Friday, February 25, 2011

Mashed Potatoes (Microwave)

Easier than instant, almost as fast, and much, much better.

Peel about 4 cups of baking potatoes, slice them into a large pyrex measuring cup, and add about a cup of water.

Potatoes cooked in a microwave oven, ready to be mashed

Cover and microwave for 10 minutes, then test for doneness.  Potatoes should be very soft.  This batch needed a few more minutes than 10 in a full-size microwave oven.

Mash them up, water and all, with a hand potato masher. Add your choice of cream, milk, butter, salt, and mash some more.

I dressed them up with dried parsley flakes.

Be sure to use mealy baking potatoes.  Firm, waxy potatoes, like red potatoes, are not a good choice for this preparation.

Feeds several, or there will be leftovers!

To see a full set of photographs showing how this dish was made, go to this set on flickr.   (It will open in a new tab or window; to return to this page, just close it.) The small pictures are thumbnails; click on each one to see it full-size, and to read the comments under it.  If you prefer to use the slideshow feature, you won't see the captions unless you click on "show info" (top right).

1 comment:

Alice said...

Recipe collection is looking great! I'm going to be trying ones I have ingredients for.

Mashed potatoes are a staple of every major holiday meal at my house. So:

Variation for mashed from Oprah - use sour cream instead of cream and milk. Nice rich flavor.

Something to do with leftover mashed:
Beat up some eggs, add egg mixture into mashed slowly to avoid lumps. Doesn't matter if mixture is thick or thin, but try to smash up the lumps.
Add to a pan with 1 - 2 tablespoons of olive oil already warm (not hot). Cook on med-low. Mixture will stay goopy till it all of a sudden starts thickening. It's done when it looks like scrambled eggs.
Salt and pepper to taste. Can add other seasonings like garlic or onion if desired. Serve as is or with grated cheese on top melted just before serving.
Some bacon or salty meat on side is nice.