I don’t know anyone that has never eaten powdered potatoes. They’re easy to make and some are actually pretty good, but it seems you need to drench it in gravy for it to taste good. Well I’m going to show you a couple ways to prepare your potatoes where you can save the gravy for the meat. I will show you how to make sour cream and garlic mashed potatoes and a variation of that with twice baked potatoes.
I think the first time I started to make real mash potatoes when I was living with my parents in Minnesota. They would work six days out of the week, but Sundays were our family times. Most of those Sundays I would make my sour cream and garlic mashed potatoes. My sisters would hang around and dip their fingers in for a taste acting as they were my sous chefs.
Sour Cream and Garlic Mashed Potatoes
Makes 2-3 Servings
2 large russet potatoes (2lbs total)
2 tablespoons of sour cream
1 tablespoon of butter
¼ cup of milk
3 large cloves of garlic (marble size)
1 tablespoon of chopped chives (green onion is fine)
Garlic salt to season (table salt or kosher salt is fine)
What I typically would do is to peel the potatoes, quarter them and boil them in lightly seasoned water until they are fork tender, but since I will be reusing them for my twice baked potatoes I will show you a different method. Wrap the potatoes in foil and place them in a preheated oven at 375 degrees for about 30-45 mins or until you are able to stick a fork (or chopstick) into the potato and pull out easily. Another way you can cook the potatoes is to puncture the skin with a fork a few times, wrap the potatoes in a very damp towel and microwave them for roughly 5-7 minutes on each side. Do the test with the fork or chopstick to see if the potatoes are done. The reason for puncturing the skin is to have release points where the steam can come out of the potato.
While the potatoes are cooking you want to wrap the peeled garlic cloves in foil and place them in the oven for about half an hour or until tender. By cooking the garlic cloves the natural sugars of the garlic comes out and makes the garlic flavor less intense and brings out more of the sweetness. If you don’t have an oven, then don’t worry. Try to get a hold of garlic paste at your local supermarket. Substitute the garlic cloves for 1 teaspoon of the garlic paste.
Once the potatoes are cooked, peel off the skin and roughly chop them up. Next, using a potato smasher or fork combine all the ingredients including the garlic. I like to leave the consistency smooth with small potato bits in there just so people know these are freshly made and not powdered.
Make sure you don’t overwork the potatoes. By overworking the potatoes you can actually turn them gooey. If you want to go even fancier, cook up some bacon bits and sprinkle them on top with more of the chives for a nice look.
Twice Baked Potatoes
Makes 2 Servings
2 large russet potatoes (2lbs total)
2 tablespoons of sour cream
1 tablespoon of butter
¼ cup of milk
3 large cloves of garlic (marble size)
1 tablespoon of chopped chives (green onion is fine)
3 tablespoons of bacon bits
½ cup of shredded cheddar cheese
Garlic salt to season (table salt or kosher salt is fine)
Take the potatoes and wash thoroughly. Next, cook the potatoes in the oven or microwave the same way as the mashed potatoes. Once done, lay the potatoes flat and cut off about 1/8” off the top. Then you want to scoop out insides of the potatoes leaving a ¼” wall. You want to make sure you don’t take out too much or you will lose shape of the potato. Next rub olive oil (canola or vegetable oil will work) on the skin of the potatoes and season lightly with garlic salt and set aside on a baking sheet pan.
With the insides of the potatoes, combine the rest of the ingredients (sour cream, butter, milk, garlic, chive, bacon bits and cheese) together and combine like the mashed potatoes. Once all is well incorporated, it’s time to fill the potato shells. Scoop back the potato mixture back into the potatoes or how I usually put them back in is with a piping bag for a better look. If you don’t have a piping bag, you can always use a freezer bag. Simply fill in one corner of the freezer bag with the potato mixture snip of 1/2” of the tip and squeeze into the potato shell.
Place the potatoes in the oven for about 30-45 minutes at 375 degrees or until the top is nice and golden brown.
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