How to Cook Mashed Potatoes for a Delicious Thanksgiving Dinner | Pottery Barn

Pottery Barn Party Planner: Thanksgiving Dinner Dad's Mashed Potatoes
Hi I'm Karen Bates. We're here in Anderson Valley at the Apple Farm.
This is my brother Johnny who has his own business down the road, the Booneville hotel.
The Apple Farm is often where we gather during holidays, it's a good spot to bring everybody together,
at the end of our harvest season. We're gonna do mashed potatoes, and uh,
it's not usually my job to do the mashed potatoes, it used to be always my dad, and so
Johnny gets to step into his footsteps and carry on the tradition.
We're gonna start with some Russet potatoes, and we're gonna peel them,
these have a lot of starch in them and so they're very, they work really well as mashed potatoes because the
starch is part of what makes the creaminess of the mashed potatoes.
As far as potatoes, you kind of figure about a half a potatoes per person, so we're gonna
put a generous heaping of salt in there, probably a couple of tablespoons,
so sometimes we add some garlic into the potatoes, lately we've just been throwing a couple of whole cloves in there,
it'll soften and cook with the potatoes as they do, and I'll also add a coupe bay leaves
in thee, it just adds a nice little flavor. Karen's gonna mix the milk, and melt the cream and butter.
and we're gonna warm that up and get that ready, um,
everything needs to be warm as you put this together, so we have about six potatoes, so about six tablespoons, something like that.
Cream, I'd say we're probably gonna use a cup and a half for this, for six potatoes.
Put the potatoes on the stove here, and I'll put the cream on a low heat you don't want
to boil that, especially if it's milk you just want to melt it a low temperature.
And the potatoes we'll cover, so we'll let that go for, set a timer for about fifteen minutes and check them
and then check them every five minutes after that until it's done.
So we've taken the potatoes off the stove, um, we cooked them until they're just nice and soft
you don't want to overcook them or the starch will come out,
so we've got the potatoes here, we're going to discard the bay leaf,
and reserve about, oh, a cup or to at least of the potato water,
to add that back, we need the moisture. You want to start, actually I'm gonna season them with a little salt
in the water, we're gonna put a little salt here, and we're gonna mash them dry first,
And once again, you're not overworking them, but but you're mash, you're mashing them versus beating them
The beating would increase the gluten and you'd get very gooey potatoes at that point,
We're gonna go ahead and start adding some of the butter cream mixture we warmed up.
You want everything warm, and work that in,
it'll absorb quite a bit of, uh, liquid, I'm gonna add some fresh, we're gonna take some of the
pepper ground, the pepper that we toasted a minute ago,
put a little bit of that in here.
I'm gonna go ahead and work in the last of the butter and cream. They'll tighten up as they sit,
so, um, you definitely, you want to get em, you want them on the wet side to set at this point.
We've got these finished now, and if they seem a little dry after you add your butter and your cream and
you don't want to add any more, uh, you just take a little reserved liquid, potato water, and
ad that, because that'll have some of the flavor of the potatoes, and you work that in.
And get 'em, you want them light and fluffy, but you don't want them
so thick that you can't spoon them onto the plate.
Feel free to change things up and move around, that's the whole fun of Thanksgiving,
Let the kids jump in and have a good time, that's what it's all about. Thanks.
Dad's Mashed Potatoes Peel and Cut into chunks 6 large russets. Cover with cold water in a sauce pan. Add 1 TSP salt. Bring to a simmer and cook until very tender. Drain and reserve potato water. In a small saucepan heat: A chunk of butter Milk or Cream, about 1 cup.
Start mashing potatoes, using the reserved potato water as needed. When smooth, start adding the hot butter and cream, along with the salt & pepper. Continue mashing and whipping until fluffy and well-seasoned. Cover with a lid to hold. Dad's mashed potatoes were always lumpless. But they taste good lumpy too.
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