Bad mashed potatoes are rare, but so are great ones

Time:55 minutes

Ingredient Availability: 5/5

Difficulty:1/5

Mashed potatoes are a very versatile side dish. I feel like mashed potatoes would be pretty hard to make bad if you start off with actual potatoes. The hard part is elevating them from just plain potato flavor to something a little more interesting. This recipe has a interesting twist of including mayonnaise, which I’ve never seen before.

Key Ingredients and Omissions:

This recipe is pretty simple, so I didn’t omit anything; you shouldn’t either. Like I mentioned above, this recipe used mayonnaise, which is an interesting addition to mashed potatoes.

Tools:

• Large pot

• Potato Masher or similar

Cooking Review:

Prep: 10 minutes

The prep for this recipe was just peeling and quartering the potatoes. You can also bring your water to a boil during this step. Make sure to generously salt your boiling water to maximize the flavor at the end.

Cook Potatoes and Make Butter Mix: 32 minutes

After boiling the potatoes for 23 minutes, I drained them and added butter to the pot I boiled the potatoes in until melted. I then added the heavy cream and mayonnaise, whisking until smooth.

Mashing Potatoes: 9 minutes

I added the cooked potatoes to the pot with the butter mixture and began mashing. It took a while for the potatoes to come together and start looking like mashed potatoes, so just keep going and stirring until it’s as smooth as you like (or you get too tired).

Analysis:

Despite not being mashed using a ricer or any power tools, these potatoes came out pretty smooth. There were still some lumps, but I didn't mind it. I usually like some textural contrast in almost every food, but I know some people will prefer super smooth mashed potatoes, especially when they’re a side dish. The flavor was interesting, with some tang from the mayonnaise, which I really enjoyed. The butter also provided some nice flavor. Overall, these were seasoned nicely, but it is seasoned to taste, so it’s really up to you. Oh, and there is a good level of creaminess in this potatoes, as well. I’m going to give this recipe a 9/10. I really liked the use of mayo to make the recipe easy, yet interesting taste wise. I don’t think you’d be disappointed with this dish.