Name: Mashed Potatoes
Ingredients: white and mealy potatoes; coarse sea salt; white pepper; butter; boiled milk

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

Boil or steam the potatoes until tender.
Drain the water and return the potatoes to the heat to dry.
Pound the hot potatoes through a fine colander.
Add salt, white pepper, and a piece of butter.
Mix well with a wooden spoon, adding boiled milk slowly until the desired consistency is reached.
To keep them warm, cover the surface with butter or milk.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,611 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,456 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Potato + white peppertop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together157 recipes

Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).
White pepper + buttertop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,814 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).