Mashed potatoes wear well on holiday

In homes across America, Thanksgiving mashed potatoes are almost as popular as the turkey. Maybe more. They are soft and creamy, and no matter what the weather or mood, they make us feel good.

Mashed potatoes may be the ultimate Thanksgiving dish, but they are equally popular on restaurant menus. When I tasted three-star Parisian chef Joel Robuchon’s world-famous potato puree, I was eager for the recipe. His secret? Lots of butter — up to half the weight of the potatoes — and a little salt.

Many of us keep mashed potatoes simple but there are some traditional variations. An Irish recipe calls for simmering chopped scallion in hot milk and beating the mixture into butter-enriched potatoes. Cooks in southern Italy accent potatoes with sweet and hot peppers. In central France, there’s a delicious puree called “aligot” that is enriched with masses of semihard cheese, in addition to butter.

In recent decades, garlic mashed potatoes have become so common on both sides of the Atlantic that they are practically a classic. Restaurant chefs often add cloves of roasted garlic, which they have on hand for other dishes.

An easier technique at home is to cook peeled garlic cloves with the potatoes and mash everything together. Bradley Ogden of Lark Creek Inn in Larkspur, Calif., simmers the garlic with cream, milk and butter and purees the mixture along with the potatoes.

At Cezanne’s in Santa Monica, Calif., chef Desi Szonntagh serves delicious potato purees with horseradish or fennel. Dallas chef Stephan Pyles came up with chili mashed potatoes with corn kernels and cilantro.

Pesto, olives, wasabi, orange juice and even raspberries are used to flavor potato creations. At catered events, you might even find mashed potato bars, where potatoes are served in martini glasses along with ingredients to be sprinkled on top, including asparagus tips, sauteed mushrooms, spinach or onions, marinated artichokes, capers, sun-dried tomatoes and shredded cheese.

I have seen similar treatments at potato stands in Istanbu, where mashed potatoes were served buffet style with a variety of toppings as street food.

French chefs have paired potatoes with just about every vegetable, from spinach to green beans to carrots to onions, and pureed them together. I find that cauliflower, celery root and turnips are particularly good this way.

For such a simple dish, it’s amazing that so much controversy surrounds mashed potato preparation.

Some cooks peel potatoes before cooking them. Others prefer to peel them afterward. Still others leave the skin and the nutrients on.

I side with those who cook potatoes in the skin. If you peel potatoes first, they can absorb too much water and produce a watery mash.

What is the best potato for mashed? Mr. Ogden recommends small red ones.

Others opt for russets or baking potatoes, which mash easily due to their high starch content. I have had problems with baking potatoes falling apart during cooking. I also think they can become waterlogged. I prefer Yukon Gold potatoes, which have great flavor even before any butter is added.

To give mashed potatoes a soft creamy consistency, add hot milk. Many chefs prefer milk to cream and insist that it be added warm. For a change of pace from butter, enrich the potatoes with a little olive oil.

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