I love mashed potatoes, which couldn’t be more American, but my favourite potato recipe is from Indonesia, which I’ll post about shortly.
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I don’t make mashed potatoes very often, because the way I like them, they are loaded with fat and salt, and pretty unhealthy. This is the basic recipe, which will be followed by comments about how to make them better:
Ingredients:
- 2 lbs. potatoes
- 2 Tbsp. butter
- 1 C. milk
- 1 tsp. salt
- 1/4 tsp. pepper
Method:
Peel the potatoes (I usually don’t peel potatoes, because I like the texture and taste of the skins, but unpeeled potatoes in mash just seems wrong):
Cut into about 1″ pieces, place in a pot and cover with water. Raise the heat to a boil, then lower it and cook, starting to check at about 10 minutes, until done.
Drain the potatoes. Now you have three choices to turn cooked potatoes into mashed potatoes:
- The simplest way is to just use a fork and mash them until they’re as mashed as you like;
- You can use an electric mixer, which is what I used to do, but the potatoes have to be really soft, because if you use the mixer for more than about 20 seconds they will turn into nasty potato glue;
- A potato ricer. This, with three disks, was $4.99 from Aldi:
Using the disk with the smallest holes, you get a nice blend of smooth and slightly textured:
But this isn’t the best-designed tool and leaves a lot behind:
Heat the milk, butter, salt and pepper in a skillet until the milk is hot and the butter melted:
Pour it into the potatoes, and stir for a couple of minutes:
So now you have bland mashed potatoes. How to make them better?
(1) Double up on the butter.
(2) Add some sour cream, chopped scallions, and of course nutmeg!
Bowl it up, add another grind of black pepper, and a pat of butter for added decadence/deliciousness:
Yum!
-R