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Mashed Potatoes

A creamy potato dish made by boiling, mashing, seasoning, and baking with milk, butter, and egg yolk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Boil the potatoes until tender, then drain and return to the saucepan.

  2. Mash the potatoes thoroughly in the saucepan.

  3. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Make and finish

  1. In a separate bowl, heat the milk and soften the butter.

  2. Stir the hot milk and softened butter into the mashed potatoes, beating until light and fluffy.

  3. Shape the mashed potatoes into a cone on a platter.

  4. Brush the top with beaten egg yolk and place in a 400°F (200°C) oven to brown.

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 + 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. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Form the bulk of the dish, mashing into a soft, starchy base.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness, making the mash smooth and creamy.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, contributing flavour and a smooth texture.
Egg yolk
Brushed on top, it helps the surface brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Beating the hot milk and butter into the potatoes. Beating too little leaves lumps, while overbeating releases starch and makes the mash gluey. Using hot liquids keeps the mash warm and lets it absorb the fat and moisture evenly.

Swap the potato

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

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

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