Vegan Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes Recipe | mindful avocado (2024)

FAQs

Why do people add sour cream to mashed potatoes? ›

Sour cream adds a little bit of tangy flavor and a boost of richness to mashed potatoes. It's a fun change from the standard milk or cream and butter combo usually flavoring mashed taters. You can even try your hand at making homemade sour cream from heavy cream!

As already discussed, pastiness is caused by too much potato starch being worked into the mashed potatoes. The main way we combat this problem is by rinsing away starch, both before and after cooking potatoes for fluffy mashed potatoes. Rinsing off starch means that there is less of it that can end up in the dish.

Sour Cream: The sour cream helps keep the mashed potatoes fluffy. Cream Cheese: This adds a bit of creaminess without being too overpowering. Heavy Cream: Increases the creaminess and helps thin out the potatoes a bit.

According to The Kitchn, sour cream is much denser than milk and so you'd end up with very stiff potatoes if sour cream replaces the milk in your recipe. Because milk is a liquid, it helps take the potatoes' stiffer mass and soften it, giving them their signature texture.

Instead of regular milk, pro chefs generally use a generous helping of buttermilk and plenty of half-and-half or (even better) heavy cream in their potatoes. If you think the bartenders up front are pouring heavy, they've got nothing on the cooks in the back who are in charge of the mashed potatoes.

When too much starch gets released, the potatoes become gummy, gluey, and unappetizing. Overworking the potatoes can happen in a couple ways: either by simply handling them too much, or by using a food processor, blender, or similar tool, which mixes the potatoes too aggressively.

Some cells will inevitably burst, releasing tacky gel that helps give mashed potatoes their cohesiveness. But if too much gelled starch seeps out of the cells, either from overcooking or too-vigorous mashing (or both), gumminess ensues.

When it comes to ridiculously creamy restaurant style mashed potatoes, there's not much to it. The secret is just loads of cream and butter. The creamier the mashed potato, the more cream and butter it has in it!

What does Rachael Ray use to mash potatoes? ›

Mash potatoes with half-and-half or milk using a potato masher. Add in the cream cheese and smash until the cheese melts into the potatoes. Add chives or scallions. Season with salt and pepper, to your taste.

The addition of a mildly acidic vinegar to a starchy veggie like potatoes not only deepens the flavor profile, but it also helps to tenderize the tubers.

The yolk emulsifies water and fat to create a cohesive, velvety bite, while providing a little fat and body of its own. What is this? You can add an egg yolk to nearly any existing mashed potato recipe.

Place the sweet potato meat into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment and add the orange juice, cream, butter, brown sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, salt, and pepper. Mix together until combined but not smooth and transfer to a baking dish. Bake the potatoes for 20 to 30 minutes, until heated through.

To baked goods, sour cream lends the richness of heavy cream and the acidity that all cultured dairy products have. That acidity breaks down the crumb in the flour content of baked goods, resulting in a fluffier, more tender cake, roll, or cookie.

Sour cream is one of the fattiest dairy products; the extra fat content (for example, adding sour cream to a cake instead of milk) will make the cake moister and richer, says Wilk. "Fat, in any form (butter, lard, cream, etc.) shortens gluten strands, which essentially leads to the most tender baked goods," she adds.

Uses. Sour cream is commonly used as a condiment on foods, or combined with other ingredients to form a dipping sauce. It can be added to soups and sauces to help thicken and make them creamy, or in baking to help increase the moisture level over and above using milk.