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Mashed Potatoes

Mashed potatoes are boiled potatoes mixed with butter and hot milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 water for at least 1 hour.

  2. Remove any imperfections and soak old potatoes in cold water for 1 hour.

  3. Place the potatoes in a pot with 1 teaspoon of salt and cover with water.

  4. Boil for 30 minutes or 45 minutes for large potatoes.

Mash and serve

  1. Drain the potatoes and transfer them to a wooden bowl.

  2. Mash the potatoes until fine using a potato masher.

  3. Melt the butter in ½ cup of hot milk and mix it into the mashed potatoes until smooth.

  4. Transfer the mixture to a deep dish and smooth the top with a knife.

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. Milk + buttertop 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).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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 creamy when mashed.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the mash a smoother mouthfeel and flavor.
Hot milk
Adds moisture and creaminess, loosening the mash so it becomes smooth.

The step that matters

Mashing while the potatoes are hot and drained. Potato starch swells and sets as it cools, so mashing hot, well-drained potatoes gives a smooth, fluffy texture. Excess water left in the potatoes makes the mash watery and loose.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, egg. 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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