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Mashed Potatoes

A simple dish of boiled potatoes mashed with salt, butter, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Mashed Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Cut the potatoes into pieces.

  2. Place the cut potatoes in cold water.

  3. Drain the cold water.

  4. Pour boiling water over the potatoes.

  5. Cook quickly until just tender.

  6. Drain the potatoes.

  7. Let the potatoes sit on the stove until completely dry.

Mash and serve

  1. Mash the potatoes.

  2. Add salt to taste.

  3. Add butter as needed.

  4. Add cream as needed to achieve desired consistency.

  5. Serve immediately.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Potato + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Provide the starch and body that make up the mash.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Cream
Adds moisture and fat, loosening the mash and softening its texture.

The step that matters

Let the potatoes sit on the stove until completely dry. Surface water left on the potatoes dilutes the butter and cream, making the mash soggy and loose. Drying lets excess moisture evaporate so the mash holds together and absorbs added dairy well.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Onionfits about as well
  3. Leekfits less well
  4. Chivefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cream. 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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