Mashed Potato Add-ins

I grew up with basic, bland food. Watching my mother, I learned to mash potatoes with the addition of milk and margarine.

Over time, I’ve experimented with roasted garlic, butter, various seasonings like smoked paprika, parsley or thyme. I always add some form of non dairy milk as well for texture.

I was watching a favorite vlogger on YouTube, Atomic Shrimp, and he added butter, sage, chives and a raw egg. I’d never seen a raw egg used before.

what goes in your mashed potatoes?

Butter, salt, pepper, real bacon bits. Sour cream to top.

Try making;

Bubble and squeak
colcannon

Both mashed potato based dishes. Both delicious.

A raw egg??
Other than butter and milk (or buttermilk) I will sometimes add cream cheese and or chives. Actually lots of cheeses work---parm, boursin spread, sharp cheddar. Bacon works too. Or caramelized onions.

I made mashed potatoes last night (with grilled salmon and spinach saut�ed with garlic).

I tried the egg, but it still needed moistening (or more than one egg). I also added butter, almond milk, sage and prodigious amounts of Asiago cheese. It was delicious but the cheese was not Whole 30 compliant and technically I should be starting over. However, I decided on day 1 that this would be a “dirty thirty”. Unfortunately I feel quite bloated this morning and it may be due to the cheese.

The egg goes in raw, but the heat of the potatoes cooks it. Not much riskier than a runny fried or scrambled egg. IMO anyway.

But what does the egg add to it? Flavor? Texture?
I am not afraid of raw eggs but I can't imagine the heat of the potatoes cooks the white enough so it isn't gloopy.

I never sensed it�s presence. Atomic Shrimp made mash for one and used a single egg. I made mash for three (probably could have served five) and only added one egg. So, I probably needed another 2-4 eggs to achieve the same outcome. I will try again and be a little more faithful to his video and let you know. I�m guessing it adds richness and texture and moisture and protein. Maybe it�s hallucinogenic. I won�t know until I do it properly. Oh, and it�s beaten egg.

I�ve made my own version many times. Generally mashed potatoes and green cabbage cooked in the fat of the bacon I add to it. I�ve had bubble and squeak at the company caf in a UK plant. I didn�t notice any seasoning, but maybe there was some.

No add-ins here, please. And no lumps in the potatoes! For me, mashed potatoes are simply an excuse to eat gravy.

Whole egg is kind of strange, but I could see adding egg yolks to give it a glossiness.

I don't make mash often, but I don't mind making something like colcannon. A few years ago there was a chef here who convinced everyone (for a while) that Irish stodge was the new haute cuisine and everyone in Sydney was making colcannon or variations of it.

Boiling the potatoes in chicken stock also adds a bit of depth.

Jo�l Robuchon demonstrates his most famous dish:


English translation is in the comments on YouTube.

Nothing. I’ve only made mashed potatoes once this way. Patricia Wells, who I think was the food critic at the International Herald Tribune back in the 80s and 90s wrote a number of food books as well. For one of them she went in the kitchen of Joel Robuchon in Paris and worked with him to write a cookbook of some of his recipes. One of them was his mashed potatoes. It started with nearly as much butter as potatoes and maybe a bit of heavy cream. That was mixed in a large blender with a heavy arm to mostly mix it up. Then the potato/butter mix was pushed through a fine screen with a wooden mallet, multiple times to make them very, very, smooth. I thought my arms were going to fall off from pushing a thick mix of potatoes and butter through that screen. But they were divine. You can approximate them without the screen. The large amount of butter is critical. I’ve also had them in his restaurants which lets someone else do the work.

Oops. I posted when I read the first post and didn’t scroll to the end. But yes, the Joel Robuchon version. Wonderful.

I've never done the egg thing, but I would suspect the yolk would add a richness to it. The egg white probably not add much to it. That said, you can't do it too hot else the egg will cook and scramble... haven't seen the video, but I'd probably fold the egg (yolk) into the mash...

I generally do butter (or a little bit of bacon fat if I have it on hand) and maybe some green onion/chives. I occasionally add shredded cheese for a change of pace. Goat cheese isn't too bad either. When I was younger, I would sometimes mix in some spoonfuls of my mom's pork bone soup into it along with some of the meat...actually small strips of any meat is always a nice addition. Real bacon cut up works as well.

My uncle adds a hard-boiled egg when he makes mashed potatoes. I don't think adds much to the dish.

In addition to garlic and white pepper, we add chicken or beef stock to make it a bit more smooth while also adding a bit of saltiness.

Yep, did you see the massive amount of butter he used? He had a better screen to strain it through than I did so I had to hold both the screen amd mallet I was using to push the mix through.

Whole grain mustard