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Mashed Potatoes

A 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. Boil the potatoes until tender, then pour off the water and steam them dry.

  2. Peel the potatoes while hot and remove any specks.

  3. Press the potatoes through a colander or mash them with a wooden fork until smooth.

Finish and serve

  1. In a saucepan, melt a slice of butter with a few tablespoons of milk or cream.

  2. Add the potatoes and sprinkle with salt, stirring over low heat until well mixed and hot.

  3. Serve immediately, or shape in a buttered mold and brown under the fire.

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 base that becomes soft, smooth and fluffy when mashed.
Good butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel as it melts into the potatoes.
Milk or cream
Adds moisture and softness, loosening the mash and making it creamier.

The step that matters

Steam the potatoes dry before mashing. Excess water left on the potatoes dilutes the mash and makes it watery and loose. Steaming off surface moisture lets the starch hold the butter and milk for a smooth, thick texture.

“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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