Equipment:
Ingredients:
Method:
Wash your hands.
Gather your equipment and ingredients.
Wash the potatoes and dry them off.
Peel the potatoes. Put the peel into the bin.
Chop the potatoes into chunks. They should be quite big - between 2cm and 3cm. Try to get them mostly a similar size so they cook evenly.
Put the potatoes into the saucepan. Add cold water to the pan - you need enough to cover the potatoes.
Put the pan on the hob, turn the hob onto high heat to bring the water to a boil. Putting the lid on the pan will make the water boil quicker.
Once the water is boiling turn the heat down to a gentle simmer. Add salt to the water. You want two teaspoons of salt.
Gently simmer the potatoes. They will be ready when you can poke them with a sharp knife and it pulls out very easily. (Ask mummy or daddy for help to tell when they potatoes are done). Don't undercook them because crunch mash is not nice. A little bit of overcooking is fine.
Turn the hob off.
Drain the potatoes in the colander. Or drain them in the pan, then move them to the bowl. Let them steam dry for a minute or two.
Put a small amount of potatoes in the ricer. Squeeze the potato ricer to squash the potato through the holes into the saucepan. (If the ricer has changeable plates either read the instructions to find out which is best for mash, or use the plate that has the largest holes).
Put all the potato chunks through the ricer. RINSE THE RICER OFF!!! It's much easier to clean it now than to wait until later. It can be very hard to wash off dry potato.
Taste the mash. You want to know if it has enough salt. (Don't add salt yet).
If the butter is soft add a large knob of butter to the potatoes. If the butter is hard chop it into small (1/2 cm) pieces and add those to the potatoes.
Using the spatula, gently fold the butter into the potato. You don't want to be vigorous here - that will turn the mash into a gluey mess.
Taste the mash again - you should be able to tell a difference because of the butter (especially if it was salted butter). Adjust the seasoning if needed - add more butter, or add a small pinch of salt. You can always add more salt, but it's very hard to take salt away.
Optional: finely chop some chives and sprinkle them over the top. This adds a nice very gentle onion flavour, and it also adds a lovely pop of colour.
Modifications if you're making mash that Timmy can eat
Do not add salt to the water used to simmer the potato. Use unsalted butter. Don't add salt when you taste the potatoes.
Modifications to make if you want to be extra luxurious
Rice the potatoes into a bowl. Then melt butter and milk in the pan, and gently add the potatoes back in.
Modifications if you're being extra
Chope the potatoes and then rinse them under cold water to get rid of some starch. Then, when you've cooked them rinse them again with very hot water to get more starch off them. Rice the potatoes into the saucepan. Put some butter and double cream in another pan and gently heat it to melt the butter. Gently fold this into the mash. And then, finally, take this mix and push it through a very fine sieve using a flexible scraper.