Creamiest mashed potatoes, polenta, etc.?

November 4, 2022 1:10 PM

I’m getting in the hygge mood and want to make a bunch of Pinterest-esque bowls of fluffy, creamy mashed potatoes, polenta, etc. with braised and wine-stewed meats poured artfully across (garnished with chopped chives and chiffonades). What are your favorite exquisitely velvet-y bases for this style of foodstuff?

Bonus points if you’ve got healthy or simple weekday options, but I mostly want to broaden my repertoire (I come from a boiled potatoes family and don’t want to start just inserting butter and cream cheese at random).

posted by stoneandstar to Food & Drink (21 answers total)

Best answer: The Flying Biscuit's creamy dreamy white cheddar grits. Pretty simple. Definitely not healthy. I don't care.
posted by madcaptenor at 1:26 PM on November 4, 2022 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Pioneer Woman gets mashed potatoes right - they are downright sinful!
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 1:27 PM on November 4, 2022 [3 favorites]

Best answer: A food mill makes wonderfully fluffy mashed potatoes. It’s good for lots of other things like apple and tomato sauces, getting the stringy bits out of squash, partially blending soups to give them lots of body, and all kinds of other things. But the best use is to put big chunks of boiled potatoes in there and get a mound of fluffy potato snow with no skin or eyes. In a pot, melt butter and warm milk with salt and whatever other spices, and pour that mixture over your milled potatoes. Fold it together, adding more liquid and butter until you reach the desired consistency. If you overwork mashed potatoes they get kind of gummy, so treat it gently and let the liquid soak in. You can absolutely melt cream cheese and sour cream and different fats into your milk mixture. If you want to go non-dairy, shmaltz is the best butter replacement, followed by a combo of a neutral oil for richness and nutritional yeast for flavor.

I don’t really know from polenta, but this article about making indulgent creamy grits is pretty much on par with how I learned.
posted by Mizu at 1:32 PM on November 4, 2022 [1 favorite]

Helvetic Kitchen is a great resource for this sort of thing!

Pommes aligot is the apotheosis of this, IMO. Much cheese. Seamlessly integrated
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 1:37 PM on November 4, 2022 [5 favorites]

I also came in here to say The Pioneer Woman's mashed potatoes are the very best. How good are they? During Covid when we could have no guests for Thanksgiving, I said to my household "Okay, I'm just gonna cook our favorite things; what do you guys want?" And *all they wanted* was mashed potatoes. Just an enormous pot of mashed potatoes. So I did!
posted by BlahLaLa at 1:37 PM on November 4, 2022 [6 favorites]

I don't eat dairy and make polenta with a generous amount of fruity olive oil, then mix in sliced pepperoni and green olives. Your favorite pizza toppings will do nicely, but pepperoni and green olives are really salty, which works with bland polenta and also beer.

Chili is great on pasta, polenta, or baked potatoes, to it with door cream for extra comfort.

Grits with butter, salt, and pepper are really good, pure carbs, and if you let the leftovers say up, you can sliced and fry them in lots of oil. They get so crispy.
posted by theora55 at 2:16 PM on November 4, 2022 [2 favorites]

Oh gosh yes, if you eat dairy then hands down pommes aligots as linked above by mandolin conspiracy. I still think about the last time I had it and that was probably 8 years ago.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 2:18 PM on November 4, 2022

OH MY GOD this one time at a fancy NYE dinner in like 2005 I had gourmet fancy mashed potatoes made by a real chef with a just a ton of cheese - the potatoes pulled into cheesy strings and it was just exquisite - and I have never had anything like it and I still think about it! It was TOTALLY pommes aligot. I am VERY excited to have a name for that magic, thank you
posted by nouvelle-personne at 2:21 PM on November 4, 2022 [8 favorites]

I don't have a technical recipe for this but its a very yummy breakfast:

soft polenta (cooked with more water for a pourable porridge-y texture) some parmesano does not good badly here. 2 poached eggs on top and garnish at will.
tomato and basil, or salsa and avo, or whatever hits your fancy. its so delicious.
posted by supermedusa at 2:30 PM on November 4, 2022

Bonus points if you’ve got healthy

I do not.

The way my mom made our mashed potatoes growing up was to boil up a bunch of potatoes, then decant them to a bowl where you throw in: a full block of cream cheese, a stick of butter, and a chicken bullion cube (dissolved into a very small amount of hot milk). Then whip whip whip with the electric beaters. I think I've still got the potatoes of my childhood coating my arteries.

On preview I see that this is approximately the method the Pioneer Woman uses as well. Cheese those taters up.
posted by phunniemee at 3:05 PM on November 4, 2022 [2 favorites]

My people made fried cornmeal mush, not polenta. You start a day ahead of time, make a v thick porridge with just salt, stoneground polenta, and water, then pour into into an greased loaf pan to set in the fridge. You can add onion or garlic powder, dried herbs etc too, but don't add much/any fat until you are sure you can get good set, bc the next step is to remove it from the pan, slice it into 1-2cm slabs and fry it on a hot griddle with plenty of oil/butter. It takes a while on each side, but at the end it will be delicious. I usually eat it for breakfast with eggs and maple syrup, but it's also pretty flexible.
posted by SaltySalticid at 3:38 PM on November 4, 2022 [4 favorites]

For many years, I thought I didn't like polenta. Then I discovered that I needed to make it the hard way, from scratch. I am now a happy, if not frequent polenta eater. My favorite stews for polenta are fegato alla veneziana and a fish stew with a lot of onions and tomatoes. I don't have links for these, even though they are simple food. For some reason, the online recipes are wrong: they don't have enough onions.
I like my mashed potatoes a bit rough, so not really what you are asking for, but I would like to recommend this version of bubble and squeak. It says it's a spring version, but I make it in the winter too, with curly kale and parsley, and it is delicious.
Risotto Milanese with ossobuco is in the same family of comfort food.
posted by mumimor at 4:41 PM on November 4, 2022

Parsnip purée is light as feather and velvety. Parsnip? Turnip? The one that’s like a pasty gangly carrot.
posted by janell at 5:58 PM on November 4, 2022

Healthy is relative but I love my mashed potatoes and I guess this is healthier than some of the recipes people are fond of. I boil potatoes in pretty salty water until soft, drain, add a couple of tablespoons of butter, ideally salted butter, a generous amount of freshly ground pepper, a generous splash of milk and start mashing. I like it smooth and fluffy. I don’t feel the need to add cheese or cream, although that is also very tasty. If I use the mash on top of shepherds pie or such, I am more likely to add cheese.
posted by koahiatamadl at 6:26 PM on November 4, 2022

Healthy? Cauliflower puree. But I'd still add a fair amount of fat to it, to be honest.
posted by O9scar at 12:45 AM on November 5, 2022

Oh, I have remembered beans! Small white navy beans cook up wonderfully creamy, especially if you make them from dried. Since they are small you can do an effective hot soak which speeds up the process nicely. Cook with plenty of olive oil and spices plus the nicest stock you have (a collagen rich bone broth is great, or an umami punch of kombu and roasted alliums) until tender. Then either scoop out maybe a fifth and blend, or roughly mash a few times with a potato masher and combine. The mashed beans will incorporate into the cooking liquid and thicken it. Obviously this is very good on toast, especially with some tomato sauce. Also try with some big chunks of roasted carrots and mushrooms, or stretched out with more stock into a soup with other veggies and meats (try kale and ground turkey with garlicky navy beans!) Very versatile and cold weather friendly.
posted by Mizu at 4:07 AM on November 5, 2022 [1 favorite]

Also in the potato-alternatives category: Bryant Terry has an amazing Creamy Cauliflower recipe, which can be paired with peas, or used in place of cream on certain other dishes, or - relevant to this ask - mixed with mashed potatoes to make the potatoes a little bit lighter and creamier (but in a healthy way). I couldn’t find the recipe online in my quick search, unfortunately, but here’s a similar Creamiest Parsnip and Cauliflower Mash recipe (it looks like the person who wrote that recipe can’t eat potatoes, but you could sub back in potatoes for the parsnips).
posted by eviemath at 7:37 AM on November 5, 2022 [1 favorite]

I like a turnip or rutabaga mash, myself. Learning how to recognize woody parts of a turnip or rutabaga and omit those is key to obtaining a delicious end result. But the method is similar to mashed potatoes: peel, cut into 1/4- to 1-inch cubes (larger pieces will take longer to cook, but less chopping time), put in a pot and cover with water, then boil until soft and easily mashable with a fork. Drain well, then add butter and mash with a potato masher or immersion blender. Then sample a small spoonful and add salt/pepper and additional butter to taste.
posted by eviemath at 7:44 AM on November 5, 2022

Oh, another thing along these lines that I learned from the Bryant Terry cookbook was using a carrot purée as the sort of base you describe, in particular, in this Sautéed Cabbage and Roasted Potatoes recipe. The detail that really pulled the carrot purée together that I never would have thought of on my own (not being a trained chef, I guess), is adding a little red wine vinegar (in addition to olive oil). There’s no vinegar in the Creamy Cauliflower, since cauliflower isn’t a root vegetable so has a different consistency, but maybe a dash of an appropriately flavoured vinegar would also help with mashed potatoes, mashed parsnip, or mashed turnip or rutabaga?
posted by eviemath at 7:50 AM on November 5, 2022

A few years ago I revolutionized my mashed potatoes by using an immersion blender. So much more fluffy and light and smooth and creamy than using a masher or a food ricer!
posted by See you tomorrow, saguaro at 10:56 AM on November 5, 2022

If you're making a batch of mashed potatoes, roast a head of garlic first and just squeeze all of it into the potatoes. Add whatever else you like (so many good ideas in this thread!) but the roasted garlic is so flavorful you may not need much else besides a bit of milk and s/p (serve with butter).
posted by lunasol at 12:28 PM on November 5, 2022