I’ve accepted as a truism that it’s the skin has all the good-for-you bits in potatoes, even though as a card carrying doper I must admit I’ve never done the leg-work and have no idea if that is a fact or not. Mostly it’s just what I tell people who complain about the skins in my potatoes.
I think I can best summarise why I really leave the skins on by quoting a poem about another root vegetable, the rutabaga, by James Silas Rogers;
“My first mouthful tasted
like something in a gunny sack;
nothing like a wine
from which an epicure, or would-be epicure,
might claim to read the soils
in which the grapes were grown.
She said she loved their dug-up texture,
the hint of dirt
that couldn’t be baked away,
how they left the tongue
with a rumor of something
underground and dark.”
Since I eat like a healthnut I never peel them. The skins are nutritious and high in fiber.
For redskins, they should be unpeeled. Regular mashed potatoes (we do Yukons around here) should be peeled.
From the link:
I peel them if I’m mashing them for people I don’t know well, like a potluck, but for just me, or good friends, I leave the skins on. I especially hate peeling them if they are nice, thin-skinned new potatoes - just seems like such a waste to throw all that away.
Good gad, peeled!
The alternative is barbaric!
Heretic! Burn him/her/it!
This. And as I usually use red potatoes, I voted “never peal”.
Never peel. I like the skins. There is something missing if there aren’t skins in mashed potatoes.
This. Potato skins are NASTY. If I am served mashed potatoes with skins in them, I will generally just leave them on my plate. The alternative is to pick out all the bits of skin, and I’d really rather not do that. I’ll eat the skins on cucumbers and tomatoes and apples, but not potatoes. No, no, no. I don’t care how good the gravy is, either.
Yukon Gold, unpeeled, “mashed” with a hand mixer. Leaves the skin barely noticeable.
White potatoes will do in a pinch but are so darned bland.
As above, but I used thin-skinned russets today. Came out great.
I don’t peel any of my potatoes as I think the skins give the mashed potatoes a nice texture. Plain ones are just mushy and bland.
What no third option where we buy mashed potato mix at the supermarket?
We ran those people out of town already. Well, we think we got most of them, but there may be some still lurking around…
Peeled please; the skins are rough on my tongue and fight the mashedy goodness.
Peeled. I have texture issues with foods and skins in mashed potatoes is shudder.
I never peel potatoes. The peel has all the flavor.
I use a ricer, and the ricer removes almost all the skins. What it doesn’t remove is meant to remain.