What Are You Coveting/Waiting /Saving For?

I consistently misread “tamis” as “tapis”. :joy:

2 Likes

That’s like an emulsion of butter, whole milk and some potato to bind to form the mousseline. The choice of rattes roasted on the gros sel is interesting. I thought I misheard the quantities, but as one YT commentator posted, that’s 70% fatty materials.

I just picked up a new OXO food mill (Bed Bath and Beyond closing clearance, final days!) and have some gros sel de guerande for roasting. But finding rattes of that size is tough… perhaps some yukon golds. Sieving afterwards seems like overkill.

5 Likes

I would think that unless you turned it into something besides mashed potatoes, like a cream and butter spiked emulsion of potato, that much stirring and whisking would make the dish very gluey. Seventy percent fat sounds like enough to overcome what happens to the potatoes!

1 Like

That’s the Joel Robuchon process; supposedly super-smooth.

It’s marked “facile” - which doesn’t take into consideration all the dishwashing from the prep …

Gerber baby food only offers puréed sweet potatoes - I checked their product line. :joy:

I guess it’s just not a texture result that’s worth achieving for me. I have a masher, a food mill, a ricer, whisks …:woman_shrugging:t3:. No tamis. I actually prefer smashed potatoes. I’m not a big fan of pudding textured foods.
Pudding itself is good , though. Just a personal idiosyncrasy.

Cooks Illustrated has its own version of Robuchon’s recipe

‘Instead of using water, we cook peeled, diced potatoes directly in the milk and butter that will be incorporated into the mash. This approach also eliminates the need to laboriously beat in the butter after the fact and captures potato starch released during cooking, which is key to producing an emulsified texture where the butter doesn’t separate out. Processing the potatoes with just a food mill (skipping the tamis) delivers a pomme puree that is still wonderfully smooth but requires a lot less work.”

I didn’t link because it’s paywalled.

1 Like

No doubt that it is super smooth, unctuous, and delicious. It just looks like a ton of work to achieve close to the same result as sneaking a spoonful of great butter from the butter dish. (Guilty…often)

1 Like

Only one??!!

1 Like

Only one bite at a time! A spoonful of Plugra salted butter is a regular occurrence. I am also guilty of consuming the crackle off of roasts and the occasional swig of cream. Thank goodness for statins!

1 Like

I’m with you–most of the time. But my particular problem is that I love mashed potatoes in every form I’ve tried making. So I switch up methods, sometimes keeping lumps and/or skins, sometimes sieving, adding grinds of various things, varying fats, etc.

Robuchon’s scrambled eggs follow the same trajectory of silkiness. Just like his potatoes, I wouldn’t want that every day. But once in a while…

2 Likes

Statins cause their own problems, which I gladly live without!

Put it on top of a Jacob’s Cracker and it’s a guilt-free snack ! :yum:

2 Likes

Cart’s Water Crackers will work, too …

1 Like

This is a problem?:joy:

2 Likes

LOL, very correct. Piege is definitely heavy handed with the butter: 500 g for 500 g potatoes, plus 150 g whole milk, waaayyy more than Robuchon: 250 g for 1 kg potatoes plus 20 to 30 cl whole milk or Escoffier: 150 to 200 g per kg of potatoes plus 25 cl whole milk.
I’m usually not too shy myself with the butter and cream when making a puree but I don’t think I’ve ever reached that ratio. Might try it though…Same for the sieving at the end: if multi Michelin star chefs do it…

As for the rattes, yeah, there’re just crazy big, never seen any of this caliber anywhere.

I believe the secret of good mashed potatoes/puree lies probably more in the quality of the potatoes (and butter, of course :woozy_face:) than in the technique.

1 Like

Correct. But more buttery

LOL. Is the wooden Dehillerin drum sieve supposed to simplify things ?

That said, I tasted Robuchon’s purée at the Atelier St Germain about a quarter of a century ago and was seriously underwhelmed. I found it good, of course, very good but ordinary, nothing new and far superior from what I had eaten before.

It absolutely does. Purees things with less work than a food mill or potato masher. Wash it off and hang it up.

I’m surprised there but I’ll give it a try.
You wouldn’t happen to remember the number for the mesh on your drum sieve by any chance ?

The food mill, then the tamis, then the exceedingly fine mesh in the tamis, makes me think that this is asymptotic cooking - the quest that approaches, but never reaches, that elusive goal of puréed perfection. I’m picturing the graph, and now I think I ’m going to have to go look for some Bob’s Red Mill Potato Flakes and wave the white flag of surrender.

2 Likes

Sure. You could surrender to instant. Some flakes are indeed not half that bad.

Or you could take a step sideways and up, armed with just your fork :innocent: