I Tried Ina Garten’s Mashed Potatoes and I’ll Never Make It Again Without Its Secret Ingredient

• I tried Ina Garten’s simple mashed potatoes recipe and loved its secret ingredient.

• In addition to potatoes, butter and Yukon Gold milk, the ingredient list includes lemon zest.

• I loved the freshness of the lemon that gave everything a flavor, but next time I’ll probably use a little less.

From Yukon Gold to russet to rice to mashed potatoes, I’ve tested many ways to make mashed potatoes even more amazing.

Then I came across Ina Garten’s unique version on the side dish.

I’ve added garlic or herbs to my potatoes before to boost flavor, but the “Barefoot Contessa” star adds a surprising ingredient I hadn’t thought of before: lemon.

Garten’s recipe uses a few simple ingredients, including Yukon Gold potatoes.

The recipe has just six ingredients: Yukon Gold potatoes, unsalted butter, whole milk, salt, pepper and lemon zest.

It serves four to six people, so I halved all the measurements for my two-person household.

I was interested in Garten’s choice of potatoes for this recipe. Some mashed potatoes call for roux, others call for Yukon Gold, and still others include a combination of the two.

Russet potatoes have a higher starch content, making them lighter and fluffier. Yukon Golds have a medium starch content, resulting in denser, creamier potatoes with a natural buttery flavor.

I was excited about the prospect of adding lemon zest.

I thought that with all the butter in this recipe, plus the creamy Yukon Gold potatoes, the lemon zest would be very helpful in balancing out the richer flavors.

The cooking method was pretty standard.

The cooking instructions were simple and similar to many other recipes I have made.

I started by peeling and cutting the potatoes into about 1 ½ inch pieces.

I placed them in a saucepan and covered them with cold water and salt before bringing everything to a boil. Once boiled, I cooked them for 20 minutes until tender enough to be easily pierced with a fork.

I had to improvise one of the steps.

Garten asks for a food mill to mash the potatoes. I don’t have one, so I used my trusty ricer for this step.

Garten warms up the milk to avoid gummy potatoes.

Just before the potatoes finished cooking, I put ½ cup of whole milk in a small saucepan to simmer on the stove.

By using warm rather than cold milk, the potatoes can absorb the liquid better, which obviously prevents them from becoming too gummy.

There’s a lot of butter involved.

While the potatoes were cooking, I cut a piece of butter into ½ inch pieces and stored them in the refrigerator.

It is important to keep the butter cool.

Unlike milk, butter was meant to be incorporated into the potatoes while they were still very cold and fresh from the refrigerator.

If I had reheated the butter like milk it might have separated.

The butter really made a difference in the texture of the potatoes.

After cutting the potatoes, I started to incorporate the butter a little at a time.

It was impressive how quickly the potatoes became silky and creamy before I even started pouring in the hot milk.

The potatoes looked incredibly creamy.

Once the stick of butter was incorporated, the instructions said to pour in just enough milk to make the potatoes “creamy but still thick.”

In the end, I only needed about ¼ of the milk to reach the desired consistency before stirring in the salt and pepper.

It was soon time to add the star ingredient to the potatoes.

Once the salt and pepper were well mixed with the potatoes, I added the zest of a lemon.

This mashed potato had an incredibly soft and silky texture.

Unsurprisingly, the full stick of butter and hot milk turned the potatoes into a pile of silky, buttery-soft fluff on my plate.

They were ultra-creamy without being velvety, and they were still able to hold their shape and form peaks when I poured them into a dish.

These potatoes had an amazing texture that was both light and decadent.

The lemon was an unexpected but delicious addition.

Including salt, fat, acid and heat in a recipe has become a common adage, so I couldn’t believe I’d never thought of adding lemon to my mashed potatoes before .

Mashed potatoes always have a lot of salt and fat from butter or heavy cream, and there’s a hint of heat when you add black pepper.

But the lemon zest adds just enough acidity to cut through all the rich textures and flavors, adding a lovely brightness and freshness to help balance the heavier ingredients.

There are a few changes I would make next time, but lemon is a must-have ingredient in mashed potatoes.

I loved the taste and texture of Garten mashed potatoes. They were somehow both rich and creamy and light and vibrant.

Although I loved the addition of lemon, I would reduce it slightly and use the zest of about ½ to ¾ lemon for a slightly more subtle glow. I also think some fresh herbs, like chives or parsley, would complement the lemon and make the potatoes even better.

Overall, thanks to Garten’s recipe, I’ll keep a lemon on hand whenever I want to make mashed potatoes.

This story was originally published on November 15, 2022 and last updated on November 25, 2024.

Read the original article on Business Insider