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To Mash Potatoes

A simple mashed potato dish made with butter or dripping, pepper, salt, and optional cream or milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream 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 ↓

To Mash Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Strain the water from the well-cooked potatoes.

  2. Add a little butter or dripping, pepper, and coarse sea salt to the potatoes in the saucepan.

  3. Beat the mixture lightly and quickly with a fork.

Serve

  1. Serve in a pyramid shape in a hot vegetable dish.

  2. Optionally, use cream or milk instead of butter or dripping, and rub the potatoes through a wire sieve or potato masher before mashing.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  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. 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

Well-cooked potatoes
Provide the starchy base that becomes light and fluffy when mashed.
Butter or dripping
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, silkier mouthfeel.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture and richness, giving a softer, creamier texture.

The step that matters

Beat the mixture lightly and quickly with a fork. Overworking cooked potato releases more starch, which makes mash gluey and dense. Brief, gentle mixing keeps it light and fluffy.

“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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