Tonight I decided to make homemade mashed potatoes for dinner. I hadn’t made them in a while but they’re so simple that I figured all would be well. Boil potatoes, drain them, add butter and milk, mash with masher that I only recently realized we had. I used to use the mixer. The potatoes looked fine, if a little pale. When I tasted them, however–eww. They were incredibly bland–bland beyond the powers of ordinary potatoes. Even salt and pepper didn’t help. My parents didn’t say anything, but they did put more gravy on their potatoes than they usually do. I don’t like gravy on mashed potatoes, but I considered revising that stance just for these.
I can’t figure out what happened. Homemade mashed potatoes are always good. I suspect they weren’t drained quite enough, but that doesn’t seem like enough to make them that bad.
Does anyone do anything special to their mashed potatoes to make them good? Did I just have bad luck tonight?
Mashed potatos will take a LOT of salt. A LOT. If you just sprinkled with salt then you didn’t use enough. Even when I just make a couple potatos’ worth, I use the pouring spout, not the shaker.
It’s also nice to chop up an onion to boil with the potatos and mash it in, or add some chicken bullion, or some parmesan. But mostly, SALT.
I agree with Manduck, it sounds like you did everything right, so it was probably your potatoes or lack of enough seasoning. Some potatoes are just not good for mashing.
Other possibilites could be the butter or milk. Did you use real butter (salted or unsalted?) and whole milk or a lowfat/skim? I’ve never tried it in mashed taters but I’d think skim would be horrible, it’s just cowjuice-flavored water.
For extra richness you could try adding some sour cream or cream cheese (make sure it’s room temp).
They were russets, the kind we always use for everything, unless it’s a red-potato-based dish.
I hadn’t considered the salt angle. I didn’t use a particularly light hand with the salt, but I’m not exactly a heavy salter of things in general. I usually have to put on more salt than I think is necessary for other people to think that food is salted enough. This was the hardest cooking thing to train myself in so far.
If you use skim milk, you’re better off adding chicken broth. Then at least you’d get some flaver. Neither one will make you mash creamy, though. I use whole milk or (real) half and half, if I have it. Not a whole lot, maybe a half a cup per every 8 potatoes. I don’t mash butter into it, though, just the milk and the salt. Plenty of kosher salt. Kiddo doesn’t like pepper, so I don’t put that in.
If people are putting butter and/or gravy on their mash, then they shouldn’t balk over using whole milk or half and half in them.
Mashed potatoes do not need anything beyond butter, cream, salt, and pepper. Heck, just salt and pepper is enough. If they taste bland, than I would say you simply didn’t add enough salt. Also, when you add milk/half-and-half/cream to your potatoes, warm up the dairy first, as it helps in the absorbtion into the potatoes. Other than that, I don’t think you did anything wrong. Just not enough salt. If you want to have some fun, mash some turnips or celeriac into the potatoes as well. You can always have fun by adding fresh garlic, scallions, or horseradish, as well.
But, in the end, I do not believe you need more than the basics for good mashed potatoes, and your problem most likely is in the salt department.
I don’t think it’s salt. My method doesn’t use salt and results are still good.
If you overboil your potatoes they will have to much water absorbed into them, making for bad mash. Anytime I’ve had poor results it’s through overboiling.
Make sure you get a potatoe that’s known for making good mash (I use Golden Wonder or Red Desiree).
Use plenty of butter and a dash of whole milk and plenty of pepper.
I also use a potatoe ricer to get a better consistency but that can be a bit of a pain.
You want to get the potatoes out of the water right when they’re mashable. If you boil for too long, they’ll lose flavor (and turn more greyish, maybe?).
We add lots of salt, real butter and whole milk to ours.
Last night we mashed together two sweet potatoes, and two russets to hae as a side with chili. Delcious.
I also like to boil with the skins on, but I don’t know if that really makes a difference.
Russetts are generally a good spud for mashing. However, it’s going to depend on where they came from, what the growing season was like, and when they were picked. If you did everything you normally do, I suspect the potato as the culprit. Potatoes with excessive moisture cause them to become glutinous when pureed and can be pretty tasteless.
I make mashed often, and they usually come out tasting dandiliciously good.
I like yellow potatoes, but russets are also fine for mashing. Peel and cube the potatoes. Place in unheated, well salted water, cover, turn on stove. Remove cover when boiling, continue to boil until fork-tender. Drain, dry in pot, mash with butter and milk. I’ll often smash some garlic and gently heat in the milk while the potatoes are boiling, and mash the garlic into the potatoes. I’ll also take the butter out of the fridge while the potatoes are boiling, and cut the butter into tablespoon-sized pieces.
That’s your basic mashed. I have about 10 million ways to dress up my potatoes, but that would deserve a thread all its own.
I second everything pulykamell said, especially “You can always have fun by adding fresh garlic, scallions, or horseradish, as well.” I love just regular ol’ mashed taters, but you can sure as heck defeat any notion of blandness by throwing in some roasted garlic, sour cream or potent horseradish. Or all three at once, even.
Sometimes I put a packet of Ranch dressing powder in mine. They come out delicious. Of course I only use real butter and cream. If I’m making mashed taters, only the best will do. My mom and granny whip theirs with a mixer, but I only use the hand masher 'cause I like mind lumpy.
