Light as a feather, soft as a cloud
MASHED POTATOES can be one of the world’s great comfort foods if prepared properly
Like many of you, I’m sure, I spent a good amount of time during the holidays cooking alongside friends and family. To be honest, I’m such a control freak in the kitchen that I have a tough time handing over duties for certain dishes to even the most talented cooks I know. There’s no denying, we all like things to taste the way we like them. So when a friend took on the mashed potato duties for New Year’s Eve dinner, I (busy making a bread pudding) just grinned and had a stiff shot of Champagne, for when it comes to mashed potatoes, I only like them one way: buttery, silky, slightly salty and more runny than stiff. Turns out the friend who made them likes them chunky and thick. I cannot deny, I sulked my way through every bite.
Mashed potatoes are one of the world’s great comfort foods, so it always surprises me that so many dislike them. My kids used to recoil at the site of a bowl of mashed potatoes, and though I now have one on board, the other almost tears up at the sight of them. Indeed, the mashed potatoes of my youth, lumpy and thick like my friend’s version, were like eating your way through the Berlin Wall. Yet all that changed when I tasted the chef Joël Robuchon’s famous purée de pommes de terre. Cloud-like, buttery, smooth and delicious, these were the mashed potatoes of which dreams are made. Your fork didn’t get wedged into these superb spuds; instead, this featherlight purée actually sank through the tines. The mouth- feel was close to nonexistent, as it merely hit your palate with a burst of butteriness before dissolving in a poof of potato flavour. Heaven!
Robuchon is heralded as one of the 20th century’s top chefs, and yet the dish he is known for most is his mashed potatoes. I have made them often and even had the chance to taste them in a tiny ramekin at his Las Vegas restaurant, and his were even better than my version of his. Yet with a whopping 600 calorie count per serving, Robuchon’s mash has taken a beating at my stove top. Instead of the full cup of butter he insists on, I’ve reduced it by half, but I still maintain his technique of first drying out the puréed potatoes, then slowly incorporating bits of cold butter followed by the slow addition of hot milk. Potatoes can soak up a lot of liquid, and Robuchon’s recipe produces a light-textured mash thanks to the copious amounts of milk — his whole milk, mine no more than two per cent. As a boost to my lightened version of the recipe, I often add a few spoonfuls of sour cream or replace some of the milk with buttermilk because I like the added tang.
Montreal chefs make some terrific mashed potatoes, and searching through review archives, I discovered my highest praise went to Tuck Shop chef Theo Lerikos’s “fantastically fluffy mashed potatoes,” which were served beneath some superb short ribs. According to Lerikos, I was lucky to have enjoyed my mash in September, when potatoes are in season.
“With the newer potatoes, the sugars haven’t turned to starch yet,” says Lerikos, “so you get a tastier and much lighter purée. The best mashed potatoes I have ever made came from organic Red Bliss potatoes, freshly picked that morning, boiled, easy on the salt, puréed with a food mill and as little cream and butter as possible. I even leave the skins on when they’re fresh like that.”
If Lerikos makes mashed potatoes this time of year, he uses Yukon Golds, but to him this wintertime favourite is at its worst in wintertime. To up the flavour quotient, he will infuse the milk or cream mixture with grainy mustard, and another of his favourite versions is to fold sautéed dandelion greens into the mash at the last minute, a recipe he credits to former Monkland Tavern chef Rick Stiles.
Listening to Lerikos wax eloquent over summer po- tatoes, I get the impression I enjoy chef Robuchon’s version because it’s a smart way to dress up what can become a pretty tasteless out-of-season vegetable. Yet Robuchon’s technique is one worth adopting, especially the four steps of using a food mill (or ricer) to mash the potatoes, drying out the potatoes before incorporating the cold butter and then slowly adding the hot milk. Try it, you’ll like it.
Here is that famous recipe, as well as one for Lerikos’s super spuds, and a lower fat version for those watching the calories but still eager to indulge.