Today, we’re having a short, sweet, and to-the-point kind of post. I have one* of these. You should get one too.**
It’s a potato ricer. I know–strange name. Is it for potatoes? For rice? For turning potatoes into rice? Or just a nice general-use starchifying tool?
Actually, it’s for making mashed potatoes. I know I talked about my potato masher a while back, and I still love it faithfully, but the ricer is a different love entirely. It makes the fluffiest mashed potatoes imaginable.
Here’s what I do:
First, I bake the potatoes (using, obviously, baking potatoes). For two reasons: it eliminates the peeling of raw potatoes, and it keeps them dry (the secret to fluffy mashed potatoes is keeping them dry).
When they’re thoroughly done, take them out of the oven and let them cool just enough that you can handle them. Cut each one in half across the equator. Put them in the ricer, one half at a time, cut side down. When you press the handle down, fluffy white squizzles of potato will sort of puff out of the holes in the bottom of the ricer, piling up in your bowl. When you’ve pushed out all the potato, lift up the handle, and you’ll see the skin of the potato squished up against the holes. Pick it out with your fingers.
Warning: picking out the skins is a little tedious, and it might be quite hot. If you do this regularly, you’ll develop asbestos fingers, like me, and it won’t bother you. Alternatively, let the potatoes cool a little longer before you try to work with them. Toss the skins (I don’t recommend putting them in the garbage disposal, especially on Thanksgiving Day. Plumbers like to stay home and eat turkey, too) and repeat with the rest of the potato halves.
When you’ve riced them all, you’ll have a bowlful of beautiful, fluffy squiggles of potato that taste like plain baked potato. They look nice, but don’t really taste like much.
Here’s what I add, in this order:
a little bit of low-fat trans-fat free margarine (yes, Pam, in our former life we used butter. Go right ahead–it’s tasty.)
a spoonful of fat-free sour cream
a smaller spoonful of fat-free yogurt
plenty of salt and pepper
Use a WOODEN SPOON to very gently mix just to incorporate. You don’t want to knock out all the fluffiness. And if I happen to have a few cloves of squishy-soft roasted garlic lying around (I often do), I’ll put those through the ricer, too.
Serve piping hot, with butter or (my favorite) gravy on the table.
*Actually, if you search for “potato ricer” on Amazon, a whole slew of models pops up. I’m not sure exactly which one I have; I’m guessing they’re equally useful. The only possible distinction/advantage I can think of is the fact that mine has a perforated disk in the bottom that pops out for washing. Very handy; the all-one-piece versions might be a little trickier to clean.
**I would’ve just photographed mine for you, but we’re in day three of Tropical Storm Ida remnants, and I can’t remember what sunshine looks like. The lack of natural light is making my photographs this week look even worse than usual.