Comments on: Mashed Potatoes

Question: Mashed Potatoes

neustile — Fri, 18 Feb 2005 13:24:37 -0800

"Real" mashed potatoes without milk or butter. Recipes?

I've tried adding eggs, soy milk, margarine / canola oil, and nothing seems as good as when I do it with milk and butter. I'm making them for someone with dietary restrictions that can't have milk/butter. With just olive oil they fall apart and get crumbly, with soy milk they taste very strange to me, and with margarine they also taste "wrong" or "flat." What's a good non-dairy 'binding agent?'

By: AlexReynolds

AlexReynolds — Fri, 18 Feb 2005 13:27:44 -0800

What is the dietary restriction? How about lactose-free milk?

By: Gucky

Gucky — Fri, 18 Feb 2005 13:28:30 -0800

Chicken broth is fantastic for flavor and a little bit of texture. Low sodium/healthy chicken broth even comes in pourable containers for cooking.

Also, you may want to fully peel them if you're not already. The peels don't cream up the way pure starchy potato guts tend to.

By: skwm

skwm — Fri, 18 Feb 2005 13:31:04 -0800

My girlfriend has a milk allergy, but it turns out that it's only to cow's milk. - we use goat's milk in everything.

By: Jairus

Jairus — Fri, 18 Feb 2005 13:32:15 -0800

Assuming your guest is lactose-intolerant, use lactose-free milk and canola-based margarine. Or buy them a bottle of Lactaid pills to take with it.

Otherwise, best of luck to you.

By: obloquy

obloquy — Fri, 18 Feb 2005 13:33:20 -0800

Cook the potatoes in chicken stock instead of water (on preview, as Gucky said), and add some good olive oil when mashing & seasoning. If they seem too crumbly, you can put them in a casserole dish after mashing and pour some rice milk & a little more oil over them, then keep them in a warm oven, uncovered, for a little while before serving.

By: tomble

tomble — Fri, 18 Feb 2005 13:37:41 -0800

I don't use anything like that, just a bit of salt, pepper and maybe if I'm feeling daring - a bit of parsley. You can get them quite smooth if you mash them, then give them a good stir with a whisk.

I think the main thing is to get used to mashed potatoes without. I weaned myself off milk in coffee, and now white coffee just tastes odd to me.

Also, different potatoes have different characteristics when cooked. Try a few different varieties and see if that helps the texture.

By: scazza

scazza — Fri, 18 Feb 2005 13:41:43 -0800

For a butter replacement I have been using Olivolio. Made from olive oil but has the texture and taste of butter. Very good.

By: scazza

scazza — Fri, 18 Feb 2005 13:45:37 -0800

Shit, I mean Olivio.

Yea it looks like cheap stuff, but I and my boyfriend are foodies, but he has high cholesterol. Finding that soy butters are crumbly and rock hard I tried this and it is great. Spreadable, has the right color and texture. It may be salted though so I would taste any recipes used with it before adding salt.

By: smich

smich — Fri, 18 Feb 2005 13:48:40 -0800

There's a great natural margarine called Earth Balance that tastes fantastic. It's the only butter substitute I'll use. It spreads well and is good for baking and cooking.

By: Specklet

Specklet — Fri, 18 Feb 2005 14:05:04 -0800

I actually don't add any dairy to my potatoes, out of preference. I peel a few cloves of garlic and toss 'em in with the potatoes, and add chicken broth when mashing. Yum.

By: dorian

dorian — Fri, 18 Feb 2005 14:06:17 -0800

dulse champ. adding dulse (or your favorite seaweed) is quite tasty and adds a bit of cohesiveness.

By: scarabic

scarabic — Fri, 18 Feb 2005 14:23:45 -0800

I've done them with "Silk" brand soymilk (unflavored, naturally), thick vegetable stock, and "Willow Run" brand margarine, and they come out great, if by great you mean fluffy, flavorful, & satisfying. If by "great" you mean "milky" and "buttery," then you're always going to be a little off without milk and butter.

By: briank

briank — Fri, 18 Feb 2005 14:25:04 -0800

Another vote for low-sodium chicken broth, but lose the olive oil.

Instead, reserve the cooking liquid (the broth, which will now have some potato starch in it) and use that.

By: Man O' Straw

Man O' Straw — Fri, 18 Feb 2005 14:38:51 -0800

This might apply:

Milk by many other names:
a cook's guide to dairy and non-dairy "milks."
(Includes recipes and tips on cooking)

By Nancy Ross Ryan

Her mashed potatoes recipe uses oat milk. I haven't tried it, but it sounds like the cook came up with it for pretty much the same reasons you're asking.

From personal experience, I'd add that I've saved mashed potatoes from disaster in the past (ran out of milk and butter) by using plenty of sour cream instead. I assume real sour cream is also on the no-no list, but Imo is a pretty good non-dairy sour cream substitute that might go a long way toward combating the crumbly strangeness if added to other recipes.

By: lobstah

lobstah — Fri, 18 Feb 2005 14:39:08 -0800

Try some minced garlic (to taste) sometime. Also, we love using red new potatoes, skins and all.

By: desuetude

desuetude — Fri, 18 Feb 2005 14:45:19 -0800

Yukon golds moistened very liberally with good-quality chicken stock. The Yukon gold potatoes have a rich enough texture than they seem buttery even without butter. I fooled my saturated fat-loving dad.

I'm fond of adding snipped chives to this. I think that the little bit of fresh and green makes the potatoes seem creamier.

By: neustile

neustile — Fri, 18 Feb 2005 14:47:17 -0800

Thanks everyone!!! I don't know much about the restrictions or the reasons but I'm going to stay away from milk and butter, even the lactose-free kind, to be safe. Will try the chicken broth, dulse (very interesting!), olivio, and peeling/different potatoes (will look for yukon golds tonite.) Good thing I like potatoes. Garlic and horseradish are already in my recipe anyway :) Now, can I mark all these answers as best?

By: Katemonkey

Katemonkey — Fri, 18 Feb 2005 15:36:24 -0800

I've boiled potatoes with sprigs of rosemary in the water, and it gives the mashed potatoes this fantastic herby flavour...

By: TimeFactor

TimeFactor — Fri, 18 Feb 2005 17:41:39 -0800

I'll second smich's Earth Balance recommendation; the stuff is incredibly good. My brother-in-law who has high cholesterol turned me on to it. I adore butter but this is the next best thing. Trader Joe's carries it.

By: macadamiaranch

macadamiaranch — Fri, 18 Feb 2005 18:17:33 -0800

I second Yukon Golds. Make sure not to make the mistake I did once at Thanksgiving:

I was trying to be calorie conscious and heard that mashed potatoes made with chicken broth were a delicious and lower-calorie way to prepare them. But in my literal mind, I thought this meant to boil them in chicken broth, rather than boil them in water and use chicken broth as a thinner/flavoring agent when mashing.

When you boil Yukon Gold potatoes in a pot full of chicken broth you end up with eight pounds of wallpaper paste. Tasty. Lower Calorie. Suspiciously stringy -- think deep dish pizza.

I have no idea what sort of freakish chemistry happened there, but if you decide to go the chicken broth route -- boil in water, drain, mash with chicken broth, serve and most importantly, enjoy.

By: Secret Life of Gravy

Secret Life of Gravy — Fri, 18 Feb 2005 19:23:10 -0800

Garlic Smashed Potatoes

One head of garlic
2 lbs yukon gold potatoes, cleaned and quartered
1 TB salt
3 to 4 TB Olive Oil

Roast the garlic by cutting off the top, brushing with olive oil, wrapping in foil and baking for 40 minutes at 400 degrees.

Meanwhile put the potatoes in cold water, add salt and bring to a boil. Boil 20 minutes. Strain the potatoes and put back in the pot. Squeeze out the roasted garlic and smash with potatoes. Add the oil and smash until desired consistency. You may want to thin with a little cooking water or broth.

By: exlotuseater

exlotuseater — Fri, 18 Feb 2005 20:00:40 -0800

Adding to what Secret Life of Gravy said, if you have a Garlic roaster, which is a little terra-cotta hut for the garlic, you can "roast" the garlic in the microwave in one minute. (you do the same prep.; removing the top of the bulb, olive oil, salt, &c.)

Sometimes I'll eat garlic smashed potatoes all by themselves. I'm crazy like that.

By: librarina

librarina — Fri, 18 Feb 2005 20:22:15 -0800

I recently discovered that my mom has been making the Thanksgiving mashed potatoes with a few globs of mayonnaise instead of butter for years. It's good. Creamy. Of course, if your friend is a vegan rather than lactose-intolerant, the eggs in the mayo will be a problem. I don't think soy mayo would cut it.

By: bonheur

bonheur — Tue, 01 Mar 2005 20:28:44 -0800

Water works. You can add all kinds of things to improve the flavor (see above) but when you're making substitutions you need to think about consistency. In other words, don't try to substitute oil or eggs for milk in a recipe, it won't work. Substituting water for milk, however, does work. The added water (use the cooking water) will give the taters the right texture, then add whatever you like to add flavor.