When you melt butter on the stove, its milk solids and fat separate. Adding cold butter to your potatoes will allow the butter to melt as a whole and distribute the fat and milk solids evenly.
For the very best result every time, always gently warm the butter and milk before adding to the potatoes, rather than adding cold dairy straight from the fridge. Here's why: Warm dairy is absorbed faster and more easily, with less stirring than its cold counterpart.
Instead, it's better to use cold butter, so all of the starch is equally coated in the fat and milk solids. Whereas it's important to use cold butter for mashed potatoes, you'll want to add cream that's warm or room temperature.
Butter helps make the starchy texture of potatoes richer and eliminates that "cling" some potatoes get when they're freshly mashed. You shouldn't let butter be the only dairy you use, however.
Here's how to do it: For every pound of potatoes in your mash, drizzle 1 tablespoon of melted butter over the dish and fold it gently into the potatoes. If the mash is still too gluey for your liking, repeat the process with another tablespoon of butter. It's that easy!
Cover the potatoes with water and season with 1 teaspoon of the salt. Boil the potatoes until they are fork tender. Drain the potatoes and return them to the saucepan. Add 1/2 cup of the butter, hot milk, sour cream, and salt to taste; mash thoroughly with a potato masher until very creamy.
Put them in a deep casserole or soufflé dish — even a Dutch oven will do — and store in the fridge overnight. Warm them up in the oven the next day, uncovered, with a little butter on top. The extra moisture will evaporate and you'll have creamy potatoes.
Not salting the water.
Like pasta, potatoes absorb the water they're cooked in. Leaving it out means you're starting off with bland potatoes. Follow this tip: Begin the process of seasoning your mashed potatoes by adding salt to the water when cooking the potatoes.
The Mistake: Cutting Potatoes Into Too-Small Pieces
They'll absorb too much water during cooking, preventing them from soaking up all the yummy butter and cream when it comes time for mashing. The best-size chunks for boiling: about 1 1/2 inches.
Restaurants keep their mashed potatoes hot for 3 hours using warming drawers or insulated containers. Also, they use warming elements like adding boiling cream, gravy, or the combination thereof to make the potato heated over long hours.
The best creamy mashed potato recipe!
The secret to beautifully creamy mash is to boil the potatoes in a cream (or whole milk) and water mixture. The potatoes suck up all the goodness from the cream and result in flavorsome potatoes that are beautifully smooth.
If you're looking for flakiness, cold butter is the way to go. You want the butter to be as solid as possible before working with it in the dough, so that it will keep its shape in layers rather than seeping into the dough and tenderizing it.
Why the difference? EXPLANATION: Cold butter melts slowly, which allows you to thoroughly break the butterfat into tiny droplets that can be dispersed throughout the water. And gradually adding the butter one piece at a time slows down the process even further. Together, these steps ensure a stable emulsion.
Cold butter is better than room temperature because you are not blending the butter and dry ingredients together. Rather, you are CUTTING IN the butter. You do this with a pastry blender or two knives, and it is an up and down motion, as you cut the butter into smaller and smaller pieces.
Soupy, watery mashed potatoes usually happen because the cooked potatoes were cut into pieces that were too small, weren't drained well enough, or were overcooked. Fix them: Scoop the watery mashed potatoes into a pan and stir constantly over low heat to evaporate the excess liquid.
To thicken runny mashed potatoes with a thickening agent, add 1 tablespoon of cornstarch, flour, or powdered milk to the potatoes. Stir and continue to add more thickener, 1 tablespoon at a time, until you have the desired consistency.
The foundation of restaurant-style mashed potatoes is perfectly cooked potatoes, with a light texture, silky mouthfeel, and a buttery taste. To achieve these goals, you only need to do three things: Steam the potatoes instead of boiling them. Add plenty of fat.
Make-ahead mashed potatoes are a great option for the holidays. You can do nearly everything — boil, peel, and mash; stir in milk and salt — up to two days ahead. Before serving, reheat. Adding butter at the last minute makes them taste freshly mashed.
Cream of Tartar – makes mashed potatoes smooth and fluffy and helps achieve almost a meringue-like consistency. Salt and Pepper – to taste.
Some people prefer to boil their potatoes whole, while others prefer to cut the vegetables into pieces before boiling. Smaller potatoes (like red gold) will cook faster whole — about 15-20 minutes in boiling water. Larger potatoes (like russet) take a little more time — about 20-30 minutes.