Techniques "Elevating" Mashed Potatoes

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As I'm already planning my hosting of Christmas dinner this year, what are your favourite techniques to elevate mashed potatoes?

The one thing that I always do is add Parmesan cheese - the salty cheese flavour addition always goes over well.

When I plan enough to roast garlic for the mash, as the potatoes are cooking I melt what I feel is the correct amount of butter + 18% cream in a small saucepan with the roasted garlic added. I find that infusing the fats with the roasted garlic just makes the flavour blend in better.

What are your favourite techniques?
 
copious amounts of good butter, and then more butter... garlic indeed (do try fermented garlic) coarse salt, cracked black pepper and some spring onion and/or flat leave parsly is one of my favories. Next is adding cheese, either grated or little dice (but do check if the cheese you pick melts or stays intact as some cheeses go gummy which is not so yummy).
Some good truffle goes a long way, or add sage to the garlic infusion, some saffran, ground almonds, heck you can try loads of things.
 
IMO just go with the classic Robuchon pommes puree recipe: fingerlings e.g. ratte, insane amounts of butter & some milk, potato ricer or mill, pepper and salt.

I dont bother tracking down white pepper for it but you can if you like. I believe the ratios are 2 potato : 1 butter : 1 milk
 
This is from his MasterClass. Try to get past the music that the poster layered over the video.
 
One thing I almost always do is fold in thinly sliced green scallions at the end. As with anything, proper salt seasoning is essential. My other standard is to heat up a tiny bit of milk in the micro, then stir in some creme fraiche and room temp butter. I almost always use Yukon gold potatoes, I think they make the best mash.

I've never roasted garlic for them, that does sound good. What I have done is blanched garlic in milk, then hit that with an immersion blender once the garlic cloves are soft, then added butter to fold into the mash.
 
half and half mix of taters and rutabaga is really nice. I always boil them separately as they will finish at different times. If you do this I recommend you use a food mill or ricer, as the rutabagas have a bit more structure than the taters and a hand masher or a fork ain't gonna cut it.
 
Good ideas here so far, thank you.

MarcelNL said:
copious amounts of good butter, and then more butter...
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I'm well known for my reckless disregard for the amount of fat that goes into my mashed :D I do however usually use a mix of butter and the highest milk-fat cream I have available.
 
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I agree with lots of butter and cream! At one of the restaurants I worked at, we also ran the cooked potatoes through a tamis (drum strainer) to really maximize the smoothness. If you have such a fine strainer, you can try.

Just remember not to overmix the potatoes, or else they turn out gummy. Heat up your butter/cream/salt/pepper mixture separately, and mix as little as possible...
 
riba said:
Sauerkraut and (rendered) guanciale.


Hehehehehe ;)
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but seeing kraut did remind me of colcannon, which is a wonderful variation on mashed taters! Here is a recipe I developed for a big event I catered a few years ago:


Colcannon (vegetarian) + crispy bacon on the side makes it meat-eterian
ingredients

  • 28 lbs of gold potatoes
  • 19 lbs of cabbage
  • 4 lbs of trimmed and carefully washed leeks
  • 2 lbs of butter
  • 6 cups of half and half
  • 1+ Tbsp mace
  • Salt and white pepper
  • Parsley
  • 25 lbs Bacon > cut and cook lardons for optional garnish
preparation

  • Boil or steam potatoes until tender
  • Cook the cabbage in some of the butter, add the leeks after a couple minutes, until tender, add mace
  • Brown remaining butter and whisk in hot half and half
  • Mash potatoes and add in other veggies, then add milk/butter mix as needed, season with salt and pepper.
  • Chop bacon and cook until crispy, drain and serve as optional garnish
  • At service time, fold in some fresh minced parsley
 
The Robuchon potatoes are fantastic, but you can't eat them like normal mashed potatoes (quantity-wise). At least, I can't. I mean, I can... but it hits you like a ton of bricks. It's sort of like how you can't eat a 16oz A5 wagyu ribeye, even if you're capable of putting down a 32oz choice ribeye. The first time I made the Robuchon pommes puree was for Thanksgiving, and while everyone agreed that they were delicious, they all thought that they were distinct from mashed potatoes.

The ChefSteps has the easiest take on Robuchon-style puree.



They use a 2:1 potato to butter ratio, but pull back on the milk a bit. It's roughly 275ml milk to 1kg of potatoes.
 
I like making the seasoned (roughly) mashed potatoes into little balls and baking them into crispy mashed potato bites.
 
I don't make mashed potatoes often, but last time, I put sour cream in with half & half. Of course, there was butter, but the sour cream is interesting. I also put Mexican crema in one time, but wife didn't like as much as I did. She does like the sour cream. I've thought about trying buttermilk, but haven't done it yet.
 
Just to have something different you could make a mash out of sweet potato. Wasn't half bad, and might combine better with certain meals / mains.
If you stick with normal potatoes I guess you could either experiment with different potatoes (massive flavor differences with differend strains), or different fats / cheeses.
If you're roasting garlic you could also consider doing garlic confit. Usually tastes better IMO (but that's personal preference).
 
J_Wisdom said:
I don't make mashed potatoes often, but last time, I put sour cream in with half & half. Of course, there was butter, but the sour cream is interesting. I also put Mexican crema in one time, but wife didn't like as much as I did. She does like the sour cream. I've thought about trying buttermilk, but haven't done it yet.
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I have used both sour cream and cream cheese in the past.
 
Hey. To make a Robuchon Potatoe you need to use firm potatoe like french "Ratte" potatoe idk american firm potatoe species. You certainly cannot use yukon gold potatoe. The second thing with robuchon mashed potatoe is to boile the potatoe WITH THEIR SKIN ON and after it is cooked to smash them and pass them 2 times through a sieve or a tamis idk whats the english term sorry, WHEN ITS STILL BOILY HOT. After that you dry them in a pan so that it lost 15% of water. and you add in 5 times half salted butter and that's all not use a wisk but a spatula.

But this greasy smashed potatatoe recipe is not my favorite I recommend you to not use that much butter and certainly not use cream. My recipe is 1 liter of milk for 230 gr of salted butter and a teaspoon of greek olive oil that seems a lot but its less greasy than with cream. And i suggest you to cook your potatoe peeled this time and with burned oignon, garlic, thym and a lemon cut in two this lemon make clearly the difference. I also recommend you to spread grilled piled chestnut over your puree. There is also a technique to not dry the potatoe it is to add potatoe flakes. Cheers.
 
Is the reason to boil them with the peels on just for taste or is there another technical reason? Since I hate somehow getting peels off potatoes after cooking (especially if they're still hot) my 'compromise' has always been to just throw the peels in with the water. Well, that is if I can be bothered to peel at any step in the process. :)

Oh another thing that came to mind; Heston Blumenthal has one of those specials on potatoes that also includes a part on mashed potatoes and had some interesting tidbits. Should be easy to track down on YT.
 
Jovidah said:
Is the reason to boil them with the peels on just for taste or is there another technical reason? Since I hate somehow getting peels off potatoes after cooking (especially if they're still hot) my 'compromise' has always been to just throw the peels in with the water. Well, that is if I can be bothered to peel at any step in the process. :)

Oh another thing that came to mind; Heston Blumenthal has one of those specials on potatoes that also includes a part on mashed potatoes and had some interesting tidbits. Should be easy to track down on YT.
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You'll see the difference when you peel your potatoes the starch and the juice flew in the water . The potatoe cooked with the skin got a much more interesting texture and taste. People dont boile them with water because you need half an hour to have them cooked. But to me there is another reason to do so it is that they keep entire and don"t get messed up or idk. So you don't waste small parts of the potatoe. The pb with this technique is that they are less salty and they don't take the taste of the salted water and aromatics. I peel my potatoe so that they take the oignon garlic time and lemon taste but i never overcook them so that they dont have this horrible watery taste. Robuchon and Bocuse don't peel their potatoe when they make a puree. It also get a bit of earthy taste if you like it when you don't peel them
 
I may be going way against the grain here but I like a bit of a lighter take. I do want a little richness so I do use a bit of butter and some dairy (usually I have half and half on hand) but I use at least as much potato water as liquid dairy. You’ll be surprised at how much potato flavor is left behind there. I also use a bit of yogurt as I like the tartness and I feel it emphasises some of the earthy potato flavor.
 
Potatoes

Copious amounts of butter (I use salted butter, which here is a very different product then is easy to find in NA, where there is less salt and more water/less fat in the butter)

Equally huge amounts of crème fraiche or sour cream

Blend until smooth.

Put results into a whipping siphon, serve that way. You can leave the siphon/s sitting in a water bath at 60C ensuring that they are ready for seconds and thirds.
 
Butter, salt, a bit of cream, a little milk and a food mill. Food mill is the greatest invention for smooth, creamy potatoes. And don't over mix them.
 
Any tips for how to transport them to someone else's house without getting gummy?
 
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