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Mashed, Sauté, and Baked Potatoes

A simple mashed potato dish made with old potatoes, butter, milk, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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, Sauté, and Baked Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Wash and steam the old potatoes until tender, about 40 minutes.

  2. Combine 1 ounce of butter, ½ cup of milk, pepper, and salt in a saucepan.

  3. Heat the mixture until boiling.

  4. Pass the steamed potatoes through a wire sieve into the saucepan, rubbing with a wooden spoon.

  5. Stir the mixture lightly and transfer to a hot serving 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 + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

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

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Old potatoes
Their starch becomes fluffy when cooked and pressed, giving the mash its body.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Milk
Adds moisture so the mash spreads smoothly and stays creamy.

The step that matters

Pass the steamed potatoes through a wire sieve while hot. Hot potatoes press into a smooth, lump-free purée. Cooled potatoes turn stiff and gluey, and overworking released starch can also make the mash gummy.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Tomatofits less well
  4. Asparagusfits less well

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