The Best Mashed Potatoes Aren't Really
“Mashed”
I have a confession to make: the first
batch of mashed potatoes I ever made came from a box. They were
“French's Mashed Potato Flakes,” as I recall, and I was about
seven years old when I made them.
Things have changed, although I do
still keep dried mashed potato flakes around. They come in handy for
lots of other things in the kitchen. Potato bread, for instance. But
when it comes to actual serve-'em-up-for dinner mashed potatoes, I
rely on real, honest-to-goodness potatoes that you have to wash, cut
up, cook, and mash. Is it more work? Sure it is. Is the end result
better? Definitely.
That said, however, when it comes to
the “wash, cut up, cook, and mash” part of the deal, there seem
to be as many opinions on how to do it as there are grains of sand on
a beach. Everybody's got a “recipe” that they learned at their
granny's knee or something, but sometimes you can teach an old dog
new tricks. I know I've certainly picked up some tips and tricks for
better mashed potatoes over the years – besides not making them out
of a box – and I'd like to take this opportunity to pass some of
them along.
The first thing I learned about making
better mashed potatoes is pretty straightforward: use better
potatoes. You know that definition of insanity that says something
about doing the same thing over and over and expecting different
results? Yeah, that was once me with cheap, “bargain” potatoes
from the grocery store. Those “bargain” potatoes you find “on
sale” at the store aren't usually much of a bargain after you wind
up throwing out about half of every other potato in the bag. There's
a reason they're “on sale,” folks and it has nothing to do with
your grocer's altruistic desire to improve your life. You get what
you pay for, so pay for the better quality spuds.
Now you have to decide how you like
your mashed potatoes: do you want them light and fluffy, rich and
creamy, or just a little chunky with maybe some skin left on? Most
people go for the light and fluffy option that is buttery and smooth.
For you rich and creamy lovers, that's okay, too. But achieving that
texture without turning your potatoes into a starchy glue can be a
bit tricky. And as far as the chunky, skin on method, well, it's
probably easiest to prepare, but I'm not so much into chewing my
mashed potatoes and picking bits of skin out of my teeth. Sorry.
Personal preference. So let's focus on the more popular method, light
and fluffy.
First, mix 'em up a bit. Everybody and
his or her mother uses stalwart old russet potatoes for their mash,
right? Ah, but as Hamlet might have said had he been a decent cook,
“There are more potatoes in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are
dreamt of in your philosophy.” More precisely, there are two types
of potato: starchy and waxy.
Within those parameters there are then dozens of different varieties,
russets being just one variety of starchy potato. Make no mistake,
there's a reason the russet – or “Russet Burbank” – is also
called a “chef potato.” (Well, in the UK they call them
“Maris Pipers” because they didn't have Luther Burbank.) They've
always been the ones that are most popular with chefs. Until a few
chefs started experimenting. And came up with some nifty – and
tasty – results.
Starchy potatoes are always best for
mashed potatoes. Waxy spuds – like red bliss or new potatoes –
are great for roasting or for using in soups, stews, or potato salad.
They are very flavorful, but they are also very dense and firm.
That's why they're so good for long cooking preparations; they add
great flavor but they hold their shape and texture well. Which is not
really what you want in a light, fluffy mash. So stick with starchy
potatoes that will fall apart easily. Russet's, of course, but also
consider Yukon Gold.
Yukon Golds are a bit less starchy than
Russets. Russets are a “high-starch” potato while Yukon Golds are
more “medium starch.” The texture difference isn't going to be
that discernible in a mashed preparation, but the flavor difference
will be. Yukon Golds are quite flavorful. Some people like a straight
up all Yukon Gold mash because the very buttery flavor and yellow
color appeal to them. I'm not so much in that camp. I like Yukon
Golds, but not as an “all in” thing. Russets, on the other hand,
are, frankly, rather low in flavor, but their light, fluffy texture
is superior. So, the best results for perfect light, fluffy,
flavorful mashed potatoes will come from a mix of Russets and Yukon
Golds. Half and half maybe? 60/40 perhaps? Make a couple of batches
and play around until you get the balance the way you like it.
Next, we have to consider technique.
Flavorwise, the mix of Russet and Yukon Gold potatoes will be great
for either light and fluffy or rich and creamy, but the final outcome
will be determined by the mashing technique. Basically, the best
mashed potatoes aren't really “mashed” in the traditional sense.
Here's a quick look at some science
behind mashed potatoes. Potatoes – like everything else – are
made up of specific kinds of cells. Cells, of course, consist of
molecules, which are made up of atoms and all the other stuff you
should have paid more attention to in class. The important thing to
remember here is that potato cells are made up primarily of starch
molecules. These cells are a type of carbohydrate bound up as tight
granules surrounded by pectin, a water soluble gelatinous
polysaccharide, if you want to be excruciatingly correct. When
potatoes start to cook, the pectin starts to break down. The starch
molecules within act like little balloons and soak up all the water
they can hold before bursting and releasing all that starchy
goodness. And it's the concentration of this starch that will
ultimately influence the consistency of the finished dish. Got me?
Stick around. It gets easier. Bottom line: if you want light, fluffy
mashed potatoes, you want there to be as little sticky, gluey starch
in your finished dish as possible.
Now, when you beat the holy hell out of
a potato, you wring out and release every atom of starch that potato
has to hold. The result? Wallpaper paste. I'm serious: you actually
can make wallpaper paste from potato starch. Do you want to eat it
with a little butter and some salt? Not so much. So keep your little
starch bombs as far away from things like food processors as
possible. And if you simply must have
that oh-so-French creamy texture that the Frenchies call
pommes purée, okay. Do as
the French do and whack 'em with an electric mixer until they
practically pour out onto a plate. But be careful: the difference
between pommes purées and wallpaper paste is a very
fine line, indeed.
I'm getting ahead of myself a bit.
Before we do all the processing, we have to do the cooking. There are
two schools of potato cooking when it comes to making mashed
potatoes. One school holds that you absolutely must cook
your potatoes whole and skin on for optimal texture and flavor.
Unpeeled potatoes, they say, absorb less water and hold in the
starches better. And there's a good bit of flavor in the skins
themselves that is infused into the potato as it cooks. All true.
The other school says peel' em, chunk
'em, and boil 'em. I'm sorry, potato purists, but I'm firmly in that
“other school.” I've tried both ways and fail to detect
significant difference. And cooking potatoes whole takes longer and
peeling and cutting them while hot is a pain in the......hand. No,
I'm a big believer in peeling, cutting into quarters or other
workable chunks, and boiling. In salted water, by
the way. The first step to seasoning your completed dish is adding
flavor to the water. Just like pasta, when those little starch cells
expand and take on water, they also take on flavor. And it's flavor
you simply can't add later. You may not need as much salt as for
pasta – i.e. a tablespoon per quart – but do be generous.
Oh, and another “by
the way:” unlike pasta, you want to start your potatoes cooking
from cold water. Dropping your spuds into already boiling water will
usually lead to uneven cooking. You can wait until the water heats up
a little to add your salt if you want it to dissolve more rapidly and
efficiently and thus avoid damaging your cookware. The salt won't be
absorbed into the flesh of the potato until the cooking process
starts anyway. But put the cut up potatoes in the cold water first
and then crank up the heat.
Like most people, I would rather have
light and fluffy mashed potatoes that have a little body to them.
Perhaps not so much body that you can use them to sculpt replicas of
Devil's Tower (remember “First Encounters of the Third Kind?) but
enough that maybe they'll hold up a fork, okay? And the way to
achieve that quality is with a ricer or a food mill.
Huh? What about grandma's faithful old
potato masher? Give it back to grandma. It's a potato torturing
device left over from a less enlightened age in the treatment of
tubers. To achieve ultimate lightness and fluffiness, you want to
coax the starches out of the
potatoes, not crush
them out at the end of a blunt-force object. The old masher is just a
slower, less effective way to make glue.
I feel your
questions: what are food mills and ricers and what have they got to
do with potatoes? We'll start with a food mill. It's a kitchen tool
that no kitchen should be without, although most are. Basically, it's
a mechanical means of hand-processing soft foods like tomatoes for
sauces, cooked apples for applesauce and, of course, cooked potatoes.
It's a three-piece gadget consisting of a bowl, a variety of
different processing blades, and a crank handle. You fit the blade of
your choice into the bowl, affix the handle, toss in whatever you're
preparing, and crank. Within seconds, you've got soft mounds of, in
this case, potatoes that are light and fluffy and ready to mix with
the rest of the ingredients we'll get to in a minute.
A
ricer works the same way and is even less complicated to use. It
looks like a giant garlic press and functions in much the same
manner. A ricer is a simple, two-handled unit joined by a hinge. It's
got a plunger on one handle and a perforated receptacle or “hopper”
on the other. The plunger fits into the hopper and when you squeeze
the handles together, the plunger presses the chunks of cooked potato
through a series of small holes in a cutting blade. As with the food
mill, you first select the size of the blade based on your desired
results. Some ricers have separate blades that you have to insert and
some have a movable blade you can just dial around to achieve the
texture you want. The results look like grains of rice, hence the
name for the tool. And those grains are the secret to transforming
your lumpy mashed potatoes into a thing of beauty.
The actions of the ricer or the food
mill are much gentler on the potatoes than your old masher or a mixer
of some sort. The devices provide a uniform size, an even texture,
and they preserve more of the integrity of those little balloon-like
starch cells. As a result, you don't need as much stirring and mixing
of the final product as you do with other methods. The “riced”
potatoes are ready to rock and roll with your other ingredients just
the way they are.
And what about those other ingredients?
All you need for great mashed potatoes are fat, dairy, and seasoning.
You can go off on tangents with garlic and herbs and spices and
whatever else makes your taste buds tingle, but for superior “plain”
mashed potatoes, all you need are those three elements.
Let's start with fat. And that means
butter. NOT MARGARINE!!! That
horrible plasticized abomination has no place in any
decent
kitchen.
Laws still on the books in Wisconsin even prohibit serving the vile
stuff to prison inmates. No. I mean real, honest-to-goodness, direct
from a cow and not a chemistry set butter.
Preferably
but not essentially unsalted. And in quantities more than you would
think wise. One chef I know calls for “egregious amounts” of
butter in his mashed potato recipes. By “egregious” he means more
than a whole stick per pound of potatoes. If you're cooking up five
pounds of spuds for your holiday table, you'd be using about a
pound-and-a-half or more of butter. And that's probably excessive.
But don't be cheap with it. The old saying “there's flavor in fat”
is true. Use as much butter as you're comfortable with – and then
throw in an extra tablespoon or two. Softened butter works best.
Now dairy. You need milk, cream, or a combination of both to add an
extra layer of flavor and to achieve that final texture you're
looking for. Ready made half-and-half is a good option. You don't
need a lot. I was showing off my mashed potato skills to a client
recently and overmilked the damn things, creating a nice warm potato
soup. Way to impress. So add your dairy incrementally until you get
the texture you're seeking. Oh, and make sure the liquid is warm.
Pouring cold dairy into warm potatoes rapidly cools down the whole
mix and increases the likelihood of lumps.
Personally, I tend to mix softened butter into my riced potatoes
first and then add in my warmed dairy. There are a couple of reasons,
one scientific and one not so much. Scientifically speaking, mixing
in the fat with the starch will help coat the starch cells and keep
them from absorbing as much of the water part of the dairy component,
which is what makes the potatoes gluey. From a practical standpoint,
if you do as a lot of folks do and melt your butter in with your milk
or whatever and then pour it all in at once, you're losing out on
the benefit of some of that butter if you don't wind up using all the
liquid. You know, like if you find yourself on the edge of potato
soup. But......whatever works for you.
And
then you finalize your seasoning. If you adequately salted the
cooking water, here's where it will pay off because you won't need as
much salt in the final preparation. And if you used salted instead of
unsalted butter, this is even more so. The only way to tell is to
taste. Culinary school 101: taste, taste, taste!
Once you've tasted, adjust your salt accordingly. Add freshly ground
black pepper if desired, although white pepper is an option if you
don't want little black specks in your fluffy white mash. That's it
for me. Some people go on and on with chives and herbs and parsley
and such, but for me salt and pepper completes the dish. That and a
little garnish of butter to gild the lily.
As
I said earlier, if you want to cream your potatoes into a pommes
purée, that's
your decision. One tip I will pass along to you French chef wannabes
is to cook your potatoes in
the
dairy mix. It'll infuse extra flavor and almost guarantee maximum
creaminess. And if you absolutely have to, have to, have
to
have that almost liquid consistency, DON'T
use
a food processor or a blender. Instant wallpaper paste. Get that
texture in a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment or use a
hand mixer. If you've got one of the nice ones that you can fit with
just one whisk or beater, so much the better. Work at low speed and
don't overwhip.
Oh, and by the way........one more confession/guilty secret: there is
a down and dirty solution to the “potato soup” problem. Thicken
'em up with dried mashed potato flakes. See. I told you they had lots
of uses.
Buon appetito!
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