Mashing More Than Spuds
Oh, the simple potato masher. A generation or two ago, many home cooks tossed them out in favor of the hand-held electric mixer as the tool of choice for creating those tantalizing mounds of creamy goodness. Technically, those are whipped potatoes, I know. But they were good, and they were smooth, with smoothness being the holy grail for mashed potatoes.
That’s how I grew up. It was unspoken, but potato mashers were relics, on par with the egg beater. Just something people used to use. My mother didn’t have one. With a hand mixer, yes, you have to be careful not to over do it or the texture changes, and not in a good way. But if you warm the milk and butter and have it ready, a quick whip will get you the goods.
In the first twenty-some years of my own homemaking, I did what my mother does and used a mixer. And there were no complaints - my family loved our mashed/whipped potatoes.
Things changed one day when I happened to catch a segment of a Rachael Ray show where she was using a potato masher to … brown ground beef! She demonstrated how it was way easier to break up the meat clumps that way than it was by using a fork.
That wowed me. It was so simple and did the job perfectly. So I bought one and started using it all the time for breaking up meat for browning - ground beef, ground lamb, pork sausage, ground turkey, and bulk Italian sausage. It’s surprising how few ‘smashes’ it takes.
If you have a masher, give it a try and see. If you don’t, go get one! They come in different shapes and I’ve only used the one in the picture with a sort of squiggle pattern so that’s what I suggest. If you use nonstick pans, get one that’s suited for those.
I try not to accumulate too many gadgets, mostly because of the clutter they create, and also because I’m kind of thrifty. But I use my masher at least once a week so I think that validates its real estate in my utensils drawer - much more than the thing that crinkle cuts vegetables that I held onto for years and only used a couple times.
And now for the big reveal. I also mash potatoes with it! And they come out fluffy and delicious. They have a few lumps but we’re calling them “old school” and the mashed potato consumers in this house say they love ‘em that way.
A side bonus of using the masher is that I don’t have to go to the small appliance cabinet and get out the hand mixer, and I don’t have to wash the beaters! Washing those things drives me crazy and is one of the very few things that occasionally makes me wistful for a dishwasher. This kitchen doesn’t have one, and short of a total remodel, it won’t ever.
That’s okay. We are a small family. And the bright-sider in me reminds myself of a story in a book I read years ago about a girl who was happy when there was a pile of dirty dishes in her kitchen because it meant that the illness had swept through her family had passed and they were all well again. Yes, even dirty dishes are something to be thankful for.
Anyway, owning a potato masher is a good thing. Oh wait, that’s the tagline of a different celebrity that can often be seen cooking on daytime TV. Oh well, it’s true.
And yes, I got my mom one.
