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Mashed Potatoes with Garlic

A creamy potato mash flavored with garlic, butter, milk, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Mashed Potatoes with Garlic

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Peel and chop the potatoes.

  2. In a pot, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the garlic and sauté until fragrant.

  3. Add the potatoes, a little water, salt, pepper, and nutmeg. Simmer until the potatoes are tender.

Mash and finish

  1. Drain and pass the potatoes through a sieve.

  2. Return to the pot, add milk, and mix until smooth.

  3. Stir in parsley and lemon juice 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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Provide the starchy bulk that becomes light and fluffy when mashed.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the mash to a creamy texture.
Garlic
Adds aromatic flavour that mellows and sweetens as it cooks in the butter.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, starchy flavour.

The step that matters

Pass the potatoes through a sieve while hot and drained. Pushing the potatoes through a sieve breaks them into fine, even pieces without overworking them. Overworked starch turns gummy, so mix gently once the milk is added.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Parsnipfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, pepper, nutmeg, parsley, lemon, clove. 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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