Mashed potato

This article is about the food. For the 1960s dance craze, see Mashed Potato.

Mashed potato, (mashed potatoes in American English and sometimes called smashed potato), is a common way of serving potato in many countries worldwide. It is made by mashing boiled potatoes (peeled or unpeeled) and mixing in milk, cream, butter or vegetable oil, and sometimes cheese. A French variation adds egg yolk for Pommes duchesse that is piped through a pastry tube into wavy ribbons and rosettes, brushed with butter and lightly browned.

Many cooks feel that making the dish successfully is dependent on first returning the boiled (and drained) potatoes to the empty pot and heating them to drive off surplus steam but others feel that this is an unnecessary step.

The success of the dish is a matter of opinion. Some hold that potatoes mashed or smashed with a fork have the true texture of the genuine mashed potato. Some say potato cells are damaged during violent processing such as in a food processor because the starch makes puréed mashed potato very sticky. Others say that passing the boiled potato through a ricer produces a desired refined texture. Other ways of making them include using a hand implement that actually mashes them in the pot or using an electric mixer (not a blender) to mix them into whipped potatoes. Another key factor in the success of mashed potatoes is whether or not to make them lumpy or smooth. Some prefer them lumpy to add a little more substance to the dish, but others prefer smooth so they can focus entirely on the taste. It's also a practice in some cases to include the skins.

Not all varieties of potato are suitable for mashing, the best being floury varieties rather than the waxy types used as salad potatoes. If the latter are used, they will require thorough cooking and mashing or the dish will end up containing small potato chunks. Recommended varieties available in the UK include :

Mashed potato is also an ingredient of various other dishes, including Shepherds' pie, Colcannon and potato croquettes.

In addition to butter, cream, or milk, mashed potato may also be seasoned with salt, pepper (often white pepper, to blend in), and/or a dash of nutmeg. In some countries, other spices may be added for more flavor, e.g. a variety of common kitchen herbs. A white turnip cooked and mashed with the potatoes in a proportion of about 1:10, provides a slight "bite" that mashed potatoes proverbially lack. Alternatively, a little garlic may be cooked with it. In the U.S., mashed potatoes are often covered with gravy. In London, mashed potato is sold in pie and mash shops. It is often served with sausage, in this form being called bangers and mash. Mashed potato was the primary source of humour in the children's television series Bodger and Badger.

In many American households, the top of each serving is hollowed with a spoon in order to form a gravy and/or butter volcano crater.

Dehydrated instant mashed potato mixes are also available, as well as frozen varieties. The dehydrated varieties vary in quality and texture, and purists generally consider them to be inferior. A campaign for one such product (Smash) memorably launched the business of advertising agency Boase Massimi Pollitt.

Potatoes, especially mashed potatoes, have a high GI-index which some consider is bad for health.

Mashed potatoes in cinema

Probably the most famous mashed potato scene in cinema happened in the 1977 American science-fiction movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Early in the film, the central character Roy Neary (played by Richard Dreyfuss) comes into contact with space aliens and experiences a close encounter of the second kind. As a result, he becomes obsessed with UFOs - to the great dismay of his family. He begins making endless models of a distinctive hill - a place he has never actually seen, and with which he is unfamiliar. One night as he sits with his family at the dinner table, Neary suddenly starts heaping large spoonfuls of mashed potatoes onto his dinner plate. As his family watches him, he continues to pile up spoonful after spoonful and then starts sculpting them. His wife and children begin to wonder if he has gone insane. His older son stares at him with a look of pain and sadness. Roy, with an uncomfortable look of shame, tries to acknowledge his discomfort. He says, "Well, I guess you've noticed something a little strange with Dad. It's OK. I'm still Dad. I can't describe it - what I'm feeling."

This scene is parodied in the Weird Al Yankovic film UHF. At dinner, George Newman (Yankovic) insists that the shape of his mashed potatoes "means something".

Reference

Holly Jones with Alan Wilson, The Book of Organic Potatoes, ISBN 0954063104

External links

A recipe for Mashed Potatoes

German cuisine | American cuisine | British cuisine | Irish cuisine | Potato dishes

Gourt Home::Gourt :: Mashed potato

Mashed potatoes in cinema

See also

Reference

External links