My approach to making mashed potatoes, is to follow the Kiss principle. I don’t add cream, grated cheese or pepper. I never make mashed potato the centre attraction of a meal, instead it is there to offer some balance to a meal, especially if other parts of a meal have strong flavours.
Here is how to make mashed potato / potatoes:
Note: Children require the supervision and help of an adult as a sharp knife and boiling water is involved in making mashed potato.
Ingredients:
- Potatoes!
- Milk
- Butter or margarine
Step 1 – Wash, peel and chop up the potatoes.
Always wash your potatoes, even though you are going to peel and boil them. After washing them, peel the potatoes. Some people can easily peel the skins off with just a knife, I like to use a potato peeler, and find that much easier (stops me from removing too much potato!).
To make the mashing a bit easier later on, it is a good idea to cut the potatoes up into small chunks.
Step 2 – Boil the potatoes.
Now you need to boil the potatoes on the hob until they are reasonably soft. Don’t overdo it, but by not cooking them enough, they will be too tough at the mashing stage, plus won’t taste as good. The way I check is to place a knife into a piece of potato and if it easily goes in, they are ready to be drained. You should turn the hob off now. So when ready drain the potatoes through a cullender over the sink.
Step 3 – Mash the potatoes.
Once the potatoes have been drained into a cullender and the water is out of the saucepan, I then put the potatoes back into the saucepan. I don’t turn the hob back on. Instead I mash the potatoes using a potato masher. I guess you could attempt it with a good solid fork, never tried and probably not as good.
Step 4 – Add the milk and margarine.
I then add some milk and a bit of margarine. Though you don’t really need to add the butter or margarine, but I prefer the extra taste. I put the hob back on for a few minutes whilst I mix the milk and butter in. You only need to add a bit of milk, as you can easily ruin the mash and make it too soft. I can’t give you exact measurements for milk and margarine due to the amount of potatoes you might be mashing.
Et voilà!
Serving suggestions.
I love mashed potato with vegetarian sausages, onions and gravy, else with beans instead of the gravy. A mashed potato recipe for me is to keep it simple and the end result to taste great, but when I leave the table I’m not hungry anymore. My girlfriend and I will also freeze the mashed potato we make, enabling us to heat it up in the microwave during a busy week.
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