Food for Thought: Mashed Potatoes

Since turkey day is coming up, I thought I would start a new segment. We will call it, Food for Thought. My aim is not only to teach you how to make something step by step, but also tell you why you are doing what you're doing. This will not be a recipe of the day kind of post, because you can find recipes anywhere. In fact, I will rarely have measurements posted because sometimes cooking requires more than just numbers. A simple example is, salt and pepper to taste. Who knows how much you will add? Well you do, till it taste good. Well lets get chopping.

Mashed Potatoes
Yessirrr. Let's start it off easy. And hey, if you have to cook something for thanksgiving, tell them you'll make the mashed potatoes.

What do you need?
Ingredients

• Yukon Gold Potatoes - Ideal for mashed potatoes because they hold a good amount of starch and has a clean look. Russets hold a lot of starch and have a dirty outer layer that may cause your mash to be not as white as you would like. And red potatoes are to small to peel efficiently.
• Heavy (whipping) Cream - Let's face it, more fat, more flavor. Also the thickness of heavy cream will make for a smoother mash. Regular/nonfat milk is far to thin for a good mash. If you want to go a little lighter, you can use half and half.
• Butter - Not margarine. And also get the sweet unsalted butter. Using the salted butter will cause uncontrolled salting of your mash. You can always use salt to flavor later.
• Salt Pepper and Nutmeg (if you can get some) - In this case, you should use white pepper. If you use black pepper, you're mash will have a dirty look to them because of the black specs. Black pepper offers more flavor but white pepper gives a cleaner look. You're food should not only taste good, but look good too. Add a small amount of nutmeg. It's one of those things where you know its their, but you don't know what it is cause theres not enough in there to figure it out.
  

Tools - I will explain what you should use and what you need as a go along with the how to.

Procedure

1. Peel the potatoes. (How much you ask? As much as you or your family wants to eat. Roughly, 1 big potato will feed 2 people and 1 med/small potato will feed one person. Unless you eat a lot, then by all means, make up your own ratio. After peeling each potato, submerge into cold(tap) water. This will prevent the potato from turning (browning).
2. Cut into medium sized similiar sized pieces. This will make cooking faster and they will all cook at the same time, seeing they are the same size.
3. Boil potatoes in a large pot of salted water. The more potatoes, the larger the pot. If you use a small pot and dump a lot of potatoes in, you drastically change the water temperature and it will take a long time to boil again. Also salting the water adds flavor and seasons the potatoes during cooking.
4. Reduce (boil down) cream. On the stove put cream in a pot and wait till it comes to a boil. But, at that moment turn it down to medium heat. If left at a high heat, cream will boil over. What a mess. At this point you can add different ingredients to flavor the cream to create different mashes. I'll give a few examples later.
5. Check potatoes for doneness. To do this, stick a knife into potato. And if you can pull the knife out with out lifting the potato, it should be done. Strain water.
6. At this point, if you have a food mill, you can pass the potatoes through so it will become more smoother. If not, have a whisk in hand. In a big bowl and potatoes and some cream that you've reduced. Whisk hard as potatoes will break and "dissolve" into the cream. How much cream? How creamy do you want it? Add butter at this point. Have it cut up in small pieces so it can melt away in the potatoes easily. Salt and pepper to taste. And nutmeg.

Conclusion
You should end up with a white, creamy, buttery, fattening, mashed potatoes the whole family will enjoy. You can also add different stuff to personalize your mash.

• Garlic - Chop garlic very small. Put in a small pan with vegetable oil and butter. Under medium heat, stirring every now and then, wait till the garlic cooks and becomes a golden brown. Add oil, butter, and garlic into the mash potatoes while stirring to make garlic mashed potatoes.
  
• Herbs - Chop up some parsley, chives, scallion, or whatever you want and add at the end.
• Bacon - Cook bacon separately, chop and add at the end.
• Buttermilk mash - Instead of cream, use buttermilk.
• Healthy Mash Potatoes - Just eat a baked potato with nothing on it.
• Truffle - Add truffle oil at the end.

There are many other things you can add to specialize your mash. Have fun with it. If you have any questions, comments, or what not, feel free to comment this post or email me. Also if you did make mashed potatoes, send me feedback. How was it? What went wrong, if anything? Did the cream boil over? Tell us. And if you'd like to request a certain dish, just ask and email/myspace me. At bombshell , we write what you want to read. Well tell me what you want me to write about so you can read it, cook it, and hopefully, if it taste good, enjoy it.