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Mashed Potatoes

A simple dish of boiled potatoes mashed with butter, milk or cream, and seasoned with coarse sea 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 the potatoes

  1. Peel the potatoes quickly and remove any specks.

  2. While still hot, press the potatoes through a colander or mash them with a strong wooden fork.

Make the mash

  1. Melt the butter with the milk or cream in a clean saucepan.

  2. Add the potatoes and sprinkle with salt.

  3. Stir over gentle heat until well mixed and very hot.

Serve

  1. Serve directly, or heap in a dish and brown under the fire, or mold and brown in the oven.

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 starchy bulk that gives mashed potatoes their body and fluffy texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Milk or cream
Adds moisture and softness, and helps the mash turn smooth and creamy.

The step that matters

While still hot, press or mash the potatoes. Potatoes turn gluey and heavy when cooled or overworked, because starch cells release more starch when broken up. Mashing while hot keeps the texture light and even.

“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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