MASHED TO PERFECTION

ash brings out the fanatic in the most mild-mannered of cooks. People grow heated, insisting that you simply mustn’t peel the potatoes before cooking them; or that they must be cooked in two stages; or that mash is only worth eating if you have first whisked in the equivalent of your own body weight in butter. You would think that mashed potato was a religion rather than a humble supper dish.

Raymond Blanc, the French chef who settled in Britain, is generally a polite and charming man, but he rises to fury when it comes to his sacred pomme purée. “A French potato purée is so different from an English mash,” he writes in Foolproof French Cookery. “One is light, with fluffy peaks, melting and completely delicious; the other is dense and heavy, and folds in your stomach, and has only one purpose — to fill you up.”

In fact, plenty of British cooks are now just as fussy. Former boxer Barry McGuigan, from County Monaghan in Northern Ireland, was an advocate of peace during Ireland’s Troubles but is aggressive when it comes to mash. McGuigan triumphed on TV cooking show Hell’s Kitchen and won the British Potato Council’s “mash challenge” with a nerveshredding version of mash. First he peeled, sliced and boiled Desiree potatoes for 20 minutes. Then he pushed them through a drum sieve. Three times. Even with his strong boxer’s arms, the effort made him perspire. Finally, warm milk and butter were beaten in — an artery-clogging 500g butter to every 1kg potatoes. Just what you feel like cooking when you arrive home exhausted from work.

The truth is that you don’t have to be obsessive to make delicious mash — just careful. It sounds obvious, but the two stages at which it can go wrong are the boiling and the mashing. The problem, as Jeffrey Steingarten (author of The Man Who Ate Everything and another mash fanatic) has written, is the potato’s cellular structure. Undercook or overcook them, and the starchy gel inside the cells will leak out, making the mash gummy or watery.

But don’t panic. It’s simple to cook them just right without rushing out and buying thermometers, as Steingarten suggests. Just don’t boil too slowly (result: lumps) or too fiercely (result: watery). All you do is put the peeled potatoes, cut to an even size, in a pan of cold salty water (about 1½ tsp salt to 1kg potatoes), bring to the boil, then immediately lower the heat to a simmer and cook for 20-30 minutes until tender. Easy.

Now leave them in a colander for two minutes to let excess steam escape while you contemplate mashing methods. The aim is to eliminate lumps as quickly as possible without rupturing the potato’s cells. We’ve all made the rookie mistake of putting potatoes in a food processor, which turns them to a gluey mass.

Perfectionists advocate the potato ricer, where you push it through tiny holes. They are right, though a mouli does the job just as well. But if you don’t have either, an old-fashioned masher is fine, so long as you work fast. Now return the potatoes to the cooking pan and beat in warm milk and a few ounces of butter, or warm crème fraîche and olive oil. The potatoes should be perfectly mashed. Your nerves should not. — © The Daily Telegraph, London