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Feathery Potatoes
6 medium-sized potatoes 3 tablespoon butter 1/3 cup hot milk 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/8 teaspoon pepper Pare and boil the potatoes, drain, dry and mash them till smooth. Add seasonings and milk. Beat until very light and fluffy. Serves 6.
A plain mashed potato from a period when "feathery" was the goal and lumps were the enemy. The whole recipe hinges on drying the potatoes before mashing.
- Dry the potatoesAfter draining, return them to the hot dry pan over low heat for a minute or two until the surface steam has gone and they look chalky. Wet potatoes cannot be beaten light, no matter how long you work them.
- The butterThe ingredient list calls for 3 tablespoons but the method mentions only seasonings and milk. Beat the butter in first, while the potatoes are hottest, then add the hot milk.
- Hot milk, not coldThe recipe specifies hot milk, and that is not decorative. Cold liquid drops the temperature of the mash and stiffens it, so it takes more working to smooth out.
- Choose a floury potatoRussets or another high-starch baking potato give the fluffy texture the name promises. Waxy new potatoes will turn dense and slightly sticky however well you treat them.
- BeatingBy hand with a masher and then a wooden spoon, or with an electric mixer on low to medium for under a minute. A food processor or high-speed blender ruptures the starch and produces glue.
- Seasoning scaleHalf a teaspoon of salt for six potatoes is light by current taste, particularly if the cooking water was unsalted. Salt the water, then season the mash again to taste at the end.
- Yield and holdingSix servings as written. If it must wait, keep it covered over a pan of barely simmering water rather than on direct heat, and beat in a little more hot milk before serving.