- Today, we're making the most classic side dish ever,
these creamy,
fluffy mashed potatoes.
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where I John Kanell teach you
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to share with your family and friends.
These potatoes won't mash themselves.
So let's get started.
So you have two main options here.
One would be Russet potatoes
and the other one is Yukon Gold.
Russet potatoes are gonna be really
like fluffy and just come apart
after they're boiled.
Yukon Gold are creamy and amazing.
These are my favorite potatoes.
So I'm using them today
but you could always use Russet
or go 50, 50.
If you're using Russet potatoes,
they have a thick skin,
so you definitely want to peal them.
Yukon Gold potatoes have a thin skin
so you don't need to worry about it,
unless you don't like having skin on your potatoes.
If you boiled a whole potato,
it needs to cook for a long time
before the center is nice and soft.
That's a disaster for mashed potatoes.
You don't want them to absorb a ton of water
because when you mash them all their cells are totally full
and they're gonna burst open and release starch.
I'm cutting my potatoes
into half inch thick slices.
So cut them down the middle.
And then you can either quarter them
or make them into sixths or eighths,
depending on how big your potatoes are.
Once your potatoes are sliced,
you have an optional delicious ingredient
to use which is garlic.
Just boiling some garlic with
the potatoes is gonna add a ton of amazing flavor.
So I highly recommend it.
Grab four or five cloves of garlic
and then give them a good smash to release their skin.
And then just plop them in that pile of potatoes.
Smashing the garlic gives it a headstart
on releasing all those amazing oils.
So it's actually better than chopping in this case.
Another mistake people make is to have their pot
of water boiling so everything happens faster
but you do not want to do that.
Place your potatoes and garlic into your pot.
Then we're gonna add cold water and bring that to a boil.
Fill your pot up with cold water
so that the water is about an inch
or two above the potato pieces.
Now we're gonna take our potatoes
to the burner and add about two teaspoons of salt.
Place your potatoes over high heat
and bring to a boil
and then cook for about 10 minutes
or until fork tender.
You do not want to over cook the potatoes.
And one of the reasons that we used cold water
for these was so that they cook evenly.
If you add them into boiling water,
the outside would be overdone
and the inside would still be hard.
So my water's come to a boil.
That means it's time to keep an eye on this.
After about eight minutes,
it's time to check your potatoes.
So fish some out.
I'm using a spider which is so convenient
and give them a slice.
Hmm, buttery,
garlicky and perfect.
Turn this off of heat.
Drain your potatoes into a colander
and then place them right back into the pot.
Now it's time to place your pot over low heat.
You want to remove some
of the excess water from those potatoes
because waterlogged potatoes do not mash deliciously.
All right that's good.
Now let's talk about the delicious things we're adding,
mainly butter and milk.
You can also use cream or half and half
if you want this to be extra rich,
it's up to you.
I'm cutting one half a cup of butter
or 113 grams into roughly tablespoon size pieces
and adding it to my milk.
We're just gonna microwave for four minutes
so that it melts it and gets nice and warm.
You do not want ice cold ingredients going
into your mashed potatoes.
My butter and milk are melted.
Now it's time for the crucial step
which is the mixing.
Gonna pour it in
and then use a wooden spoon to mix things together.
Here we go.
That's nice and mixed.
It's time to mash.
You do not want to over mix your potatoes
because you're gonna burst the cells,
they're gonna explode with starch.
And you're gonna get gluey,
gummy potatoes.
Not fluffy,
creamy, amazing,
delicious potatoes.
Depending on the texture you want,
you can use a potato masher or a potato ricer.
I like mine to be smoother.
So this is a ricer.
Gently mash down and don't overwork them.
You're really just breaking the potatoes up
into pieces that you would enjoy.
You can have extra chunky or totally smooth.
It's up to you but once they're mashed,
it's good.
Don't go overboard.
Creamy and delicious
but they could use some salt and pepper.
So, some freshly cracked black pepper
and I'm gonna give myself some salt,
maybe half a teaspoon at a time.
And of course,
if you're using salted butter you would use less salt.
If you liked this video,
don't forget to check out my side dish playlist.
Creamy, fluffy,
garlicky perfection.
I'll see you in the next video.