Up Early

Which of these is not like the other?

• It's 8 am.
• I've been up for an hour.
• Stake Conference is today.
  

I got up early on No Church, No Guilt Sunday to brown a roast and get it in the oven. We're celebrating our little semiapostate community by having Sunday dinner with these wonderful people, and I'm cooking. In addition to the roast, I'm making the most delicious mashed potatoes you've never imagined could even exist. That's how good they are.*

Start with 4 pounds or so of Yukon Gold potatoes. They're the right mix of crumbly starchy goodness and firm newpotato texture. After peeling, cut them into 1" slices and rinse them well under some warm water (you wanna get rid of as much extra superfluous starch as possible). Cover them and bring them to a boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer. Cook about 20 minutes, or until a fork goes easily through a slice.

In the meantime, melt together a stick and a half of butter and a cup of heavy cream**. Keep this velvety mixture warm on the stove while the potatoes cook.

When they're done cooking, drain the potatoes (reserving some of the water, if you want, for the gravy). Then return them to the hot dutchoven and stir them around over heat to dry them out. They'll start to break apart; that's fine. Just dry them out as well as you can for a couple of minutes.

If you have a potato ricer, bust it out and get to ricin'. Otherwise use a hand masher or other nonelectric appliance. (I usually end up doing the last few seconds of mixing in our Kitchenaid, but too much beating can turn otherwise delectable starches gummy and grainy.)

When the potatoes are dry and mashed, fold in the warm butter and cream, along with salt and pepper to taste. If desired, stir the mix using an electric mixer, but be careful!

Now try them. You should probably be sitting down first; I can't be held responsible if your knees buckle and you pass out. Not enough of an image to convince you of this recipe's superiority to all things tuber? Let me try this:

You don't need gravy for these potatoes. (And that's coming from my mother's designated gravy taster (ie, Gravy Freak #1).)

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* I got this recipe from my favorite cooking show: PBS's America's Test Kitchen. The host is so me: geeky, bespectacled and surrounded by women with whom he should by no logical measure be able to associate.
** Don't even think about skimping on this. I suppose you could use half-and-half or whole milk. But at least once try this recipe as is.