Rich Mashed Potatoes
"At half a stick of butter per serving, this recipe obviously isn't for everyone, but it makes sumptuous mashed potatoes, rich in flavor and velvety in texture. Since both the milk proteins and the starch in the potatoes tend to mask the butter taste, you really can't use much less; adding the unmelted butter last also preserves its freshness. And no, this isn't the most buttery recipe ever, not by a long shot: "Chez Maxim's" (1962) gives a version from the Paris restaurant with 50% more butter than this, a full 3 sticks for a pound and a half of potatoes!"
- Ready In:
- 40mins
- Ingredients:
- 6
- Serves:
-
4-6
ingredients
- 1 1⁄2 lbs russet baking potatoes
- 3⁄4 cup heavy cream
- 1⁄2 teaspoon salt
- scant 1/8 teaspoon white pepper
- 4 dashes cayenne pepper
- 8 ounces unsalted butter, diced, at cool room temperature
directions
- Peel and quarter the potatoes, and cook 25 minutes in a steamer. (Three or four large garlic cloves, peeled, can be steamed and pureed along with the potatoes.).
- If not yet ready to serve, it is better to leave the potatoes in the hot steamer, off heat, than to make the puree in advance and try to keep it warm.
- Just before serving, combine the cream and seasonings in a 3-quart saucepan and bring to a full boil, so it reduces slightly. Off heat, puree the potatoes through a ricer or food mill directly into the hot cream, and stir together well with a rubber spatula. (The potatoes will seem too dry at this point, but the butter brings them to the right consistency.).
- Add the butter last, beating hard to produce a fluffy texture. Serve at once.
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RECIPE SUBMITTED BY
I am a New York City attorney with over 40 years' serious-amateur cooking experience. My cooking is the antithesis of Mediterranean cuisine: I generally want a blended richness rather than a light freshness (a Strauss tone poem instead of a Telemann concerto, or cooking down jams instead of using liquid pectin). I value basic quality ingredients like vanilla beans or good butter, but have little use for such "in" things as brining, food processors, sun-dried tomatoes, or chichi chocolates that taste weird. I think Americans' tastes are being corrupted by a gross overuse of salt and lemon juice in recipes for just about everything. My favorite cooking is classic French cuisine, but I try to learn how to cook for myself any dish I've eaten that I want to be sure of having again in the future. Among my favorite cookbooks are Escoffier's "Le Guide Culinaire" in French, and Jacques Pepin's two early books on technique and method. (As for "Mastering the Art of French Cooking," it was a landmark when it appeared in 1961, and many of its recipes are still hard to beat; but a half century's experience has uncovered enough errors and misinformation to make it no longer as trustworthy as we all once thought.) Like any other repetitive activity, the actual mechanics of cooking can sometimes be a chore -- but the joy of eating the finished product remains undiminished!
