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Mashed Potatoes Trimmed with Small Slices of Bacon

Mashed potatoes mixed with small pieces of crispy bacon, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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 Trimmed with Small Slices of Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Peel and cut the potatoes into chunks.

  2. Cook the bacon in a skillet until crispy, then chop into small pieces.

Make the mash

  1. Boil the potatoes in salted water until tender, about 15-20 minutes.

  2. Drain the potatoes and mash them until smooth.

  3. Stir the bacon into the mashed potatoes and season with black pepper.

  4. Serve hot.

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).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Starch that breaks down when boiled and mashed, giving the dish its soft, fluffy body.
Bacon
Adds salty, savory fat and crisp bits that contrast with the smooth potatoes.

The step that matters

Drain the potatoes and mash them until smooth. Potatoes must be fully drained so excess water does not thin the mash. Overworking cooked potatoes releases more starch and can make them gluey, so mash just until smooth.

“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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