- 3 hours ago
In this edition of Epicurious 101, professional chef and culinary instructor Frank Proto shares potato tips to make you a better cook. Learn how to make your mashed potatoes fluffier, your roasted potatoes crispier, plus storage tips and more.
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00:00Today I'm showing you all the potato hacks I know.
00:02Things that we use in professional kitchens to maximize flavor, maximize texture, and
00:08just make potatoes all around delicious.
00:13Peeling boiled potatoes is no fun.
00:16This is how we easy peel cooked potatoes.
00:18We're just going to make a very light slit around the equator and then we're going to
00:24boil them.
00:24So potatoes are done, I'm going to take it and remove it to an ice bath.
00:29Now this isn't going to really cool the potato down all that much.
00:32All it's going to do is make it easier to handle so I don't burn my fingers.
00:36So just roll it around in there for a second or two.
00:39Take the potato and we'll just give it a twist and look how easy the skin comes off.
00:44Just slides right off.
00:46Easy peel, potatoes.
00:48Do not wash your potatoes before you peel them.
00:51I'm going to wash them before I cook them.
00:53So I don't need to wash them twice.
00:55I kind of see this as an efficiency.
00:57It also helps with grip.
00:59If it's not wet, it's not slippery and you'll be able to hold onto the potato a little bit
01:03better.
01:04When you are ready to peel your potatoes, I like to use a Y peeler.
01:07It has a Y shape.
01:08I find this is the most comfortable one to use.
01:11I've been using this style of peeler for over 25 years.
01:14It just fits in your hand better than the other one.
01:16So I take the top and the bottom off.
01:19And all I really need to do is single pulls.
01:22You don't have to sit there and go, this is efficient.
01:27It's fast.
01:29And you get a potato peeled in seconds, not minutes.
01:31Some people may not realize this, but this little hoop thing here is actually meant for
01:36getting eyes out of the potatoes.
01:37So if your potato has any sort of blemishes like that, you get that little hoop, get in
01:42there and you scoop it out.
01:44So my potato is peeled and cleaned.
01:46And if I leave it out in the air, it's going to oxidize.
01:49It's going to turn brown.
01:50And one thing I like to do to prevent that is to cover them in water.
01:53You can store your potatoes in water for a day, maybe two days before you actually cook
01:59them and they won't oxidize.
02:00They'll stay nice and bright.
02:02This is a potato that was not stored in water.
02:05It's been out and it's turning grayish brown.
02:08It is disgusting.
02:09Nobody wants gray mashed potatoes.
02:11So when you're ready to cook your potatoes, you want to cut them in uniform size.
02:15Cutting them in uniform size, they cook evenly.
02:19They cook at the same time.
02:20In the kitchen, small details like this make a big difference in your cooking.
02:24How you store your potatoes makes a really big difference.
02:27And believe it or not, if you store potatoes and onions together, they both fight each other.
02:32The onion gives off gas that spoils the potato and then the potato gives off gas that spoils
02:38the onion.
02:39You should never store your onions and potatoes together.
02:45If you want extra fluffy mashed potatoes, there are a few things you can do that make
02:48all the difference.
02:49The first thing for extra fluffy mashed potatoes is to skip the plain boring water and boil in
02:56dairy.
02:57The whole milk is kind of replacing the water here, whereas the heavy cream is going to give
03:01us lots of that silky texture.
03:03It's basically going to flavor our potatoes before we even get to the mashing part.
03:07Potatoes are little tiny sponges.
03:09They're going to absorb all that cream flavor, all that milk flavor.
03:13They're going to absorb some of the seasoning or salt.
03:15And we're just going to have a more flavorful end result.
03:19You can also add a bouillon cube to this if you want a little pop of flavor.
03:22It adds some background flavor, some umami, some seasoning to this, and it'll make your
03:26potatoes even more delicious.
03:28So the potatoes are now tender and cooked through.
03:30I'm going to shut it off.
03:32I'm going to strain them into a bowl.
03:35We're going to save that milk and cream.
03:36Don't throw it away.
03:37Now, the secret here is to use a ricer.
03:40If you've never seen one of these, basically it's going to take our potatoes, run them through
03:44the holes and make them nice and smooth, no lumps.
03:48My grandmother had one of these.
03:49This is how she made her mashed potatoes.
03:51I definitely think a ricer is worth investing in.
03:53Even if you only use it once or twice a year, get a good one.
03:57It's just worth it.
03:58If you want those smooth and silky potatoes, I'm going to hit this with salt, some butter.
04:03Obviously butter makes everything better.
04:05And then we're going to add a scoop of that cream and just give them a nice stir.
04:13That's our smooth, fluffy mashed potatoes.
04:16But if you want to make extra luxurious, super fancy potatoes, this is the recipe you want
04:21to use.
04:21The extra decadent Joel Robichon potatoes.
04:24This is a recipe made by a chef named Robichon, and it's basically a whole ton of butter with
04:30a little bit of potato holding it together.
04:32So I have a bowl of potatoes here that have been boiled in water in the skins, and then
04:35I put it through a ricer so that it's nice and fine.
04:37And these potatoes still have a ton of moisture in the form of water.
04:40So we're going to put these into a pot and steam out all the moisture.
04:43The more moisture we get out, the more butter the potatoes can absorb.
04:47Just remember potatoes are sponges and they'll soak up whatever you put them in.
04:51So if we put in water, it's going to be water and it's not going to have a lot of
04:54great flavor.
04:55But if we put in butter, milk and cream, that's what the potatoes are going to absorb.
04:59So my potatoes, they're nice and dry now.
05:02I'm going to add milk.
05:04So I'm adding moisture back, but it's a flavorful moisture.
05:07So I'm just going to add a little bit of warm milk and now I'm going to start to add
05:11my butter.
05:12I'm going to lower my heat.
05:13In general, when you're making mashed potatoes and you're adding dairy to it, heat your dairy
05:16up before.
05:18If you add cold dairy to your mashed potatoes, it cools them down.
05:22It starts to gelatinize the starches and you don't get as creamy or silky mashed potatoes
05:26as you might want.
05:27This recipe is definitely an exception to the rule.
05:29We're adding cold butter to form an emulsion.
05:31It's a two part potato, one part butter recipe.
05:35My butter is cold and my potatoes are hot.
05:38So we're basically making an emulsification of the butter in the potatoes.
05:42I'm going to add a nice hefty bit of salt, a little bit of white pepper, and we're just
05:50going to stir.
05:51And as the butter melts, we're going to add more butter.
05:57We're using some fancy French butter.
05:59This is fancy potatoes, you're not going to eat them all the time.
06:02So buy the best butter you can afford.
06:05Right?
06:06As we go, more butter.
06:09So this is done, but there is one last step before we can serve these potatoes.
06:14Passing these potatoes through a fine messive is going to remove any remaining lumps.
06:19It's going to make sure that our emulsion stays stable and we're going to get this really
06:23beautiful creamy silky mashed potatoes in the end.
06:26These are the decadent Robochon potatoes.
06:29Anything that's one third butter can't be bad.
06:31I think I'm one third butter.
06:33I'm delicious.
06:35If you're going to use frozen mashed potatoes, here's a way to make them much better.
06:39These products exist because people don't really have time to peel and mash and cook potatoes,
06:43and you can always make them a little bit better.
06:45You can chef them up.
06:47And that's what we're going to do here.
06:48Throw some butter in and then throw some warm cream in.
06:51I'm just going to let these melt.
06:56Creamy, buttery, delicious.
06:58Not better than Robochon potatoes, but in a pinch.
07:01This works every time.
07:05There is a secret to making really good restaurant quality fries at home, and that is par frying
07:11them.
07:11Par frying basically means we are cooking all the way through without any color.
07:16We want to cook the potatoes until they are soft, but not brown.
07:20These potatoes I just par fried at 300 degrees just to cook them through.
07:24The starch gelatinizes, they get firm and cold before I do the second frying, which is going
07:30to make them crisp and brown.
07:31So now I have my potatoes out of the freezer.
07:34Oil is at about 400 degrees for the second fry.
07:38And the second fry is where they get crispy and delicious and brown.
07:42It's a quick cook the second time around.
07:46So we drain them off really well into a bowl.
07:50Season them when they first come out of the oil.
07:53The extra steps of blanching and freezing make your homemade fries that much closer to
07:57restaurant quality.
07:59This is my favorite hack.
08:01It's called fake smash.
08:03In front of me I have some potatoes that have been par cooked or boiled.
08:07We want to maximize that surface area, so we're going to smash them down.
08:10Get lots of nooks and crannies, get them super crisp.
08:14Give it the old wrestling elbow.
08:17See how our potatoes are nice and splayed out or spread out, right?
08:22We take some nice oil right now, season them up, salt and pepper, throw this in the oven.
08:29All right, look at that.
08:30Maximum amount of crispiness, lots of surface area, delicious potatoes.
08:35We've seen the smash, let's talk about the shake.
08:38So when you want really extra crispy roast potatoes, you can actually boil them and then
08:42give them a shake.
08:43It's called burnishing or roughing them up.
08:46My potatoes are drained and now all I'm going to do is I'm going to give them a shake.
08:51Get in there, shake them up, let the potatoes beat each other up a little.
08:55We're going to try and get the outside of those potatoes burnished and roughed up so that when
09:01we put them in the roasting pan, we got lots of crispy edges.
09:04You can see our pot has a bunch of starch and our potatoes are starting to get a little beat
09:08up and that's where the burnishing comes in.
09:10So I take my burnished potatoes right in to the hot oil and then right into the oven.
09:17Look at these beautiful crispy edges here.
09:20Let's put some on a plate.
09:22I added some rosemary and garlic halfway through just to flavor these potatoes up.
09:26If you add them earlier than that, they tend to burn before the potatoes are brown.
09:31These look wonderful.
09:33Extra crispy burnished potatoes.
09:35Hasselback potatoes are one of those dishes that look really great, but the hardest part
09:40about them is getting that beautiful fanning effect without cutting through the potato
09:44all the way.
09:45The simplest solution is chopsticks.
09:48Just take your chopsticks and lay them on either side of the potato.
09:52And this is going to be a stop for your knife.
09:55You can see that my knife cannot go through the potato at all.
09:58And it stops right before it cuts all the way through.
10:03And now you can cut really nice and thin slices to get maximum fanning.
10:08This is one of those dishes that is deceptively easy once you know the right hat.
10:13So salt, pepper in the oven.
10:17It's going to fan open and be a beautiful Hasselback potato.
10:20Drives it up with a few little thyme leaves on top.
10:23Super simple Hasselback potato.
10:25This is more of a public service announcement than a hack.
10:29You never, ever, ever want to blend your potatoes.
10:39When you blend your potatoes, they get sticky and gummy.
10:43It turns into wallpaper paste.
10:45This is a major mistake some people make.
10:47Please, don't put your mashed potatoes in the blender.
10:50However, the food processor is your best friend when it comes to shredding potatoes.
10:56The food processor comes with a shredding disc and a slicer disc built so that you can prep
11:01really quickly.
11:02Lock your lid on.
11:03Take out this attachment.
11:05Turn on your machine.
11:06Get your potato.
11:09Drop it in.
11:15Shredded potatoes in an instant, but they're really wet and moisture is the enemy of browning.
11:21So I want to squeeze out all that excess liquid, put in a nice clean kitchen towel, fold it up
11:27into a bundle, give it a twist and a squeeze and get out all that extra moisture for crisp
11:35bread.
11:36Brown, hash browns and potato pancakes.
11:39So by squeezing all that moisture out, we maximize the crispiness of our potatoes when
11:43they're cooked.
11:44Crunchy, crispy, delicious, not soggy and chewy.
11:50Fondant potatoes.
11:51This is one of those potato dishes that everyone around you will think is like the fanciest thing
11:56ever, but it's actually really super simple to make.
11:59We're going to take the potato and shape them into round cylinders.
12:02Season them up, brown them in some butter, add a couple of sprigs of thyme in there.
12:07So the potato I chose today is a nice Yukon gold.
12:10So we're starting to get some nice caramelization, give them a little flip.
12:15I'm going to take my chicken stock and I'm just going to pour this into the pan and we're
12:19just going to let them soak up some of that stock.
12:22Comes to a boil.
12:23Let's put in a 350 degree oven.
12:25So potatoes are ready.
12:27Look at them.
12:28Golden brown, delicious.
12:30Fondant potatoes, a lot easier than anyone could imagine.
12:34Growing up in an Italian household, gnocchi was one of those things that was super special.
12:38And one of the best tips I've ever gotten, believe it or not, is something super simple.
12:42Instead of boiling the potatoes, you should roast them in the oven.
12:47When you boil your potatoes from gnocchi, sometimes they get watery.
12:50So we get this potato that's dry, light and fluffy rather than wet.
12:56The gnocchi is going to take less flour.
12:58You get more of a deep, rich potato flavor and then you have to work with the dough less.
13:04And that's what gives you that nice, light, fluffy gnocchi.
13:10There are a lot of different types of potatoes.
13:13It's important to know what type of potato you're working with because each potato gives
13:17you a different result.
13:18When it comes to mashed potatoes, I like to use a Yukon or a Russet.
13:23Sometimes I like to blend them together.
13:25Both of these potatoes will hold a fair amount of cream and butter, which makes mashed potatoes
13:29delicious.
13:30With the Russets, we're going to get a little more of a granular texture.
13:33And with the Yukons, we're going to get a little more smooth and creamy.
13:36Similar to the mashed potatoes, if you're roasting potatoes, the Yukons and the Russets
13:41are the best.
13:42The Russet's going to give you kind of a little fluffier texture, whereas the Yukon is going
13:45to give you a little more dense texture.
13:47Because both of these potatoes are a little drier and don't have as much moisture inside
13:51of them, that's where you're getting that nice brown crispiness from.
13:54When it comes to baked potatoes, I always go for a Russet.
13:57They get nice and light and fluffy.
13:59They get crispy skin.
14:01They soak up all that goodness of the sour cream and butter.
14:05And finally, the best potatoes for potato salad are the Fingerlings, the Red Bliss or the Yukon.
14:11They all have a very nice moisture content that's not dry.
14:15They soak up some of that mayonnaise with that vinaigrette.
14:18They hold their shape really well and make a really delicious potato salad.
14:22And there you have it.
14:23A bunch of potato hacks that we use constantly in the professional kitchen.
14:26I hope you enjoy them as much as I've enjoyed these potatoes.
14:35Don't do that.
14:36What are you laughing at?