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Mashed Potatoes

A simple dish of boiled potatoes mashed with butter, milk, and 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

  1. Peel the potatoes and soak them in cold water for 30 minutes.

  2. Steam the potatoes over boiling water until tender.

Mash and season

  1. Transfer the hot potatoes to a bowl or pan.

  2. Mash the potatoes until smooth.

  3. Season with coarse sea salt and mix in the butter.

  4. Add the milk and mix until well combined.

Serve

  1. Serve in a deep dish.

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, fluffy and smooth when mashed.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess, loosening the mash to a smooth consistency.

The step that matters

Mash the potatoes until smooth. Overworking cooked potatoes releases excess starch, which makes the mash gluey and dense. Mash until smooth and stop once the texture is even.

“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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