Skip to main content
Main

Mashed Potatoes

Mashed potatoes made by boiling floury potatoes, mashing, and adding butter or cream, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Potato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Mashed Potatoes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and boil the potatoes until tender.

  2. Pass them through a wire sieve or mash with a fork.

Finish and serve

  1. Mix in the butter or cream and season with salt and pepper.

  2. Serve hot, heaped in a vegetable dish and smooth over with a knife.

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

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

  2. Potato + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Cream + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Floury potatoes
Their high starch and low moisture give a light, fluffy mash that holds together.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, silkier mouthfeel.
Cream
Adds fat and moisture, making the mash creamier and softer in texture.

The step that matters

Pass or mash the potatoes while they are still hot. Starch sets as potatoes cool, and overworking breaks starch cells and releases gluten-free starch that turns the mash gluey. Mashing hot, gently, keeps the texture light and smooth.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, pepper):

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Potatothe original
  4. Horseradishfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.

More mashed potatoes recipes

Baked 15Cheese 5Browned 4Garlic 4with Onions 4Baked Salmon Over 3 See all 312 →

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipesSweet Potato CroquettesSweet Potato Croquettes53 recipes