Cooking delicious mashed potatoes. Puree with hard cheese

Any housewife knows how to cook mashed potatoes. But not everyone knows how to do it right. The mashed potatoes prepared according to this recipe have nothing to do with that gray, sticky starchy mass that is served under the guise of this wonderful dish in catering establishments. The right recipe for mashed potatoes is a special technology that allows you to create an airy, white and delicate mass.

Mashed potatoes

Total cooking time - 35 minutes
Active cooking time - 20 minutes
Cost - $ 0.8
Calorie content per 100 gr - 137 kcal
Servings - 3

How to make mashed potatoes

Ingredients:

Potato – 5 PCS. It is best to choose old potatoes. From a young delicious puree will not work.
Milk- 1/3 st. Milk can be replaced with another liquid: potato broth, cream, sour cream, water.
Butter - 3 tbsp.
egg white - 1 PC. If you add whipped protein to the puree, then the puree will become airy. And if the egg is whole, then you get a puree that resembles a delicate cream in consistency.
Salt- taste
Pepper- taste
The juice citric- 1 tsp for 2 l. water.(vinegar, citric acid - added so that old potatoes do not darken when cooked)

We also need a mixer, pusher (or sieve), pan.

Cooking:

Peel the potatoes, cut into 2-4 parts and boil in water with the addition of vinegar. Tubers should be placed in boiling water in portions so that the boil does not stop, which should be neither excessively strong nor weak. It is enough to boil potatoes for 15-20 minutes. Cooking should not be longer, because during prolonged heat treatment, the tubers become very soft, the tissues break up into individual cells, which sharply worsens the taste of food and leads to the loss of valuable nutrients.

Salt the potatoes 5 minutes before removing the pan from the heat. This manages to keep more mineral salts in the tubers. Drain water from potatoes.

Cover the pan with a napkin and put it on a very low heat in order to dry the potatoes for 2-3 minutes. Potatoes brought to readiness in this way are able to absorb more milk and butter, which means that mashed potatoes will be even tastier.

Mash the potatoes with a masher. For these purposes, you can not use a blender or food processor, otherwise you will get a tasteless sticky mass. Add butter to the hot puree. Mix.

Arm yourself with a mixer and start whipping the puree. Continuing to beat the puree with a mixer, add milk. It must be hot: from the cold it acquires an ugly gray color.

Beat mashed potatoes for at least 5 minutes. At the final stage of whipping, you can add whipped protein - this will give the puree even more airiness.

Tip: To improve the taste of mashed potatoes, you can add additives at different stages of cooking. When boiling potatoes, you can add onions, garlic, bay leaves, carrots, cloves, etc. to the water. When whipping into a puree, you can add green onions, dill, parsley, fried onions, cracklings, cheese, nutmeg, pepper, yogurt, etc. If you need to get a creamy, plastic mashed potato, then after adding butter to the mashed potatoes, you can add one raw egg, then immediately stir it in quickly so that the protein does not have time to curdle.

Bon appetit!

What could be easier than mashed potatoes? It would seem that this is one of the most banal dishes of our traditional cuisine and everyone knows how to make it (as well as the no less traditional Olivier). And this is true - with one amendment. Not everyone knows how to make it tasty. What do you need to pay attention to in order for your mashed potatoes to really succeed?

1. Choose yellowish potatoes for mashing: they are better boiled.

2. To add flavor to the potatoes, you can put a clove of garlic, a whole onion, or a small whole carrot into the pan while cooking.

3. Don't skimp on mashing. It is not enough just to crush the potatoes, you need to actually beat them - then there will be no lumps in it and that same creaminess will appear.

4. The taste of puree will be more delicate if you add a couple of tablespoons of mayonnaise, sour cream, unsweetened yogurt or processed cheese to it.

5. Mashed potatoes will be more plastic if you add a raw egg to the mashed potatoes and beat well.

6. Potatoes must first be boiled. Sometimes problems in the form of small lumps are precisely the result of undercooked potatoes. Checking readiness is very simple - if a knife or fork pierces a potato without any resistance, then it is no doubt already cooked. To speed up the cooking of mashed potatoes, you can cut them into smaller pieces instead of boiling them whole.

7. Spare no butter. Its presence makes the puree tender, helps to achieve a creamy consistency and gives a light creamy taste. The main sign of "stolovsky" mashed potatoes is wateriness, which indicates the absence of fat in it. And butter (moreover, normal, with a fat content of about 80%, and not margarine, coquettishly called low-fat butter) is the best thing you can add to puree. Of course, there are situations when it is simply not at hand or it is absolutely impossible to use it. Then it is forced to replace the butter with vegetable, necessarily refined oil, alone or in combination with finely chopped and fried to a golden color onions. This will make the mashed potatoes much more edible. But back to butter. For 0.5 kg of potatoes, it will take 50-100 grams.

8. Presence of liquid. You have two options - either not completely drain the water in which the potatoes were boiled, or add milk. Liquid is required, again, to make it creamy - otherwise the potatoes will fall apart into crumbs. Adding milk is optional. In my opinion, this adds a certain flavor that spoils the impression of mashed potatoes a little, and in addition, exposes the dish to the danger of rapid souring.

9. Do not add cold milk - the puree will turn gray.

10. When the potatoes are cooked, drain the water and return the pan (with potatoes, but without water) to the fire. Keep on low heat under the lid for 2-3 minutes, shaking the pan from time to time. Thus, the absorbed water will evaporate from the potatoes and it will become more crumbly.

11. Puree remarkably "friendly" with the following additives and spices: white pepper, roasted garlic, fried onions, fried mushrooms, chives, parsley, dill, mustard, grated parmesan, thyme, rosemary.

12. If you need to reduce calories, in addition to replacing milk with potato broth, you can replace half of the potatoes with another well-boiled vegetable with a mild taste: turnip, kohlrabi, parsnip, Jerusalem artichoke.

And finally,"Bride's Pie" - simple, but very tasty!

It turns out the cake is ruddy, tender, hearty and very tasty with a delicate filling of mashed potatoes, chicken and eggs ... Let's cook ...

Dough Ingredients:

• eggs - 3 pcs
• sour cream (fat content of sour cream is not important) - 250 ml (I took 50g)
• mayonnaise - 250 ml (I took 200g)
• flour - 250 ml
• baking powder for dough - 1 tbsp. the spoon

Filling Ingredients:

• mashed potatoes - 200 g
• boiled chicken fillet - 200 g
• boiled eggs - 3 pcs

Test preparation:
Break 3 eggs into a bowl.

add sour cream and mayonnaise.

Mix everything thoroughly and add the baking powder for the dough.

In small portions we introduce flour, carefully mixing until a homogeneous mass.

The dough should not be thick, the consistency of sour cream.

Filling preparation:

Boiled eggs cut into small cubes.

Chicken fillet also cut into small pieces.

Mix mashed potatoes, eggs and meat.

The filling can be completely different to your taste. This pie is just as delicious with mushrooms, cabbage, fish and any other filling.

If your form is not detachable, then it is better to lay parchment or baking foil on the bottom. Lubricate the form with vegetable oil.

Pour half of the dough into the mold.

On top of the dough, spread the filling evenly.

Pour the rest of the dough into the filling mold.

The cake is baked at a temperature of 180 degrees, 20 - 30 minutes. Check readiness with a toothpick, if the cake is ready, the toothpick will be completely dry.

The baked cake will have a very beautiful golden brown crust. The pie is delicious both hot and cold.

And one more recipe, although this is not mashed potatoes, but also delicious Garlic potatoes ....

We take 5 potatoes. Wash thoroughly.
We put it in a saucepan. Then we pour water so that the potatoes are slightly covered. We cook until ready. We drain the water.

Making garlic butter:

• 100 g soft butter
• 5 tbsp grated Parmesan
• 1 tbsp sour cream
• 3 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
• 3 tbsp finely chopped parsley

Mix everything and season with ground pepper and, if necessary, salt.
Cut the potatoes lengthwise, put on a greased form. We spread garlic oil on each potato and put in an oven preheated to 250 g.
Cooking time 10-15 minutes. Bon appetit!

Mashed potatoes are one of the most popular dishes of the Slavic national cuisine. Lush, tender, fragrant, it literally melts in your mouth - of course, if you know how to cook it correctly! Cutlets and sausages, chops and gravy, sausage, ham, tongue and other meat delicacies turn out to be much tastier if puree is served as a side dish. In this article, we will discuss different recipes for this dish.

Steamed potatoes - pros and cons

Nutritionists believe that the most correct way to boil potatoes in general and how to mash potatoes in particular is steaming. Why, you ask. But the fact is that if you pour vegetables with water and keep them in boiling water, most of the vitamins and other nutrients pass into the liquid. If it's soup or borsch, it's okay, we'll eat it anyway. But when the decoction is not used, it’s a pity, because a lot of valuable and necessary for our body disappears.

Steaming, on the other hand, is the best option for how to cook mashed potatoes: the root crops will soften, and everything valuable will remain in them. What you need: If you have a steamer, great. No - it does not matter either, it is very easy to build. Especially in the presence of a plug-in grid. With success, it can be replaced by a stainless steel sieve or a colander. The only downside to steaming mashed potatoes is the time spent on the process. It will take a little more than with conventional cooking.

Cooking technology

Wash the potatoes, peel, rinse again in running water. Cut into 4 pieces. If it's small, you can use it entirely. Sprinkle with fine salt, shake several times to distribute it evenly throughout the potatoes. Pour water into a sufficiently large saucepan - so that it does not reach the container with the vegetable. Install a colander or other device where you put the cooked product, and cover tightly with a lid. Let the water boil over high heat, then reduce it and cook at a gentle boil. This will take 40 minutes.

When the potatoes become soft, take them out, transfer them to a dry pan and carefully crush with a pestle or chop with a mixer or blender. Salt if necessary. Fill with butter and enjoy! Now you know how to steam mash potatoes.

Puree ordinary

If time is running out or there is simply no desire to stay in the kitchen for a long time, do it easier. Peel about a kilogram of potatoes, cut into medium-sized pieces and pour hot water (so that it only covers the vegetables). Also peel and cut into half rings 1 small onion, put it in the pan too. Pour a teaspoon of salt and put everything on gas, on a strong fire. When it boils, make it smaller and cook for 20-25 minutes over medium heat.

Then you do this: pour most of the broth into a clean container - you will still need it. And leave a little liquid in the pan so that it is more convenient to mash the potatoes in mashed potatoes. Potato, with onions (do not throw it away, chop it with the main vegetable), seasoned with butter, the puree turns out to be hearty, tasty, especially fragrant. Tip: to make the consistency of the dish more tender, while grinding, add the strained broth. Of course, do not overdo it, so that the puree does not turn out to be liquid. And thanks to the moderately added broth, your dish will turn out exactly the way gourmets like it.

Potatoes for dumplings

How to cook mashed potatoes so that it can be used and as a filling for dumplings? The recipe is this: peel the root crops, cut into quarters, pour salted boiling water over it and cook until tender. Shortly before turning off, put a few bay leaves in the pan. While the potatoes are cooking, make the fry. To do this, heat 4 tablespoons of vegetable oil in a frying pan, cut one and a half onions into cubes and fry until golden brown. Finely chop the dill sprigs.

When the potatoes are cooked, drain the water, and put the pan back on the gas, on a small fire, so that the moisture completely evaporates. Then carefully wipe the potatoes through a sieve or mash with a wooden masher. Pour onion fry, add dill, ground black pepper and coriander to taste. Add salt, if needed, and mix well. Such mashed potatoes, the recipe of which we have given here, smell delicious, very tasty, you can eat it on its own, and make excellent dumplings out of it!

Milk puree

A diet dish that is perfect for small children can be prepared by boiling potatoes with milk. To do this, pour the prepared vegetables with boiling water and boil for 10-15 minutes. Then drain the water, and add boiling milk to the pan - one and a half glasses. Salt and cook until tender. Next, mash the potatoes in mashed potatoes, trying to avoid lumps, season with butter. You can sprinkle with chopped herbs. And serve to the table! Offer a couple of slices of boiled sausage to the dish - and the feast will be a success! Along the way, we add that potatoes can be completely boiled in water and only diluted with milk, but always hot: cold it will turn your mashed potatoes into an unappetizing grayish mass.

Puree with sour cream

With sour cream or cream, you get an excellent mashed potato. You already know the primary cooking technology: wash, peel, cut, put on fire. Salt the water quite a bit! If you are concerned about the question of how much to cook mashed potatoes, then we will answer this way: for too long, almost to porridge, you do not need to process it. Just try to prick a piece on a fork. It is possible to do it easily - everything, remove from the fire.

But let's keep on praying! You need to boil the root crops, crush, beat, season with a small amount of oil. While the potatoes are cooking, take a small piece of hard cheese or cheese (100 grams is enough), grate it on a fine grater. Pass a couple of garlic cloves through the press (about 3-4 pieces per 1 kg of potatoes), mix with cheese. Put the mixture in sour cream (one and a half cups or 250-300 g), pepper, mix. Pour into the finished puree, beat well and send the pan for 15 minutes in a hot oven. Serve sprinkled with herbs. And don't forget the fresh vegetable salad - it's a great combination!

Another recipe for mashed potatoes from the oven

This version of the dish is somewhat similar to the previous one, but differs from it in the composition of the ingredients and, of course, in taste nuances. When the potatoes boiled in water become soft, mash and beat them until fluffy. Melt 4 tablespoons of butter (tablespoons), grate a piece of Swiss cheese to make about a 200-gram glass. Heat a glass of milk and beat 4 egg whites. Put butter, cheese, salt and pepper to taste in milk, mix and pour in a thin stream, also stirring, into mashed potatoes. Put the egg whites into the cream, beat with a whisk or a blender. Transfer the dish to the mold and place in a warm oven for half an hour. Serve hot with grilled meat.

Potatoes with cracklings and other types of dishes

Cut 200 g of lard or bacon into medium-sized cubes. Do not make too small, otherwise they will fry and will not be tasty. Fry them in a pan until golden brown. Then add the chopped onion and continue frying until tender. After mashing the potatoes, pour in the baked cracklings, mix and help yourself by serving pickled vegetables or adjika to the dish!

How can you make mashed potatoes even more with culinary imagination? Season mashed potatoes with meat broth, for example. Or melt the butter, crush a handful of dill seeds, a little fresh herbs and garlic, mix and season the puree with this mixture. A handful of crushed nuts can be poured into the milk-potato mass.

It is useful for every housewife to learn how to properly and tasty cook one of the most popular dishes - mashed potatoes. To do this, you need to have some skills and knowledge that will help you achieve a good result when making mashed potatoes. To make the dish perfect, you need to be able to choose the right variety of potatoes, learn the basic cooking technologies and recipes for all types of this dish.

How to make mashed potatoes

Any hostess, having seen a beautiful, yellow, fluffy crumpled potato in a photo on the Internet, wonders how to make mashed potatoes so that it looks like in a restaurant. First you need to master the basic secrets of preparing ingredients, as well as the standards for cooking this dish. First you need to rinse the potatoes under running water. Then remove the peel and cut into 3-4 parts, then cook the root crops until tender. Then top the potatoes, add a little salt and serve.

How to make delicious puree

An important question is how to prepare mashed potatoes in such a way as to satisfy the most demanding taste. To do this, many chefs use additional ingredients that give the finished dish a special delicacy. For flavor when cooking, add a clove of garlic or carrots to the pan, some use onions. To achieve a beautiful color, only hot milk is poured in. In order to achieve a delicate creamy structure of the main ingredients, you need to heat the milk, and then pour it into the potatoes while mashing with a blender or wooden pestle.

No lumps

To properly cook delicious potatoes, it is best to use tubers of yellow varieties, they are better boiled. Often, Russet potatoes are used to make mashed potatoes - potatoes with a high content of starch, red skin potatoes, or Yukon Gold. To achieve a homogeneous mass without lumps, excessive boiling of the product should not be allowed. Many cooks use a sieve instead of standard potato chopping devices, through which the product is rubbed with a wooden spoon, which eliminates the formation of lumps.

Air

To make crushed potatoes loose and fluffy, there are several nuances. To begin with, you should pay attention to the fact that finely chopped potatoes cook faster and pound better. This will enable the hostess to more carefully ceiling the potatoes, so that it will become airy. It is worth noting that potatoes, crushed dry, are better saturated with oxygen, which also affects the splendor and friability of the finished product.

Mashed Potato Recipes

In the modern world, there are a huge number of mashed potatoes recipes, as this potato dish is one of the popular side dishes. It is served both with meat and fish, a variety of salads or as an independent dish. But, like any other dish, mashed potatoes have their own classic recipe, and several popular variations.

Classic recipe

• Cooking time: 25-35 minutes.
• Servings: 4 persons.
• Calorie content of the dish: 106 kcal per 100 grams.
• Purpose: side dish for lunch.
• Cuisine: Russian.
• Difficulty: easy.

The recipe for Classic mashed potatoes is one of the most common in Russian cuisine. This soft and tender dish is suitable as a side dish for any holiday table or just for breakfast, lunch or dinner. The classic recipe for mashed potatoes is highly valued in all countries of the former USSR and beyond, and even a child can cook it.

Ingredients:

• Potato - 1 kg
• Milk - 150-200 ml
• Butter - 50 g
• Salt - a couple of pinches
• Black ground pepper - to taste

Cooking method:

1. Peel the potatoes, rinse with plenty of water, cut into small pieces.
2. Put the slices in a saucepan, pour water, salt, wait until it boils, if necessary, remove the foam, cover with a lid. Boil potatoes over low heat for 15-20 minutes until tender.
3. Drain the water from the potatoes and mash with a potato masher.
4. In another pan, heat a small amount of milk and melt the butter there, thanks to this, the mashed potatoes will become lighter. Pour mixture into potatoes.
5. Salt and pepper the finished dish, then beat with a wooden spoon.

On milk

• Servings: 4 persons.
• Calorie content of the dish: 80 kcal per 100 grams.
• Purpose: for breakfast.
• Cuisine: Ukrainian.
• Difficulty: easy.

Often, housewives think about how to make mashed potatoes with milk tasty and healthy. The answer is simple: thanks to the addition of any dairy product to the potato, it does not lose color, remains loose, airy for a long time and is saturated with a new unique taste. This dish goes well with main meat or fish dishes or roasts, such as fried onions.

Ingredients:

• Potato - 1 kilogram
• Onion - 1 piece
• Bay leaf - 2 pieces
• Butter - 100 grams
• Milk - 150 milliliters
• Salt - to taste

Cooking method:

1. Peel large potatoes, rinse under running water, cut into large pieces. Pour the slices with water, bring to a boil and salt a little.
2. Add the peeled onion and a few bay leaves, cook until soft.
3. After the potatoes are cooked, the water is drained from the pan, the onion and laurel are pulled out.
4. Grind the potatoes first with a crush, then by whipping with a mixer. Add non-cold milk and butter.
5. At the end of cooking, salt the dish again, then mix well.

On the water

• Cooking time: 25 minutes.
• Servings: 2 persons.
• Purpose: for breakfast.
• Cuisine: English.
• Difficulty: easy.

Any person who is engaged in cooking knows that mashed potatoes can be prepared both in milk and in water. If you strictly follow the technology, then the taste of potatoes mashed with water will be no worse than mashed potatoes with milk. Cooking a dish on the water has its own special name - according to Blumenthal. Thanks to this recipe, you can be sure that milk is far from being an obligatory ingredient in mashed potatoes.

Ingredients:

• Potato - 1 kg
• Salt - to taste
• Butter - 100-150 g

Cooking method:

1. Peel and wash potatoes.
2. Boil whole root vegetables in salted or plain water.
3. According to the recipe, the tubers should be in water at a temperature of 62 degrees for half an hour; chicken broth can be used instead of water. Drain the water after complete cooking.
4. Next, add butter. Mash the potatoes using standard means.
5. For uniformity, pour the potato mass into a sieve, then grind.
6. Garnish the puree with green onions and serve.

Butter free

• Cooking time: 27 minutes.
• Servings: 4 persons.
• Calorie content of the dish: 74 kcal per 100 grams.
• Destination: for lunch.
• Cuisine: European.
• Difficulty: easy.

The absence of butter in mashed potatoes does not affect the appearance at all (this can be seen by looking at any photo where such potatoes are presented) and the taste of the dish. Therefore, the question of how to cook mashed potatoes without oil disappears by itself. This type of puree will be an excellent side dish for any main meat or fish dish, or as a filling for pies or buns. This dish has a smooth texture and goes well with fried mushrooms.

Ingredients:

• Potato - 6 pcs.
• Milk - 100 ml
• Onion - 1 pc.
• Sugar - 1 tbsp. the spoon
• Salt - to taste

Cooking method:

1. Peel the tubers, cut into small pieces, throw in lightly salted water. Boil for approximately 20 min.
2. Pour water out of the pan, put on a slow fire, then pour in the milk. Wait until it boils, salt and ceiling, if desired, you can add a few chicken eggs.
3. Peel the onion and chop finely. Pour 5 tablespoons of water into the pan, then add sugar. Once the sugar has dissolved, add the onion to the skillet and saute until golden brown.
4. Transfer the onion to the pot with the potatoes, mix well.

With cream cheese

• Cooking time: 40 minutes.
• Servings: 10 persons.
• Calorie content of the dish: 133 kcal per 100 grams.
• Purpose: afternoon tea.
• Cuisine: English.
• Difficulty: medium.

Puree is a great side dish for any meal. The classic recipe has long gained popularity among residents around the world, but it can also be improved by making the taste a little spicy. Expanding on the standard recipe, many cooks beat in egg whites or yolks, some use the whole egg to achieve the perfect consistency, but there are those who like unusual combinations of potatoes with cheese or heavy cream.

Ingredients:

• Potato - 1 kg
• Heavy cream - 100 ml
• Butter - 50 g
• Cream cheese - 100 g
• Edible salt - to taste

Cooking method:

1. The tubers must be cleaned and washed with plenty of running water. Then cut them into large pieces. Throw the workpiece into the water, cook until tender. Salt the vegetables while cooking.
2. Boiled potatoes need to be crushed with a special press (you can see the design of this device in the photo on the Internet) or use a pusher. At this stage, it is necessary to add cream, cheese and butter, mix everything until a homogeneous consistency. Puree becomes dense, but at the same time retains airiness.
3. Serving to the table, sprinkle with fresh herbs.

With vegetable oil

• Cooking time: 35 minutes.
• Servings: 5 persons.
• Calorie content of the dish: 1101 kcal.
• Purpose: breakfast.
• Cuisine: Russian.
• Difficulty: easy.

Puree with vegetable oil is a dietary dish that can be consumed even by the sick. The dish is very simple to prepare, therefore it is in demand in many countries of the world. Some chefs use a secret ingredient - olive oil, which gives the dish a special charm to add piquancy and flavor.

Ingredients:

• Potato - 1 kg
• Vegetable oil - 50 g
• Milk 3.2% - 250 ml
• Salt - 10 g

Cooking method:

1. Peel the tubers, wash, cut into pieces and boil until tender.
2. Drain the water. Hot potatoes are passed through a blender, at this time it is necessary to gradually pour in milk (it should be hot). Beat well until you get an airy homogeneous mass.
3. Serve hot, drizzled with vegetable oil.

with mayonnaise

• Cooking time: 60 minutes.
• Servings: 5 persons.
• Calorie content of the dish: 269 kcal per 100 grams.
• Purpose: dinner.
• Cuisine: European.
• Difficulty: easy.

Puree prepared with mayonnaise, as a result, has an almost perfect consistency and looks very beautiful on a plate when served. Potatoes made according to this recipe are in no way inferior to the classic mashed potatoes with the addition of milk. Mayonnaise gives the dish more softness, airiness and helps to avoid the appearance of a gray color in the finished product.

Ingredients:

• Potato tubers - 1.2 kilograms
• Onion - 1 piece
• Bay leaf - 2 jokes
• Salt - to taste
• Mayonnaise - 4 tbsp. spoons

Cooking method:

1. Peel the potatoes, rinse, place in a cooking container, add water and put on a strong fire.
2. Throw the peeled onion into the same pan.
3. Close the pot with a lid. Cook until it boils, then reduce heat and add 1.5 tsp. salt. After 10 minutes, put 2 bay leaves and cook until tender.
4. Drain the water, leaving 1 cup of liquid in the pan. Discard laurel with onion.
5. Crush all the potatoes with a crush, add mayonnaise.
6. Mix until smooth. Serve at the table.

With sour cream

• Cooking time: 30 minutes.
• Servings: 4 persons.
• Calorie content of the dish: 250 kcal per 100 grams.
• Purpose: side dish for lunch.
• Cuisine: Ukrainian.
• Difficulty: medium.

Puree is a very simple and versatile dish that anyone can handle. But to prepare a truly delicious dish, you need to observe some subtleties. In Ukrainian cuisine, this is sour cream, which gives the potatoes a special friability, and the taste of such a dish differs from the classic recipe and other variations of mashed potatoes in its delicate creaminess.

Ingredients:

• Potato - 1 kg
• Onion - 1 pc.
• Salt - to taste
• Potato broth - 1 cup
• Sour cream - 5 tablespoons
• Butter - 3 tablespoons

Cooking method:

1. Peel medium-sized tubers, cut and transfer to a saucepan.
2. Put the onion to the slices, pour everything with boiling water, so that the vegetables are covered by 1 - 2 cm.
3. For crumbly varieties of potatoes, 12-15 minutes of cooking after boiling is enough.
4. Drain the potato broth into a bowl.
5. Turn off the fire, add sour cream. The product should be chosen for maximum fat content and freshness.
6. Add butter.
7. Use a potato masher to mash the ingredients until a puree is formed. Use the blender with care - if you beat it hard, the dish can turn into a sticky mass.
8. Serve the finished dish to the table, after sprinkling with dill.

How to make mashed potatoes? It would seem - nothing complicated: the tubers are boiled, and then pounded. But a truly delicious dish will turn out only if you take into account a few important little things.

Who doesn't love mashed potatoes? This is a wonderful side dish for fish and meat, as well as an independent vegetarian dish - a frequent guest on the tables of each of us. It is prepared even for the smallest children as the first food ... we can say that we have warm feelings for potatoes from the cradle. But since fried slices are not the most dietary food, mashed potatoes are more often prepared - it is healthier, especially if the potatoes are cooked according to all the rules.

Everyone knows that excessive heat treatment of products deprives them of useful properties. This rule also applies to potatoes: during cooking, the B vitamins from the tuber pass into the water - and then you drain it, sending nutrients down the drain. That's why when preparing mashed potatoes, the main thing is to minimize the loss of vitamins. This article is about how this is done.

Stage 1: cleaning and boiling

First, put a pot of water on the fire, and after that, start cleaning the tubers. Choose potatoes that are large enough - about the size of a fist, not too young. For cleaning, it is most convenient to use a special knife in the form of a spatula with a slot-slot: the peel is separated very thinly and accurately.

The layer of pulp just under the peel contains a huge amount of vitamins - much more than the core. Therefore, cutting the skin thicker than necessary is unreasonable wastefulness. So, you have cleaned the tubers: divide them in two with a knife. Smaller cut potatoes for mashed potatoes is not worth it if we want to preserve its nutritional value to the maximum. We throw the pieces into boiling water as soon as we prepare for cooking, preventing them from turning blue. That is why we set the water to warm up in advance, in order to prevent the release of starch.

We make fire of medium strength. Add salt in a proportion of 10 grams for each liter of water. You can also use spices - bay leaf and allspice-peas. While the potatoes are cooking, do not touch them: just make sure that the water does not boil away. Leave a gap between the lid and the pot. When a tempting aroma floats through the kitchen, pierce one of the tubers with a knife: if the point passes through the potato easily, then it's time to remove the pan from the heat and drain the water into a separate container.

Stage 2

And now the most interesting thing - we will crush the mashed potatoes. For this purpose, the good old pusher, a device with a round perforated disc on one side and a handle on the other, is best suited. Mashed potatoes prepared with a blender are a sticky mess that is not suitable for food. High technology is not always better than household utensils that have been tested for centuries - therefore, arm yourself with a crush, and ...

No, here's another thing to do before mashing potatoes: warm up some milk or cream. If you pour them into a cold puree, the dish will acquire an unpleasant grayish tint. Some housewives add a slightly beaten raw egg instead. The taste in this case is somewhat specific, for an amateur. Therefore, if you are not sure that you will like it, do not experiment, but rather take milk. There is no milk - the water in which the potatoes were boiled will also do. Remember, we poured it not into the sink, but into a separate container? We did it precisely because it can still be used.

Stage 3: final

The final stage of preparing mashed potatoes is coming: first we mash it dry, then gradually add milk or water, continuing to crush. How much liquid is needed for the perfect consistency - decide for yourself. Some people like puree thicker, others vice versa. Now add butter or homemade sour cream (store-bought is not suitable, its fat content is insufficient for dressing mashed potatoes). Do not be stingy: the more fat the potato absorbs, the more magnificent it will become. When the piece melts, mix our dish with a spoon, and from that moment we consider it completely ready. Get your plates, please come to the table!

How long to cook mashed potatoes?

It's important to know exactly how long to cook the mashed potatoes so you don't keep them overheated. Half an hour is enough for optimal results.

30 minutes - that's how long they boil potatoes for mashed potatoes. After this time, it is checked for readiness with a knife in order to make sure that it is already soft.

Thinking about how to add mashed potatoes - try one of two wonderful fish dishes to choose from:

- Fried fish

- smoked fish

Why not a replacement for the usual dish of potatoes and chicken?