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 the potatoes
Peel the potatoes thinly and steam them until tender.
Place the steamed potatoes in a pan and mash them.
Finish and serve
Add milk, butter, and salt to the mashed potatoes.
Beat the mixture until it is light and fluffy.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Potato + milktop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,611 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
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Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,456 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and loosens the mash so it becomes smooth and spreadable.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a silky mouthfeel in the finished mash.
The step that matters
Beating the mashed potatoes. Overbeating releases too much starch from the potatoes, which can make the mash gluey and heavy. Beat just until light and fluffy and stop once the texture is smooth.
“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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