I want to prepare mashed potato. Did someone succeed in making a delicious mashed potato dish at home here in Taiwan? Can you recommend what kind of potatoes to use and where to get them? Or how about using potato powder instead of potatoes? Is there more to the recipe, e.g. adding milk or spices?
Boil the potatoes (with a bit of salt) till they’re getting soft (you can stick a fork in them no problem). Then drain out the water. Add a lump of butter and a couple of tablespoonfuls of milk.
Mash (don’t purée)
The big bags from Costco are good for this. Also good for potato salad! :hungry:
You might struggle to find different types of spuds in Taiwan, but I find most spuds do the job.
Me mum’s sure-fire recipe for the best mashed tats:
- Peel and cut into halves or quarters
- Throw in pot of boiling water (you can add a couple cloves of garlic if you like)
- Boil till done (check by sticking a fork in one, if it goes through to the centre easily, they’re done
- Drain water
- Mash and add some butter, sour cream/cream/milk, an egg white if you want (for extra fluffiness), pinch of salt.
Voila - you’re done.
Cooking and prep time: 30 - 45 minutes. Not sure where you can get a masher, I brought one from home.
What Stu said. Powder? You kidding? i did some the other night with an additional little touch of a wasabi and jalapeno hot sauce I have. Pretty nice with some salmon baked in a foil bag with lemon juice, white wine and butter.
Some people also add grated nutmeg but I don’t like that.
Mash, don’t puree. If you want them creamed, then mash first before beating them with the handle end of a wooden spoon.
Oh man…
:lick: :lick: :lick:
When I worked in a restaurant, I made the mashed potatoes with a mix. We added salt and butter. It’s hard for me to tell the difference between the real stuff and the mix. But for home it seems using real potatoes is not that much more work.
mash them prettty much smooth before adding the butter and a splash of milk, to avoid lumpy bits with less elbow grease. if the mix is too sloppy before you mash, you’ll never break up the lumps (the added friction of a drier mashing process shears the potatoes apart faster).
of course, some like the lumps, and i have lived with people who leave the skins on for even more fibre.
What they said, and no you don’t need a special kind of potatoes. I read an article by someone who was searching for the perfect mashed potato, and they concluded the same thing. The ones here from Costco or Wellcome etc. work just fine.
Oh man…
:lick: :lick: :lick:[/quote]
Gahd, salmon is so last night. Get some pollock, you’ll love it. The middle class mans cod.
A russet (nobby or gold) potato makes a fluffy mash.
White potatoes make a creamy mash.
It’s all to do with the starch.
This thread is gold. How about a sour cream and mash fusion thread?
Back home, my aunts would put the boiled, cut in cubes potatoes, in the blender, then mix in some grated cheese and milk, peper, maybe some bacon. Then they would put the mix in the oven.
Here, after being served a potato and sweet motato mash mix, I’ve tried to emulate it, with mixed results. The one I had at that small cafe was awesome. It looked like toothpaste: one strip of potato mash, one of sweet potato.
At home, I usually use cream cheese instead of butter. Not good for your waistline, but tastes good. Oh, and I add some coriander.
If you’re not going to have gravy, I’d prefer a baked potato. There have been a few of those baked potato restaurants in Taipei, but they don’t last very long. The kind where you buy a baked potato filled with whatever you choose.
On YanMingshan is a restaurant called Potato, that sells curry! I wonder if there is an alternate universe with a restaurant called Curry, that sells spuds.
why are potatoes so expensive here? they grow so well in this climate, and I am sure we could easily get some Kipflers or another small knobbly variety (perhaps an old Andean variety) to do well in the mountains. Li Shan or Nan shan for example … better return than cabbage per hectare, i would wager, too.
there is a cafe in ShiPai that is called MEAT.
guess what they sell?
They got potato mashers in most wellcomes.
American potatoes, I find, taste better than Taiwanese ones. Maybe it’s the smell?
I was getting those tiny NZ potato-like things a year or two back. Pink and knobbly. Absolutely delicious. They were grown here. Carrefour occasionally has pretty nice new potatoes – red, yellow and white. Also very good.
But what I want to find is celeriac.
TomHill, a nice bit of pollack would go down a treat. ANY cold-water Atlantic fish would, in fact. God, I remember when I were a lad pollack were called saithe – shitey saithe, in fact. We used to throw them back! Now they’re trendy.
Well, that’s inspiration! thanks for all the suggestions. 
Actually, I am planning to throw in some vegetable in the mashing process. I love mashed potato, but a Dutch stamppot is even harder to beat. So I’ll boil some endive or kale, or maybe carrot. Is endive or kale easy to get here? I think it’s good to add some nutmeg too?
I wasn’t kidding about the potato powder (is that the same as potato starch by the way?). I’m still curious if anyone has found a good potato powder here in Taiwan to make mashed potato? (brand?) Potato powder makes for a really delicious mashed potato dish!
[quote=“sandman”]
TomHill, a nice bit of pollack would go down a treat. ANY cold-water Atlantic fish would, in fact. God, I remember when I were a lad pollack were called saithe – shitey saithe, in fact. We used to throw them back! Now they’re trendy.[/quote]
Like I said, it’s middle class fish. Cod being the fish of the upper classes now.
Anyway, potatoes are New World food, and are not for the palates of us refined Brits.
and to think, in the early days of north east America, lobster used to be what they’d feed the slaves.