash and finish

  1. Mash the potatoes until fine.

  2. Add hot cream or cold buttermilk, salt, and a piece of butter.

  3. Mix until well combined.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Cream + buttermilktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together674 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  5. Buttermilk + buttertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,674 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 gives mashed potatoes their body and fluffy texture.
Hot cream
Adds fat and richness, and its warmth keeps the mash smooth and hot.
Cold buttermilk
Adds moisture and a mild tang that lightens the richness of the butter and cream.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a silky mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Mix until well combined. Overworking mashed potatoes after the liquids go in releases more starch, which makes the texture gummy and glue-like. Mix only until the liquid and butter are evenly absorbed.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Chivefits about as well
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Onionfits less well
  4. Horseradishfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, buttermilk, butter. 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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