Somehow, I have reached the ripe old age of 35 and had many cooking adventures without ever making mashed potatoes. Now, Thanksgiving approaches and the man wants mashed potatoes with his dinner. I’m willing to oblige, but they need to be really good, because I have, in the past, hated mashed potatoes. They always seem like just a pile of starch to me. I can’t be a part of that. I want to do it right.
So I’m ask you, Dopers, to help me make tasty, nutritious, festive mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving this year. Go into as much detail as you want. One note is that I’m a vegetarian, so no meat additives would be good, but dairy products are fine.
OK, the first thing you have to decide is if you want to make yummy, lumpy garlicy mashed potatoes with bits of skin, or if you want yummy, smooth, creamy silky mashed potatoes. For the first, I like a combo of redskins and russets (brown skins), about twice as many browns as reds. Peel the browns, leave the skins on the reds. Cut into half inch cubes and put them into a pot of COLD water, with a whole shitload of peeled garlic, smashed and a small palmful (about a tablespoon) of salt. Stir, put it on medium heat and bring to a boil. Do not cover. Boil until the potatoes are easy to pierce with a fork - about 15 minutes. Drain the mixture and hand mash with a potato masher. When you’ve broken up the potatoes to a mash, add a couple tablespoons of butter, some milk (how much? I don’t know - add slowly and mix until it’s “right”.) Add a few generous grinds of fresh black pepper. Taste it and see if it needs salt. Serve.
For smooth, creamy silky potatoes, use only russets. Peel well, cube and boil like before. Leave out the garlic, but don’t forget the salt. Drain and whip with a handheld electric mixer. Keep whipping and whipping and check the texture occasionally. When it’s smooth, add some butter and milk. DO NOT ADD BUTTER OR MILK UNTIL YOU CAN NO LONGER FIND LUMPS! Once the fat is in there, it won’t get any more lumps out, no matter how long you whip it. Add fresh black pepper and check for salt. If you want, you can add sour cream in place of some or all of the butter - it makes for a slightly tangy dish.
The keys to mashed potatoes are to not be shy with the salt in the water, start with cold water, make sure your cubes are as uniform as possible, and don’t overboil the potatoes.
DO NOT try to mash potatoes in a blender or food processor. Not even your really heavy duty Vita-Mix with the 2 horsepower motor. They will laugh at you when you call customer service because you burned out a 2 fucking horsepower motor on a boiled potato. :smack:
Oh, I should mention that the whipped potatoes (the smooth recipe) are one of the few places where I might use white pepper instead of fresh ground black. Black will, of course, leave specks in your mash. Not a big deal if it’s me and the kids, but for a dinner party, I want pristine potatoes.
The second recipe is best served with gravy of some sort. This is even more important if you don’t like “a pile of starch.”
Good link, Lissener. I’ll just add to this one that I saw a chef on the Today show years ago whose recipe for “perfect” mashed potatoes included putting them through a ricer (which can be a bit messy as well as requires a bit of elbow grease) and also he stressed to warm the milk before adding it to the mash.
I tried his recipe and found it to make pretty decent mashed potatoes, to my surprise! I had used a hand mixer for years, but still had lumpy potatoes and, more important, many times the mash ended up too bland, no matter how much salt I added! I was ready to try just about anything. Now when I want to make mashed potatoes from scratch, I usually use Yukon Gold potatoes; I usually boil them whole but I think now I’ll try cubing them first.
Glad I saw all the hints and recipes, especially with Thanksgiving coming up!
I don’t mind lumpy mashed potatoes as long as they are intentionally lumpy, not all smooth with some gross lumps in there. Garlic is good. How many potatoes for mashed potatoes for two? I guess I could make 4 servings and have some left over, that wouldn’t be so bad.
Is the consensus to use reds and browns? I’ve heard that Yukon Golds were the way to go.
Yukon Golds are ok, but they can be a little too sweet for my taste (for mashed potatoes, that is. I won’t use anything else for baked potatoes anymore).
As far as I’m concerned, there are two entirely different dishes - Intentionally Lumpy with Some Skins left behind and Very Smooth and Creamy. They’re as distinct as rice and pasta. Smooth and creamy with lumps means you didn’t whip them long enough before adding the butter and milk - and it can take a good 10 minutes of whipping for a large pot of potatoes.
3-4 medium potatoes should do you for two people.
Mashed potatoes don’t reheat very well as is. I make potato pancakes out of the leftovers - throw your leftovers in a blender with egg, flour (about the same volume as your potatoes), baking powder (a teaspoon or so) and a big handful of fresh parsley. Add milk enough to make a batter and blend. Pour into pancakes and fry on a well greased skillet. Serve with applesauce and sour cream or gravy.
Do NOT ever attempt to make mashed potatos with a hand mixer. The violence of the blades will burst the starch granules in the potatos and you will end up with gluey, starch crap (cite: Harold McGee, On Food and Cooking). If you really, really, REALLY want the ultimate creamy silky mash, try Heston Blumenthal’s recipe.
IF you use gluey potatoes. There’s a reason the whipped (it’s not mashed) recipe calls for only russets. Their texture can handle it. Reds are too gluey and waxy.
Add in a rutabaga to the potatoes. Kind of like sweet potato but not as cloying. Top with carmelized onions. Might want to put it in with the turkey for a bit so it browns.
OK, so for a nice chunkish mashed potato dish with skins, we use the reds. Those tend to be small, so look for 3-4 large ones? Then I boil them for how long? And bust them up with a hand masher, which I think I have for making hummus from scratch. Do I need to “dry” the potatoes after draining them, as mentioned in the “Mashed Potatoes Gone Wrong” thread?
What next? Butter and milk? Should I get a little heavy cream? OR sour cream? Or mozzarella? When adding garlic, do you roast it first, separately, then mash it in together?
I really am clueless about this, and recipes online do not agree with each other. Anecdotal experience is what I need.
[QUOTE=Rubystreak]
OK, so for a nice chunkish mashed potato dish with skins, we use the reds. Those tend to be small, so look for 3-4 large ones?
[quote]
Yep, or half a dozen smaller ones.
Cubed into 1/2 inch cubes? About 10-15 minutes once your water is boiling. But remember to put them into cold water (with salt) and then put it on the heat. Start sticking a fork into 'em at about 10 minutes, and when the fork goes easily in, they’re done.
Yup.
I’ve never done this. I just dump 'em into a colander in the sink. Generally, the heat makes the surface water steam out (OK, “water vapor” out, but “steam” sounds better as a verb.), but I don’t wait until they’re dry or anything.
I’ve never tried mozzarella, but your ideas are intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter. Or asiago might be interesting. A little tanginess? Why not?
I don’t, but you can, sure. I just boil some smashed cloves with the potatoes and salt, and them mash them in. If you roast the garlic first, it will be sweetier and nuttier and less “garlickey”.
Nope. What you need is to get your butt in the kitchen and start experimenting! We all like different things, and you’ll develop your own “tweaks” with experience. You obviously have a good idea generator - I’m seriously going to add some mozzarella next time and see what happens.
Also remember that depending on your location, you may have access to more interesting choices of potatoes than “russet” vs. “red”. I’ve had good results with the All-Blue and the Viking Purple varieties I’ve gotten from Olsen Farms, for example. Similarly, you might want to try using cultured butter, as it has a much more interesting flavor than regular butter.
I’ve had these blue potatoes in the crisper for like, 2 months. They are still perky and not at all gone over. Can I use those for skin-in chunk mashed p?
Called Mike, and his first idea for cheese was Velveeta, which shows you what I’m dealing with here. He thinks mozzarella will be distractingly stringy in mashed potatoes, but wants the garlic in there. What about cheddar? Could that work? Or some related cheese type? Is that put in during the mashing process?
Due to a recalcitrant GI tract, raw garlic no longer agrees with me. Boiling might be OK, but I think I’ll roast. Roasted garlic has no down side.
Am I correct in thinking the mashed potatoes are an item I need to make the day of Thanksgiving, not the day before? I am going to do some of the stuff on Wednesday to decrease the kitchen chaos on Thursday, but I’m told day-old mashed potatoes are nasty. I’ve always thought they were nasty when fresh, but I’m going to prove myself wrong on this.
If I were to recommend anyone’s advice, Heston Blumenthal is the person I’d pay the most attention to: anyone who’s won 3 Michelin stars for one restaurant - the ultimate food accolade in all of Europe, competing against France and Italy - is worthy of attention. He’s a freaking genius.
The only thing I’d add to his advice (heh, like I’m qualified to do so) is to soak the potatoes for 10 minutes in cold water after chopping, then rinse. This removes some of the sugars.
Also, garlic isn’t for everyone. If you want to embellish them in a milder way, finely sliced green onions are good.
I would love to get a “mash note” from Alton Brown. As it is, I’ve had to settle for his delectable, simple recipe for mashed potatoes. I’ve never had better taters. You can make it without the garlic, but it’s yummier with.
Like you Rubystreak, I am not a huge fan of mashed potatoes but they are so yummy with the holiday feasts. I like them with goat cheese, though the garlicky recipes also sound really good.
Mozzarella would be too stringy, it’s not bad though but some people might be freaked out by the strings coming off their mashed potatoes.
Velveeta … well, I won’t say the snobby thing that some might be tempted to say so I’ll just say no. Cheddar could work.
I made a yummy smooth creamy mashed potatoes that I added sour cream and cream cheese to and baked for a little while afterwards so they had time for the flavors to really meld and it had a nice little brown crust on it (may need to top with butter for it to brown well). I don’t have the recipe handy but I’m sure there are versions all over the web.
