I’ve come to a startling realization this past year or so.
I prefer my mashed potatoes lumpy.
For years and years, I whipped potatoes into a frenzy in a frenetic attempt to achieve the perfect silky-smooth consistency. Then I heard somewhere that you shouldn’t beat your potatoes with a mixer to within an inch of their lives, because it breaks down the starches in the potatoes and makes them gummy. I bought it. And so the next batch was all by hand with a potato masher. Were they super, duper smooth? No. Were they oh-so delicious and, with their little lumps here and there, unmistakably and perfectly homemade? Oh, yes.
And then I found this recipe from Queen Martha, and I gave cream cheese a spin. Boil the potatoes and drain, as usual. Then hand-mash them with copious amounts of butter, an entire block of cream cheese, and milk.
Gah. So good.
I call these “Best-Ever Mashed Potatoes” because they’re the best I’ve ever made (or tasted, for that matter). Please don’t take it as my bashing your granny’s recipe. Just, to my family and to me, they’re the best ever.
The cream cheese gives them such a decadent, almost melt-in-your-mouth texture, plus just a tad bit of tang that you don’t get otherwise.
As far as the lumps go, I’m sure you could hand-mash them to a perfectly smooth consistency with relative ease. But why would you want to go and do something so crazy?! Viva la lump!