I’ve never used an electric mixer for mashed potatoes. I pretty much just half mash the potatoes with a grid-shaped masher, add some milk/cream/butter/cheese/pepper (whatever) and then mash some more. It really doesn’t take long before the lumps are gone.
- As stated above, use a ricer.
- Add hot starch to hot liquid. Don’t add liquid to potatoes, add potatoes to liquid. Also, no cold milk/cream/broth. Heat it and make it happy.
- I use a stick blender.
Took the words right outa my mouth. In addition, I’ll reserve a few of the cooked taters and dice them, adding them in last for people who prefer “home style” mashed potatoes. Oh, and some sour cream or yogurt has to be in the mix!
I was in a hurry with my earlier post. Boil your potatoes, drain them into the ricer. Put a knob of butter into your now-drained pot, and rice the potatoes into the pot. Season and flavour to taste - I find tartare sauce and grainy french mustard to be very nice (separately!) - and mix with a wooden spoon. Put into a hot serving dish or straight on the plate!
Okay, here’s how we do it. Boil whole red or yukon gold potatoes until completely done. drain the whole pot and peel the potatoes. At this point the taters will be hot, but a kitchen towel and a paring knife make this quick and painless. I cut them in half, also just to be sure of no rotten centers. Back in the pot, turn on the high heat for about 5 seconds while stirring. This pulls all the leftover moisture out. Mash with the grid masher, add copious amounts of butter salt and pepper. Continue mashing till the butter melts, then switch to a big fork. Add evaporated milk stir until the taters and are at your desired consistancy. If we aren’t eating right away, we cover the potatoes with evaporated milk, and stir right before service.
Another vote for a potato ricer, it makes the perfect texture, and can be mixed by hand.
I add a half dozen roasted garlic cloves (peeled) and some cream cheese to mine for extra richness.
I peel and cube my potatoes before boiling them. When they’re done, I drain them and dump them into the mixing bowl with butter, sour cream, salt & pepper and a slpash of milk. I use my Kitchenade mixer and whip them for just a couple of minutes on medium speed. I get good results using this method. They’re kind of fluffy, but still have some texture.
You have to be careful not to mix them for too long or you will get that glue consistency that people have posted about.
I have excellent results with my KitchenAid mixer, and have never had to deal with glue. Actually, though of course it makes sense, I didn’t know this was a problem with mashed potatoes.
I will also add that pressure-cooking potatoes produces easily mashed taters.
The Kitchen-Aid is essentially a gigantic countertop version of the handheld mixer so yes, it’ll work very well. It’s what they generally use in restaurants, I believe. The beater is blunt, so it doesn’t cut into the cells too much.
A cool way to peel your potatoes - I haven’t tried this, but would Mary Ann lie to us?
Me too, also. And here’s what it looks like, if the OP is too shy to ask.
Throw the masher away and get a ricer. Honest. Boil the potatoes until cooked through, cut in half or quarter depending on how big it is and rice it. Leaves little tiny threads of potato, then you add the oil [we prefer butter but I know people who use olive oil] first to coat the starch molecules, then add the milk. Salt, pepper and seasonings go in with the base potato bits. The ricer also does the garlic clove extruder thing and doesn’t shove the skins through so you don’t peel the potato [you shouldn’t peel before boiling, the water soaks into the potato and screws with the end result, per Cooks Illustrated]
Yeah, they add a flavor. Personally, though, I don’t care for the flavor or texture of potato skin, no matter how it’s prepared. I don’t eat skin-on mashed or fried potatoes, and I don’t eat the skin of my baked potatoes. To me, potato skins taste like dirt, and that’s not good.
Aww … 
Can I have all your baked potato skins, then? That’s the best part.
Sure, you can have the potato skins. Did you want me to save the potato peelings and bake them, too? Cause I can do that. Unless the youngest cat gets hold of them, she seems to think potato peelings are toys and WILL fish them out of the trash at every opportunity.
As a profesional chef, I must stress the use of a food mill, followed by a a gentle folding from a rubber spatula. The food mill effectively pushes each bit of potato through a very small hole, and then doesn’t ever touch that bit again! Maximum mashing with minimal effort.
I just watched one of those How They Make It shows last night, which featured potato salad. The cubed potatoes were pressure-cooked, which they said helped it retain nutritional value.
I love those shows. They also did shredded wheat and compressed wood-fiber boards, which we thought looked like they’d been done on the same equipment. Shredded Wheat factory by day, wood-siding manufacturing by night! 