Mashed Potatoes Recipe

Savior of people or the curse of modern life? Check out this Mashed potato recipe that makes potato a healthy side!

Bad reputation is hard to get rid of if ever possible. Our brain is highly tuned to pick up possible threats and predisposed to make any assumptions that could make our life safer.

The core of this system is based on simple energy management that our body devised to save energy without losing core functionalities or our body. This is the result of the same system which decides to burn our hard-earned muscle mass after a week of inactivity.

Apparently, it takes a lot of hassle to feed our muscles so if we don’t use them regularly, our body sees them only as dead weight and starts to burn them away, so it doesn’t need to use extra energy to carry it around.

What takes a year to build, our body can burn away in a week without a second thought if it deemed unnecessary. Luckily, our brain doesn’t grow smaller if we don’t use it, it only switches into energy saving mode.

In fact, our brain runs on energy saving mode about 50 – 90% of our woken time, using habits to navigate through our daily activities. If something unexpected happens, our conscious is alerted to study the problem and if necessary, changes are made to our old routine or if deemed necessary, new routine is recorded and stored for future use.

Rewarding experiences such as finding a new cake shop on the way home and pop in for a slice of dessert, is instantly burnt into our habit storage and pulled out next time we are on our way there.

Others, less rewarding ones may require some practice, such as going out with our friends for a cigarette break. Smoking is clearly an unpleasant affair but the reward of extra free time and socializing with friends eventually makes it worth at the end.

Given enough time, any habit can be recorded then it is used without thinking about it. Which could be energy, time and at occasions life saving too but not thinking through our decisions time to time means a lot of missed opportunities through our life.

Nowadays, potatoes have a pretty bad reputation due to the fact most of them is deep fried in saturated fat as French fries increasing its calorie and bad cholesterol level. The once savior of Europe that cured peasants of scurvy when introduced from the Americas, now suffers from prejudices because we simply can’t stop dunking it into processed oil.

Skip fats and oils though and we have something entirely different though.

Mashed potatoes is a dish made by mashing boiled potatoes. The resulting mash is then mixed with various ingredients that sought to increase its texture, flavor, and appearance.

There is no rule to make mashed potatoes other than the potatoes need to be smashed. There are some tricks that may make our efforts more rewarding though, such as selecting the kind of potato that is starchier called “floury’ as opposed to the “waxy” ones.

King Edward, russet, golden wonder, and red rascal are all well established floury variety that makes mashed potato fans cheer in elation.

Mash serves as an excellent base for many spices and herbs that can extend their influence in various cuisines across the globe creating distinct dishes.

In the most recognizable form, mashed potatoes don’t have vibrant colors or loud flavors. Butter is the most common fat that is added, mainly because that is readily available, but meat drippings or cooking oil can also be used to make the starchy mass even more appealing to our brain.

The two most commonly used spices, salt, and black pepper are used to elevate the dish while finely chopped chives and parsley is frequently used as decoration and fun accessory to the otherwise bland bites.

Although potato has a bad reputation due to its involvement in deep friers, having it cooked or roasted isn’t at all bad for our body. Compared to other starches, like rice or white flour, consumed in proper amount, we can easily incorporate potatoes into our diets without worrying much about its negative impacts.

Ingredients

2lbs / 1000g Potatoes
¼ cup / 50g Sour cream
2 teaspoons / 10g Salt

How to make Mashed potato

Peel then cut the potatoes up into possibly equal chunks. The smaller the bits are, the quicker they cook.
In a big pot, submerge potatoes in water. Put the lid on then bring it to boil.
Reduce heat to medium low and cook the potatoes until soft in the inside. Test by sticking a knife into one of the bigger ones. If the knife goes through softly without much effort, the potatoes should be ready.
Drain the water, add sour cream and salt. For drier, more floury mashed potato, let them cool somewhat so more water can evaporate.
Mash the potatoes until a uniform texture is achieved. A kitchen robot with a whisk attachment will come quite handy.

Enjoy!

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