But what our people liked was the strange foreign tuber, which they didn’t learn to cook from, but still the two most basic cooking methods identified the two most popular potato dishes - fried and mashed.
The variations on these two themes are endless.
There are dozens of cooking techniques and, apparently, hundreds of recipes describing how and with what to serve potatoes.
Mashed potatoes have magical properties, adapting to any salads and vegetable side dishes, and, in turn, serving as a side dish, able to emphasize the taste of meat and fish dishes.
Mashed potatoes with milk - the general principles of cooking
• A really tasty mashed potatoes are prepared using milk from high-starchy potatoes. Tubers are determined by appearance, usually they have a light, slightly yellowish peel and the same color middle.
• But the right product is not everything, mashed potatoes are good only if it is sufficiently lush, and in order to achieve such a result you need to cook it properly.
• The potatoes, washed from dirt residues, are peeled, cutting out the damaged areas and the remaining eyes, and boiled until ready in water, which is salted only after boiling. Readiness of potatoes is checked by piercing with a knife or fork. If the tubers are pierced easily, the potatoes are ready.
• The boiling water is poured a bit, only slightly covering the potato pieces. Very intense boiling is not desirable. The size of the potato pieces is optimal if they are large in size and in shape resemble a pair of large orange slices.
• Drain the water from the pan, the tubers are lightly dried over minimal heat and only after all the moisture has evaporated, they are mashed in mashed potatoes.
• In the mashed potatoes, while constantly beating, the remaining ingredients are alternately injected, but milk is poured last, adjusting the thickness of the dish. Whip mashed cease when it becomes homogeneous and lush. • To change the familiar taste, melted cheese, eggs, and browned onions are added to the mashed potatoes with milk.
• From mashed potatoes, baked in the oven, you can cook unusual both everyday and festive dishes.
Mashed potatoes with milk
Ingredients:
• one kilogram of potatoes;
• 60 grams of butter, 72%, butter;
• 1.5 cups nonfat milk.
Cooking Method:
1. Potato tubers fill with boiling water, salt with a slight excess and boil until cooked. Potatoes boil down evenly, if the tubers are of the same grade and size, cut them excessively large.
2. Drain the vegetable broth, and put the potatoes lightly to dry for three minutes with minimal heat.
3. Thoroughly mash the potato tubers so that there are no undiminished lumps and dissolve with hot milk. Pour in gradually, whipping it with a tolkushka or a large wooden spoon.
4. Beat up to achieve pomp and noticeable viscosity of the potato mass.
5. Butter can be introduced by whipping together with milk, or melt and pour it upon serving.
Mashed potatoes with milk and fried onions
Ingredients:
• potatoes - 800 grams;
• 200 ml of milk of 3.2% fat;
• 50 ml of purified vegetable oil;
• small white onion head.
Cooking Method:
1. Boil potatoes, peeled and thoroughly washed with water, until cooked in lightly salted filtered water, drain the broth and dry a little.
2. While the potatoes are boiling, fry in vegetable oil in a frying pan until golden onion forms.
3. Mashed potatoes and mash the hot milk, continuously beating tolkushkoy to pomp.
4. Add the toasted onions and whip well again.
Mashed potatoes with milk and eggs
Ingredients:
• one and a half kilograms of medium-sized potatoes; • 60 gr., 72%, oils;
• two eggs;
• homemade full fat milk.
Cooking Method:
1. Rinse the peeled tubers under a tap and cut them into pieces, place them in a saucepan with cold water and boil them. Salt the boiled water and boil down the heat until the potatoes begin to crumble in boiling water.
2. Drain all liquid, mash potatoes slightly with tolkushkoy, and then break all the lumps with a blender.
3. Without ceasing to whip, enter the whipped eggs, butter and hot, non-boiling milk. Eggs need to be injected quickly so that they do not have time to curl up in a hot potato mass.
4. By adding milk, adjust the thickness of the dish.
Mashed potatoes in milk with melted cheese
Ingredients:
• potatoes - 1 kg;
• 200 ml of pasteurized, medium-fat milk;
• two soft processed cheese “Friendship”, natural (100 grams);
• 40 gr. chilled thick cream or butter.
Cooking Method:
1. Boil the sliced potatoes in slightly salted water until soft. Drain the broth, and dry the potatoes on the stove and grind through a sieve or mash with tolkushkoy.
2. Melt the melted cheese in boiled, slightly cooled milk, add the butter and stir the creamy mixture until smooth.
3. Place the saucepan with mashed potatoes on a very low heat and heat, constantly stirring with a wooden spoon or spatula, gradually introducing hot milk-cheese mass. Remove from heat and whisk until well visible thickening.
Mashed potatoes baked with scrambled eggs
Ingredients:
• 900 grams of middle-aged potatoes;
• 220 ml of milk;
• white onions - 2 heads;
• 50 g of oil “Peasant”;
• six chicken eggs, fresh;
• A tablespoon of low-fat sour cream.
Cooking Method:
1. Prepare mashed potatoes on milk, season it with butter and put in a pan or a baking dish greased with margarine or butter. 2. Mix one fork that is loose with a fork and sour cream and brush with a mixture the smoothed surface of the mashed potatoes. Put in a hot oven and soak to a ruddy crust.
3. Remove the pan and whole egg in the shell and mash the small pits. In each such deepening, pour in the chicken egg and bake again for three minutes.
4. Monitor the process, watching the yolks, they should remain liquid.
5. Sprinkle each egg lightly and serve immediately.
Mashed potatoes with stuffed eggs, baked in the oven
Ingredients:
• potatoes - 900 grams;
• 120 ml of melted or plain pasteurized milk;
• 60 gr. cream "Peasant" butter;
• three boiled hard boiled eggs;
• two raw yolks;
• 40 grams of low-fat boiled ham;
• one small onion;
• a tablespoon of 72% mayonnaise;
• One and a half tablespoons of Kostromsky grated hard cheese.
Cooking Method:
1. With potatoes, peel, wash, cut into slices of the same size and put to boil.
2. When the potatoes come to readiness, it becomes soft, grind it through a sieve and whisk well with tolkushkoy, adding with the whipping raw proteins and butter.
3. Combine the mashed potatoes with milk, whisk again and set aside.
4. Peel the boiled eggs, cut them in half, and remove the yolks. Chop the onion and save it with fat. Combine yolks with onions, finely chopped ham and mash well with a fork. Salt lightly, add a small pinch of ground pepper, mayonnaise and stir. Fill the halves with eggs, forming a bulge on each surface.
5. On a small baking sheet, greased with fat, evenly lay the mashed potatoes, make any pattern on its surface and place the stuffed halves of eggs. Sprinkle with cheese chips and set for three minutes, before melting the cheese, in a hot oven. 6. Serve with finely chopped greens.
Mashed potatoes with milk - tricks and tips
• Milk is added only hot, if you pour cold milk, puree does not turn out lush and becomes gray.
• The higher the fat content of milk and butter, the more tender the dish will turn out.
• Beat the mashed potatoes with milk with the best tolkushkoy, blender or mixer knock the starch out of the potato, and the dish becomes sticky and viscous.
• Added whipped protein in mashed potatoes, makes it more airy.
• If you digest the potatoes or drain not all the broth, then the dish will turn out too liquid.
• From the young potatoes, mashed potatoes are not cooked, it turns out tasteless.
• If you have a small “nehochuha” in your home that is difficult to force to eat, cook a colorful mashed potatoes for him. For this cooked puree divided into three parts. Mix one with tomato paste, the second part “paint” the spinach puree, well, leave the third part white or paint it with a small pinch of turmeric. Put in a deep plate in the form of a triangular pyramid with multi-colored sides. You can also surprise a child, if hot mashed potatoes put in a plate in the form of a volcano, with a spoon make a small indentation - a crater, in which put a small piece of melted butter. When the oil begins to melt, it will be like lava eruption.
