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Mashed Potatoes Extraordinaire

How do you like your mashed potatoes? See how to get them your way -- lumpy, silky, or smooth -- then add in a flavor surprise!

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Mashed potatoes are the one side dish that almost everyone has on their table. And I've got some great ideas today to get perfect mashed potatoes on your table in no time. Hi, I'm Sandra Lee. Now, when you are thinking about mashed potatoes , it's really important to know what potato in the grocery store you're supposed to buy. You could buy russet potatoes or Yukon potatoes. Both of these will make perfect mashed potatoes every single time. Now, I've already cooked off some Yukon potatoes here. And by the way, when you boil your potatoes, an easy way to check to see if they're done, is just stick a fork all the way through, and if they come apart, they are ready. Now, to these potatoes, I just wanna add some room temperature softened butter. It's important that it be softened and not cold and hard when you put it into your warm potatoes. I'm gonna go ahead, and I'm gonna use just a regular hand-held potato masher. This is the kind of masher that you wanna use if want a nice mashed potato that's got beautiful potato chunks in it. Now if you want something that's a little bit smoother, which you may wanna use, is just a hand mixer. This gives you a much more creamy, light, fluffy potato . Just add a little bit of milk as you go to make this nice and creamy. Most of us like to use a hand mixer because it gives you a nice, fluffy potato that still has some wonderful chunks of potato in it. Now to this, you're gonna wanna add just a little of salt and pepper. If you want a super smooth, creamy potato , the best thing to use is either a ricer or a food mill. Both of these will give you a perfectly smooth potato . Now, let's talk about embellishing the flavor of your potato . You can easily do that with maybe a little bit of sour cream, and certainly some chopped chives, or think about maybe (0:00)

Transcript

" Mashed potatoes are the one side dish that almost everyone has on their table. And I've got some great ideas today to get perfect mashed potatoes on your table in no time. Hi, I'm Sandra Lee. Now, when you are thinking about mashed potatoes, it's really important to know what potato in the grocery store you're supposed to buy. You could buy russet potatoes or Yukon potatoes. Both of these will make perfect mashed potatoes every single time. Now, I've already cooked off some Yukon potatoes here. And by the way, when you boil your potatoes, an easy way to check to see if they're done, is just stick a fork all the way through, and if they come apart, they are ready. Now, to these potatoes, I just wanna add some room temperature softened butter. It's important that it be softened and not cold and hard when you put it into your warm potatoes. I'm gonna go ahead, and I'm gonna use just a regular hand-held potato masher. This is the kind of masher that you wanna use if want a nice mashed potato that's got beautiful potato chunks in it. Now if you want something that's a little bit smoother, which you may wanna use, is just a hand mixer. This gives you a much more creamy, light, fluffy potato. Just add a little bit of milk as you go to make this nice and creamy. Most of us like to use a hand mixer because it gives you a nice, fluffy potato that still has some wonderful chunks of potato in it. Now to this, you're gonna wanna add just a little of salt and pepper. If you want a super smooth, creamy potato, the best thing to use is either a ricer or a food mill. Both of these will give you a perfectly smooth potato. Now, let's talk about embellishing the flavor of your potato. You can easily do that with maybe a little bit of sour cream, and certainly some chopped chives, or think about maybe some bacon in their, that would be nice just make sure you precook before you put it into your potatoes. From everyone here at bhg.com, we want you to have a happy and a healthy holiday season. Enjoy yourself. Bye-bye."