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Creamed Potatoes

Creamed potatoes are boiled potatoes mashed with butter, sweet milk, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Creamed Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Peel the potatoes thinly, remove any eyes, and soak in cold water for at least 30 minutes.

  2. In a porcelain-lined or granite kettle, bring a pot of water to a boil.

  3. Add the potatoes to the boiling water and cook until a fork can easily pierce them, about 20 minutes.

  4. Drain the potatoes completely and return them to the pot on low heat.

Make the creamed potatoes

  1. Add the butter, sweet milk, and salt, then mash until smooth.

  2. Stir and beat the potatoes on low heat to keep them hot.

Serve

  1. Transfer to a hot serving dish, smooth the top, make a small hole, add a piece of butter, and sprinkle with black pepper before serving.

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

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

  3. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  4. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  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

Potatoes
Provide the starchy base that mashes into a smooth, fluffy body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the mash a silky mouthfeel and flavor.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture and creaminess, loosening the mash into a smooth texture.

The step that matters

Drain the potatoes completely. Surface water left on cooked potatoes dilutes the mash and makes it watery and loose. Draining fully and returning them to low heat lets extra moisture evaporate, so the mash holds together and absorbs the butter and milk well.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Tomatofits less well
  4. Asparagusfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, 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.

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