NEVER Boil Your Potatoes Again — Seniors, Try This Old MOUNTAIN Trick

Get my printed cookbook: 36 recipes, 60 kitchen methods: https://vernasbook.com Or text me the word BOOK at (865) 460-6262 and I will send it straight to your phone. Somebody set a bowl of mashed potatoes down at a table tonight, proud of it, and it came out heavy as putty. Or pale and loose, with a ring of water around the edge of the bowl. Your hands did not fail you, and neither did the potato. The whole outcome was decided before the pot ever got hot. This is how my mother made mashed potatoes, and the one step at the end that almost nobody does anymore. 🥔 MY MOTHER'S MASHED POTATOES (serves 4 to 6) • 3 lb russet potatoes, cut in even chunks about 2 inches across (not red or yellow waxy potatoes; Yukon Gold will do in a pinch) • About 1 Tbsp salt for the pot of water • 4 Tbsp butter • About 1/2 to 3/4 cup milk, warmed • Salt to taste at the end 🔥 THE METHOD 1. Put the potatoes in the pot and cover with COLD water, an inch over the top. Add the salt. Then turn on the heat. Never drop potatoes into boiling water. 2. Simmer until the tip of a paring knife slides into the biggest piece with no resistance. Test with a knife, not a fork. 3. The moment they are done, drain them. Let them sit in the colander a full minute, then shake and tip to get the water out of every crevice. 4. Put them straight back into the same empty pot, on the burner on low. Shake and turn them for 1 to 1 1/2 minutes, until the steam lifts off and the surface goes from wet and shiny to dull and floury. That is water leaving the potato. 5. Add the butter first. Mash by hand, straight down and lift, 12 to 15 strokes, or push them through a ricer. Never a mixer, never a food processor. 6. Warm the milk, then fold it in 2 or 3 stages. Stop while it is still a little lumpy. Taste and salt. 🥄 DO NOT POUR OUT THE POTATO WATER It is starch and salt both. Work it into a pan of cornbread batter, or stir it into a pot of gravy to thicken it without flour. THE HONEST WORDS (because I will not oversell you): • Gluey like paste → torn too many potato cells. Mashed too long, or a mixer or processor was used. It cannot be fixed, but fried in bacon grease in the morning as potato cakes, it is genuinely good. • Watery and thin → the potatoes went into boiling water, sat past done, or were never dried in the empty pot. • Flat in the middle → the water was not salted. Salt on top at the end only sits on top. • Fought you the whole way → waxy potatoes. Use russets. • Lukewarm and tight → cold milk. Warm it first. • A $12 ricer really does beat my mother's old masher. If you liked this, please subscribe. A new old-fashioned mountain recipe or trick comes out every week, and it costs you nothing and helps me more than you would guess. Make a bowl this weekend. If you only change two things: start the potatoes in cold salted water, and dry them in the empty pot for one minute. Then tell me in the comments, did your mother mash by hand, or did she have a ricer sitting in that drawer? Have a blessed day. -Verna Chapters: 0:00 Why your mashed potatoes go wrong 1:43 Piece 1: Russet vs. waxy potatoes 2:51 The book, and back to the potatoes 3:20 Piece 2: The cold start 4:23 Piece 3: Salt the water 5:04 Piece 4: Knife, not fork 6:19 Piece 5: Drain immediately 6:56 Piece 6: The mash (where glue is born) 8:25 Piece 7: Warm milk, butter first 9:22 Piece 8: Dry them in the empty pot 10:39 The honest part (and how to save glue) 11:44 The whole method, recapped 12:55 Tell me in the comments #mashedpotatoes #southerncooking #oldfashionedcooking #appalachiancooking