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Mashed Potatoes

Mashed potatoes are boiled potatoes mashed with butter, milk or cream, and 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. Wash and peel the potatoes.

  2. Boil the potatoes until tender, then drain and dry them.

Mash

  1. In the same saucepan, mash the potatoes until very light and creamy.

  2. Add the hot milk, butter, and salt, then beat again until smooth.

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 starch that mashes into a light, fluffy base.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, silkier mouthfeel.
Hot milk or cream
Adds moisture and loosens the mash while keeping it smooth.

The step that matters

Drain and dry the potatoes well. Excess water left on boiled potatoes dilutes the mash and makes it gluey or loose. Drying them over low heat lets surface moisture evaporate, so the mash becomes light and holds its shape.

“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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