Mashed Potatoes with Milk and Parmesan Cheese, Bolognese Style
Well I put this off as long as possible. I have never prepared mashed potatoes before in my life. I haven’t eaten mashed potatoes in, oh, likely more than twenty years. I don’t care for mashed potatoes. I think this is the only mashed potato recipe in the book – and I get it.
This mashed potato recipe is very easy to prepare. Ingredients below, including some Parmesan cheese and a bit of nutmeg.
The recipe calls for the use of a double boiler. The potatoes are cooked, put into the top part of the double boiler over the melted butter and mashed. I used a potato ricer. Hot milk is added in small amounts as the potatoes are whisked; the Parmesan cheese is added, then more milk until the potatoes become fluffy, but before they become thin & runny. Add some salt & nutmeg and serve at once.
The final result below. Fluffy enough for you?
What I liked about this recipe:
Ho, hum. Gotta be one of the easiest recipes I’ve prepared.
I should also add that my 92-year-old mother-in-law liked the final result a lot – and she’s prepared tons of mashed potatoes in her life.
What didn’t I like about this recipe:
It’s mashed potatoes.
Will I make it again?
Well, I will if I am asked, as I almost certainly will be.
I got this recipe from Marcella’s “Classic Italian Cookbook”, the predecessor of “Essentials”. It is the ONLY way to prepare mashed potatoes, but I take some liberties with it. First, I use Pecarino Romano rather than Parmigiano Reggiano. Second, I add a handful of chopped garlic near the end to make garlic Italian mashed potatoes. Goes especially well with the sauteed chicken livers or the chicken alla diavolo.
Doug, I am ready to plant my face right into that plate! And yes, they are beautifully fluffy.
Once in Parma, I was looking forward to this as a contorno but I was worried about eating too much that day. An elderly woman, who was the tiniest woman I have ever seen, devoured a huge portion of this, all the while merrily spooning additional parmiggiano reggiano onto the potatoes. I swear she had to have been in her nineties and looked to be in perfect health. Let’s just say I ate up after that!
Marcella has a recipe for this with zucchini. It is fantastic, but I can’t recall which book it is in.
My compliments Doug for cooking well something you don’t love. This is an amazing group. I have never before known someone who didn’t like mashed potatoes(good mashed potatoes), or tomatoes, and this group has both of them.
Joseph Chiaravalloti, allow me please to be dismayed at your variation. Romano instead of Parmigiano? Ouch! Garlic? Ouch again! We don’t make garlic mashed potatoes in Italy.
Is that a canister of pre-grated parm in your pictue? I can’t believe Marcella didn’t call you out on that. My favorite quote from one of her books is something like “You might as well use sawdust. It it tastes the same and is cheaper.”
Love your blog. Keep cooking.
Deborah responds for Doug:
No Rich, that is a box of sea salt. Doug is a purist. No way would he be using the green shaker can. And I agree with you, that is a favorite Marcellaism of mine, too.