It’s almost impossible to find a meal that is not compatible with fluffy mashed potatoes. The sad fact is that there is a lot of conflicting information in regards to making restaurant quality potatoes at home. Hopefully today we can help to debunk some of these myths and provide some tips to make the perfect mashed potatoes.
Choosing the right potato
There is some debate regarding the proper choice of potato to use in mashed potatoes. Some swear by using Yukon Gold potatoes, while others prefer to use russet potatoes. I tend to fall somewhere in the middle. The Yukon Gold variety is generally a little more expensive than russets. People claim that the Yukon Golds have a “natural butter taste” but I can’t taste it. Even if they do have this slight advantage over russets, adding another teaspoon or two of butter should bring the playing field even!
Mashed Potato Prep
Regardless of which potato you choose, one of the keys to fluffy mashed potatoes is having them all cook uniformly. In my experience, bagged potatoes have several different sizes of potatoes in them. To help ensure they all finish at the same time, cut larger potatoes to match the size of the smaller ones.
Proper Way to Boil your Potatoes
Growing up my family always diced potatoes before boiling them. For this very reason I used this same technique for much of my adult life….until I knew better!
The truth is that potatoes will absorb the liquid that they are cooked in. By dicing the potatoes into small pieces, you are essentially giving the water more overall surface area to soak into the potato. Where I live water has no flavor, so why would I want to it to absorb into my food? For this reason we will cook our peeled potatoes whole or largely intact to help prevent this absorption.
The Key to Fluffy Mashed Potatoes
While it can be tempting to grab the hand mixer that your grandmother always used, it is actually not the best way to achieve super fluffy mashed potatoes. Using a hand masher or fork can also be used, but you are assuring yourself that some larger chunks will remain. A food mill is probably most ideal, but is not always found in home kitchens.
Why Does This Matter?
For the fluffiest mashed potatoes, the goal is to use the gentlest touch possible to avoid bursting the potatoes’ swollen starch granules. Once released, the sticky gel inside will turn the mash gluey. This eliminates food processors and hand mixers from tools needed to make the fluffiest mashed potatoes. They are both too aggressive. So what is our preferred tool of choice? It’s a potato ricer.
What is a Potato Ricer?
The simplest description I can give is that it is like a really large garlic press. The model that I use has different settings to control the size of the grains passed through it. According to Wikipedia a potato ricer is defined as follows:
A potato ricer (also called a ricer) is a kitchen implement used to process potatoes or other food by forcing it through a sheet of small holes, which are typically about the diameter of a grain of rice.
This tool is commonly used to rice potatoes, a process that forces cooked potatoes through the ricer and turns the potatoes into fine, thin shreds. The resulting potatoes are lighter and fluffier. The process allows the full starch cells of high-starch potatoes to maintain their integrity and stay separate, giving the potatoes a fluffy, full texture.
courtesy of Wikipedia
Depending on which version you choose, potato ricers are typically available on Amazon for around $20. I have yet to find another use for it, but I make mashed potatoes enough to justify the small space it takes up in my drawer.
How to Make Mashed Potatoes That Came From a Restaurant
Another overlooked step in how to make mashed potatoes, is when to add the butter and cream. Once the potatoes pass through the ricer, they are thirsty! Adding a little of the butter and cream mixture after each pass through the ricer will help ensure that the fat clings to the potatoes. The reason we warm the butter and cream in advance is to help keep the potatoes warm.
Adding cold milk and butter will not only quickly cool down your mashed potatoes, but it also will not incorporate very well. Mixing the heated mixture a little at a time well help ensure you end up with restaurant quality mashed potatoes!
