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Mashed Potatoes

Mashed potatoes boiled, mashed, mixed with salt, butter, and milk, then molded and baked until golden.

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

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Peel and boil the potatoes until tender.

  2. Drain and mash the potatoes until smooth.

Season and shape

  1. Mix in salt, butter, and milk or cream until well combined.

  2. Mold the mashed potatoes into your desired shape.

Brown and serve

  1. Brown the molded potatoes in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden.

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
Starch gives the mash its body and structure once cooked and mashed.
Butter
Adds fat for richness, flavor, and a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Milk or cream
Adds moisture and creaminess, loosening the mash for a soft texture.

The step that matters

Mashing the potatoes. Working cooked potatoes too vigorously ruptures starch cells and releases starch, which makes the mash gluey and gummy. Mash until smooth, then stop, and mix in the dairy gently.

“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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