How do you boil potatoes? - Page 2

If you're asking for a manufacturer I have no idea. It's a food mill with three interchangeable screens. It says "manodomestic" on it, not sure whether or not that's the brand. 

 

thats what I'm saying, even with the little boiled cubes, they still soak up all the cream and butter I want to add.  But I guess you can never add too much butter. 

 

So how fast could you peel 20 lbs of boiled potatoes?  

 

 

 

Funny, you're the second person in this thread to mention cultured dairy (someone else mentioned creme fraiche earlier). I wonder if you are watching your weight or if you simply like the taste? Personally I don't like cultured dairy (creme fraiche, sour cream, yoghurt etc...) anywhere near my mashed potatoes. When I feel guilty I'll use more milk and less butter, or less cream, but never cultured dairy.

So here is some half baked science that I picked up from America's Test Kitchen...
According to them there is two parts to a starch molecule. The part that plumps when it absorbs water and the protein( glue). When you over boil the potato( or over work the mash), the plumper expands the cell walls so the glue can escape and make everything gummy. Boiling the potatoes skin on allows the potato to better hold its structure and keep the glue inside. Similarly, steaming( forget why but I'll guess something to do with density of steam vs water) can help with the plumping problem.
Now, their recommendation for the best method of preventing the glue from being released calls for par- steaming cubed, peeled potatoes then shocking. Then steaming a second time until done. Something with the shocking inhibits the plumper's ability to absorb more water. From here you can rice or mill or whatever floats your boat.

If you've seen this episode or are more scientifically endowed, perhaps you could shed some more light or correct any errors I( or they) have made. I haven't seen the episode in more than a year and have paraphrased quite a bit. While we're being honest, I've never tried this technique myself. Been tempted, but really I'm pretty good with boiling the whole potatoes without overdoing it.

Ricer vs mill... I use the ricer. It's smaller and easier to clean. Though I suppose if I where doing larger amounts at home I could change my stance. At work, I put them through the meat grinder.

Sour cream... I cannot truly enjoy mashed potatoes without sour cream, cheese, butter, and bacon. The more the merrier! What do you really need a heart for anyway!

 I wonder if you are watching your weight or if you simply like the taste?

 

Strange. I've never associated these things particularly with healthy. Well, yogurt, maybe. But they all taste good, and bring an additional flavor boost to mashed spuds. Ditto when piled on top of a baked one.

 

They also affect the texture of mashed potatoes differently than milk.

I realize I just used the word "healthy" when I really was talking about nothing more than the calorie count. Maybe it's because I didn't grow up with it, but I've always considered sour cream to be a "healthy" (lower calories) alternative to creme fraiche - and certainly lower in calories than butter or cream. 

 

KYH, it's funny, you mention using sour cream on top of a baked potato... and in my mind THAT works perfectly well. Go figure why I can't imagine using sour cream for mashed potatoes. Chalk it up to a cultural habit maybe? 

I don't particularly pay attention to calories when I cook. But just checked the nutrition label, and in 2 tbls of sour cream there are 50 calories from fat, and a total of 60. Is that a lot or a little?

 

True, it's only about 25% of butter's calorie count, and less than half that of heavy cream. But, even so......? I don't have any cream fraiche handy, right now, so have no idea what it's count would be. Yogurt is 130 calories per cup. I haven't a clue how that translates to a comparable sourcream/butter serving. But whole milk is only 150---70 from fat---which isn't a whole lot different.

 

Be that as it may, I don't substitute cultured dairy for the butter. I use it in addition to. So it won't have any low-calorie effects by the time I'm done.

 

Cultural habit? Who can say. There's nothing in my background, one way or the other, about this. It's just the way I do it.

 

You probably do, only you don't realize it because you don't think in terms of numbers. But if your mashed potatoes had 1 lbs of butter per 2 lbs of potatoes you'd most probably make smaller servings than if your mashed potatoes had 1/2 lbs of butter per 2 lbs of potatoes - and in both cases you'd be equally satisfied because you get the same amount of calories. 

 

I wasn't referring to your cultural habits, I was referring to mine. I don't think I've ever heard anyone in France using cultured dairy in mashed potatoes, hence my comment.

 

 

It depends: compared to what? Butter > Cream > Creme Fraiche > Sour Cream > Yogurt

This is another one where I pull out the pressure cooker at home.  Like usual the pressure cooker does the best job of holding potato flavor while manipulating the texture for the better.  Use a pressure cooker and you won't need to worry about a food mill.  Under pressure you can raise the internal temperature of a potato much higher than normal which makes a great texture where you're not just trading off between gummy and lumpy.

 

When I was making them all the time in a pro kitchen I'd steam them, mix them in a huge stand mixer, and run them through a meat grinder (which got really really hot!).

If you need to steam a large batch of potatoes, you could use a Chinese style stacked steamer.  $20-30 at a reasonably stocked Asian market.  Aluminum and typically 14 inches across or so with at least two steaming tiers.  I have several and I use them for large steaming jobs (dim sum, bao, tamales, etc.).  Every kitchen should have at least one.

 

Great idea, thanks for sharing! I'll definitely have to try that. 

 

I must be some kind of nerd, this has really been an interesting discussion.  At home next time I think I'll try; cubed peeled potatoes in the pressure cooker, shock, couple minutes in microwave until hot, rice or mill, gently stir in hot cream and cold butter, cultured dairy optional.  Salt, white pepper, and who adds nutmeg?  I like nutmeg, even with the tang of creme fraiche. 

 

I did try a comparison of peeled, cubed and blanched vs. whole, unpeeled and steamed.  and I was surprised how much more butter and cream the steamed potatoes needed to get to the same consistency.  Seemed like the steamed potatoes also had more "potato" flavor.