Mashed potatoes, holiday time's comfort food

For a thoughtful home cook, whipping up a batch of mashed potato can induce an identity crisis. What kind of potato: Russet, Yukon, fingerling, blue or red? Do you boil or steam? Use broth or cream? Melt the butter or keep it at room temperature? And don’t even start on the add-ins: garlic, onions, herbs, chiles, even chocolate. Fortunately, while this humble concoction’s versatility resembles nothing so much as a choose your own adventure book, all roads lead to a delicious conclusion.

The first order of business for a mashed-potato cook is simply deciding which kind of potato to use, a debate largely settled amongst American chefs. It’s either Idaho russets or Yukon golds, depending on your flavor preferences. The former is the least likely to turn starchy while the latter has a mild buttery flavor. Be wary of other spuds, particularly smaller ones.

“Red potatoes tend to get a little more gluteny,” says Joseph Kaplan, chef-owner of Joe’s Garage, a Minneapolis restaurant famed for its mashers. “They don’t whip up as nicely.” Better, says Kaplan, to save those for roasting.

Once the potatoes have been selected, the home cook wades into murkier territory: Skins or no? Though leaving the skins on inevitably means a slightly coarser texture, it also yields a better flavor and, since the skins are rich in nutrients, helps to keep the dish from becoming merely a conduit for butterfat.

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Now that the potatoes are ready to cook, another series of choices is at hand: Bake, boil or steam? Whole, chunks or diced?

The goal is to cook the potatoes evenly without going overboard. “If they get waterlogged, they can get more of a mealy texture,” says Bruce Weinstein, author of the “Ultimate Potato Book,” and whose recipes include unexpected additions like white chocolate. The temptation with a mealy mix is to add more butter or cream to try and repair the texture — and likely ending up with runny potatoes.

Go too far in the other direction and undercook, however, “and you’re going to guarantee lumpy potatoes,” adds Weinstein. Potatoes are cooked when they are soft enough that a knife easily penetrates the skin, but the skin is not blistering or peeling off on its own. Your best bet is to cut the potatoes into large, equal-sized chunks, maybe 2” cubes, and either boiling (faster but therefore easier to mess up, yields more moist potatoes) or steaming them (less likely to overcook, slightly drier potatoes).

Smashed or smooth?
Once you drain the potatoes — don’t rinse them with cold water, you want them to stay warm and to retain the starch — it’s time for the mashing. This is where your texture preferences take hold. For coarse, smashed potatoes, simply use a hand-masher. A more typical American mashed potato requires at least a hand mixer, which you’ll want to start on low to break the potatoes up; for the silkiest potatoes, you have to use a hand-cranked potato ricer. Whatever you do, don’t reach for the Cuisinart. “Stay away from the food processor. That will guarantee you a gummy mess,” says Weinstein.

As with any starchy food, be careful about overmixing. “If you mix them for too long, you end up with kind of a sticky, wallpaper paste,” particularly if they’re also overcooked, warns Rizon Moss, the sous chef at Denver’s Rialto Café, a local mashed potato haven. As you’re blending the potatoes to a fluffy consistency, sprinkle in salt and pepper to taste—and here Rizon has a presentation trick: “Use white pepper. It gives a nicer color, and you taste it but you don’t see it.”

Keep in mind that this is a hot dish, so working quickly is key — if the potatoes cool and stiffen, your careful texture control will have been for naught. To that end, when you make your next culinary choice — do you use milk, half and half, cream or chicken broth to smooth them? — it should be hot, and the butter soft but solid. This helps to keep the potatoes hot, and gives you a fluffier texture. If you’re adding in any embellishments — roast garlic, caramelized onions, crumbled cheese, fresh herbs — this is the time to do it.

Having made most of the big choices of the day, there’s only one remaining: Do you serve the whole thing, or set aside a little extra for yourself?