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Mashed Potatoes

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

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 the potatoes

  1. Boil the potatoes until tender.

  2. Drain the potatoes.

  3. Shake them over the heat.

  4. Mash the potatoes until fine.

Make the mash

  1. Add salt and butter, then beat well.

  2. Heat the milk.

  3. Pour it over the potatoes.

  4. Beat until light and creamy.

Serve

  1. Transfer to a hot dish, leaving the mound irregular.

  2. Serve immediately.

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
Their starch gives the mash its body and fluffy structure once mashed.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Milk
Adds moisture that loosens the mash and makes it creamy.

The step that matters

Beat the milk into the potatoes gently. Potato starch releases more when it is worked vigorously, and overbeating makes mashed potatoes gluey and heavy. Beat only until the mash is light and creamy.

“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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