I’m finding cooking to be less of an exact science and more of an art. How you combine ingredients and their proportions can help define the dish.
Mash potatoes is a relatively easy dish to make: boil potatoes until tender, dump in a bowl with butter/cream, mash until done. That’s the steps most every recipe I’ve seen has outlined. It’s in between the lines where you can come up with something different. The type of potato, how much butter/cream, skin on or off, extras added. Your mileage may vary but as long as it ends up tasting good then it don’t matter how you got there.
So I bought a bag of potatoes last week which I intended to make mashed potatoes with. I have no idea if these are right for the job. I bought them because they were in a sack which was convenient to carry. This sack had assorted colored potatoes, purple, reds, golds. I took these potatoes washed and removed the dirt on them, threw them into a pot, covered them with water, took it to a boil and then let them cook over medium heat for 20 minutes.
I had also bought bacon. I love bacon on my baked potatoes so I figured I’d throw them in mash potatoes. I crisped up the bacon on a cookie sheet in the oven at 385 for 15 minutes. Usually, I would throw them on top of aluminum foil to make cleaning up easy, but this time I wanted crips so I put them on the bare metal pan. Now, I’ve got to figure out how to clean up a bacon fat congealed pan, but at least they came out crispy. I set the bacon aside to degrease, then chopped it up.
Finally, the garlic. I used the microwave trick. I minced three cloves and placed them in a ramekin with some of the bacon fat. I microwaved them on half power for a minute and a half, stirred them once, and set them in the microwave to finish in another 15 seconds. I forgot to set the power to half. They were almost burnt. Just more dark than I wanted.
When the potatoes were done, I drained them, then started mashing them in a bowl. I don’t have a potato masher, so I used a wooden spoon. I added some salt at this time. Also, some heavy cream and butter which I had heated up in the microwave. I reserved some of the water from the pot to also aid in creaming the potatoes. Sprinkling some salt along with the bacon and the fried garlic, I continued mashing the potatoes until done. I think I went to far as they are a little bit too smooth.
One thing to note is that the purple potatoes were also purple flesh so it looked like ube in there. But they still taste like potatoes.
I guess I’ll be having this for a few lunches before getting sick of them.
