Better mashed potatoes (a thread wherein I deceive my kids)

[HongKongFooey]

One of my kids has decided she doesn't like potatoes. When this happened with rice I 'discovered' an ancient recipe for Princess Rice such as Mulan would've eaten in Ancient China. My Princess rice was just some onions sauteed in a mild curry sauce and added to the rice but what the hell? She likes rice again.

Now I'm trying to get her to eat mashed potatoes using the same kind of trick. A restaurant in town makes some potatoes she likes, the only potatoes she likes, but I can't figure out the ingredients. I can taste sour cream and roasted garlic in them but there's something else I can't quite place. I've tried steamed cauliflower, pureed white beans, I can't put my finger on it.

I've asked at the restaurant and they only mention the ingredients I've already figured out.

Any suggestions? If you have a good idea for a name for the dish that a six-year-old will like I'll take that too

[Rebo]

Cheese?

Try some variation of "souffle" in the title. French sounds chic! Or "Pommes de Terre au Gratin."

[Falcon]

Hmmm. I can't eat potatoes, but I make fauxtatoes using steamed cauliflower. Since it's runnier than potatoes, I use dairy-free cream cheese rather than sour cream. So maybe try cream cheese? It gives it a creamier consistency than sour cream.

[Queen Tonya]

Use the garlic and sour cream you've figured out, and add a few drops of food coloring? Together with an outlandish name, the change in appearance to make it fun might do the trick.

Of course the rest of the family might not enjoy chartreuse taters, but won't it be fun watching them try to fake it?

[HongKongFooey]

Originally Posted by Dolores Reborn

Cheese?

Hmm, mighta been cheese. I should have mentioned the colour and texture of the potatoes wasn't changed much from regular riced potatoes. Might have been cheese though, they had a bit of a sweet taste. I really thought I had it with the cauliflower but they were just a bit off, not sweet enough.

[HongKongFooey]

Originally Posted by Queen Tonya

but won't it be fun watching them try to fake it?

Yes, yes it would

[Miss Purl McKnittington]

Originally Posted by HongKongFooey

Hmm, mighta been cheese. I should have mentioned the colour and texture of the potatoes wasn't changed much from regular riced potatoes. Might have been cheese though, they had a bit of a sweet taste. I really thought I had it with the cauliflower but they were just a bit off, not sweet enough.

Do you think it could have been another root vegetable? Rutabaga maybe?

[HongKongFooey]

Originally Posted by Miss Purl McKnittington

Do you think it could have been another root vegetable? Rutabaga maybe?

Definitely could have been rutabaga. I won't be completely sure until I try it but that sounds like a good candidate.

[Falcon]

It might be the kind of potato you use. Some are sweeter tasting. Try Yukon Gold, maybe (working off of memory here).

[HongKongFooey]

Originally Posted by Falcon

Try Yukon Gold, maybe (working off of memory here).

You're right, Yukon Gold make wonderful mashed potatoes. My wife rolls her eyes at me when I go grocery shopping, she thinks we only need one type of potato on hand. But I need yellow for mashed, red for roasting, white for everything else.

[Hunter Hawk]

If you have access to purple potatoes, would that be worth investigating for the novelty factor? (And anyway, they're good for making mashed potatoes even if it weren't for the color.)

Does your kid like celery? If so, you might want to experiment with adding celeriac to mashed potatoes.

[HongKongFooey]

Originally Posted by Hunter Hawk

If you have access to purple potatoes, would that be worth investigating for the novelty factor? (And anyway, they're good for making mashed potatoes even if it weren't for the color.)

I've never tried purple potatoes. The middle one loves purple so I think she would eat them
at least. I think that would be fun.

Originally Posted by Hunter Hawk

Does your kid like celery? If so, you might want to experiment with adding celeriac to mashed potatoes.

My wife vetoed celeriac, I thought it was pretty good.

[Amblydoper]

Butter.

Restaurants put far more butter in mashed potatoes then any of you would think is healthy. They also use heavy cream (35-40% fat), not milk (3.5%) or half and half 15-18%) . You may also want to adjust your technique: Boil them from cold, super-salty water, drain them completely and let them dry out a bit, run them through a ricer or tamis, and don't over work them when you mix in the other ingredients.

[Zombies!]

When my li'l bro went through a "No Veggies" Stage, mum did a lot of things that included stuff like mixing ketchup into the mash. It makes the mash salty-sweet, and gives it a pretty awesome pink colour (which if you don't mix it until it's entirely incorporated, gives it some pretty neat swirls as well). I still like mash and ketchup sometimes.

[HongKongFooey]

Originally Posted by Amblydoper

Butter.

Restaurants put far more butter in mashed potatoes then any of you would think is healthy. They also use heavy cream (35-40% fat), not milk (3.5%) or half and half 15-18%) . You may also want to adjust your technique: Boil them from cold, super-salty water, drain them completely and let them dry out a bit, run them through a ricer or tamis, and don't over work them when you mix in the other ingredients.

I think you're right. My wife and I found ourselves without kids for the evening and she wanted to go to that same restaurant so I had a chance to test the potatoes again. They change the recipe every night for the mashed potatoes but that taste I described is always there and it is very buttery. Not like any other mashed potatoes I've gad though. Tonight's mashed spuds were supposedly Parmesan-mashed according to the server but he was either wrong or lying. There was cheese but it was white cheddar, I could taste that pretty clearly.

My next question - is there a difference in the butter a restaurant uses or is it the same as what I can buy at the grocery store?

In my quest to replicate this recipe I've amassed quite a collection of mashed potatos recipes between this thread and my experiments. One of my favourite combinations so far was a puree of cauliflower and celery which I mixed in with the potatoes. Maybe someone else reading this will find that one useful - use lots of butter!

[Veb]

Adding well-cooked soft parsnips to the mash might work as well to add sweetness. Just don't tell impressionable younguns what it is. I think the name turns people off: parsnip, a half-snip of a veg. They're absolutely luscious though. True, they don't look particularly enticing in their raw form, sort of like albino carrots, but roasted or mashed and they morph into wonderful, meltingly delicious sweetness.

They'd also be a few zillion less calories and a buttload less plaque in the arteries. I love sweet butter and cream but much better to reserve them for dishes where they shine on their own, IMO.

[HongKongFooey]

I've never used parsnips in there, that'll be good! Hunter Hawk mentioned celeriac, that makes a wonderful masher as well for anyone who hasn't tried it. I usually roast it first if I have time.

[Hunter Hawk]

Originally Posted by HongKongFooey

Maybe someone else reading this will find that one useful - use lots of butter!

To be more specific, use lots of cultured butter. It has a much better flavor than the standard stuff.

Speaking of rutabagas and parsnips, the Finns have a recipe that involves mixing mashed potatoes and mashed turnips (IIRC), then baking it slowly for a long time; apparently the slow cooking makes it sweeter or something. You might want to poke around for more specific instructions.

[HongKongFooey]

Originally Posted by Hunter Hawk

To be more specific, use lots of cultured butter. It has a much better flavor than the standard stuff.

Ahhh, thank you, I didn't know that. That might be the little difference I'm picking up.

[Fenris]

It could also be the texture. They eat rice? Get a potato ricer

Boil some potatoes, squish them through the ricer, and you get something between rice and pasta (and it's a fun, play-dough type thing to do too). Put a blob of butter on top and you save yourself the 10 lbs of butter that really good mashed potatoes need...

[Elyanna]

My mom puts bacon in 'em. bacon makes everything better.

[Pamplemousse!]

Just be sure not to overcook the potatoes if using a ricer. Overcooked 'taters, riced, are abysmal.

And Elyanna is correct. Bacon makes everything better. So do fried onions. With bacon.

ETA: my mother cracks a raw egg in the hot mashed potato and stirs it through along with tiny-diced onion. It's very delicious. But right now I'm really wishing I had mash with fried onions and bacon, because DAMN that'd be good.

[Girl From Mars]

You could always try Colcannon (some recipes include garlic and bacon). Or Bubble and Squeak - the name alone may give this a pass!

[Amblydoper]

Originally Posted by HongKongFooey

My next question - is there a difference in the butter a restaurant uses or is it the same as what I can buy at the grocery store?

Well, that depends. I've worked in fine dining and family dining and everything in between. Most places use regular butter, the same that you could buy at a grocery store. However, I've also used some high end stuff, like Plugra and other European style butters, that have more butterfat and less water. Kroger or Safeway may not carry the good stuff, but Whole Foods, or another upscale grocery store will have many options. They cost more, and are really great to work with, but I don't think they are justified for use in the home. Just stay away from margeraine and "blends."

Sunchokes are also great to through into your mashers. They have an earthy sweetness that is closest in flavor to cauliflower. You could aslo try salsify, although I have never mashed salsify myself. I have seen white sweet potatoes, and I bet you could mix those in your potatoes too.

[HongKongFooey]

Originally Posted by Amblydoper

Most places use regular butter, the same that you could buy at a grocery store.

This was my problem. Most restaurants have mashed potatoes that are not as good as what I make it home. This one restaurant had something extra I wasn't able to identify. The restaurant is right next to the farmer's market downtown and there is a vendor there selling European butter; I suspect that's where they're getting a lot of their ingredients since they've made a big deal about using local and fresh ingredients. It's not too much to get it there so I'll pick some up next time I'm there.

Re: margarine, ick. My wife likes margarine, that's part of the reason I do so much of the cooking.

[Sapo]

Some good stuff here (even the scary sounding bubble and squeak). I like to mix pumpkin in my mashed potatoes. Better to roast it than to boil it. The color ends up being rather appealing (carrots also work) and the hint of sweetness is also well received by the little ones (who love pumpkin anyway).

[Amblydoper]

Oh, great idea, Sapo. I've done butternut squash and acorn squash in mashers, but never pumpkin.

[CrazyCatLady]

I like putting some caponata in mashed taters. It won't taste anything like what your restaurant is making, of course, but it's good. And since our caponata came out agonizingly salty, that's about the only way it's fit to eat.

If you can't get hold of the fancy butter, or don't want to spend the extra on a regular basis, you could try some cream cheese. We got a recipe out of Cook's Illustrated once that used cream cheese instead of milk and butter, and it has a tang like sour cream but still a touch of sweetness. Or maybe a dollop of vanilla yogurt or very lightly sweetened plain to give just a hint of sweetness.

As for what to call it, does she have a fondness for any characters who came from the country in Europe or the Americas? If she likes the older animal-based Disney movies like 101 Dalmations or The Fox and the Hound, try telling her this is how the dog's owners made their mashed potatoes.

[FrozenBananas]

My kids went through a not eating mashed potatoes stage. I didn't have to change my recipe at all, I just renamed them "clouds". They go well with "green bubbles" (peas). They didn't like tomato soup either, til I told them it was ketchup soup.

Another idea, if you made half the batch pink and half the batch blue you could tell her the good fairies from Sleeping Beauty got to them, and if you mix them together you get purple!

[HongKongFooey]

Originally Posted by FrozenBananas

Another idea, if you made half the batch pink and half the batch blue you could tell her the good fairies from Sleeping Beauty got to them, and if you mix them together you get purple!

Wow, you described an ideal dish for my three-year-old, a fan of Sleeping Beauty and purple. It's been a rough week so I haven't been able to experiment with all the great ideas from this thread yet. I really like the cream cheese idea a few people have suggested, I think that will be a hit with my wife (she's a bit picky too).

[FrozenBananas]

Sleeping Beauty was my favorite movie at that age too, especially the fairy fights. I hope you try it and tell us how it went over.

[blank]

Another vote here for a potato ricer- Gives a very nice mouthfeel to mashed potatoes. Otherwise use the old French recipe of adding half the weight again of potatoes in butter.

[HongKongFooey]

Originally Posted by blank

Another vote here for a potato ricer- Gives a very nice mouthfeel to mashed potatoes. Otherwise use the old French recipe of adding half the weight again of potatoes in butter.

I do use a ricer but that's one hell of a pile of butter! Are you Paula Deen?

[Sapo]

Originally Posted by HongKongFooey

I do use a ricer but that's one hell of a pile of butter! Are you Paula Deen?

I think/hope that was meant to be humor. Otherwise you are just adding the texture of potatoes to a dish of butter.

[blank]

Originally Posted by Sapo

I think/hope that was meant to be humor. Otherwise you are just adding the texture of potatoes to a dish of butter.

Nope- I seem to remember a quote by Escoffier which claimed adding half the weight again in butter "did the heart good".

[Sapo]

Originally Posted by blank

Nope- I seem to remember a quote by Escoffier which claimed adding half the weight again in butter "did the heart good".

Is this Escoffier the world famous cardiologist?

[bengangmo]

Originally Posted by Bytes When Provoked

Just be sure not to overcook the potatoes if using a ricer. Overcooked 'taters, riced, are abysmal.

And Elyanna is correct. Bacon makes everything better. So do fried onions. With bacon.

ETA: my mother cracks a raw egg in the hot mashed potato and stirs it through along with tiny-diced onion. It's very delicious. But right now I'm really wishing I had mash with fried onions and bacon, because DAMN that'd be good.

You are my friend - fried onions and bacon in mashed spud rocks.

I also remember adding yams or parsnips - that's great

I like to add milk and butter.

Maybe you could add a little bit of yam and call them Pocahontas Prairie Potatoes and say it was what made Pocahontas so brave?

[bengangmo]

Originally Posted by Sapo

Some good stuff here (even the scary sounding bubble and squeak). I like to mix pumpkin in my mashed potatoes. Better to roast it than to boil it. The color ends up being rather appealing (carrots also work) and the hint of sweetness is also well received by the little ones (who love pumpkin anyway).

You are pure evil. I have been here so long that I forgot there was even such a vegetable as pumpkin. Roast pumpkin, oh how I miss thee.

[Sapo]

Originally Posted by bengangmo

You are pure evil. I have been here so long that I forgot there was even such a vegetable as pumpkin. Roast pumpkin, oh how I miss thee.

Where are you that you cannot find pumpkin?!

[Helen's Eidolon]

I'm a member of a CSA, and one week we got purple potatoes. They were AWESOME. We're a bunch of grad students living in my house but I felt like we were five, we were so excited about our food being a fun colour.

Maybe I am 5. I love adding food colouring to the cookies I bake.

[bengangmo]

Originally Posted by Sapo

Where are you that you cannot find pumpkin?!

Singapore - I don't recall ever seeing it here. And in any case the only way to eat pumpkin is roasted with a leg of lamb, which we never do here either...

[HongKongFooey]

Well, it's been about ten days since I started this thread but unfortunately I've had very little opportunity for cooking. I had a sick baby for a week and I'm just now getting back on my feet (literally) following a back injury. I do however have some success to report in my quest for delicious mashed potatoes aside from all the great ideas that have come up thus far.

I tried browning some butter (heating it gently until just past the frothing stage) and then added it to the potatoes along with some nutmeg. Delicious. Then last night on the food network I saw chef Michael Smith brown some and add it to some butter he had whipped. I tried that today and it was even better!

Now to come up with a kid-friendly name for them...