I tried the ‘world’s best mashed potato’ and it was the perfect comfort food

Creamy mashed potatoes offer the perfect accompaniment to the main part of the dish in those examples, but what is considered the best version of it to make?

Having conducted some research, there are plenty of recipes that claim to offer the world’s best mashed potato.

While undoubtedly these will probably help someone create a quality product, most require a fancy item such as a potato ricer or food mill to get the job done.

For those who may not have such an item to hand that won’t be ideal so I wanted to find one that could be made as simply as possible.

Luckily, I managed to come across a video on YouTube titled ‘The Best Mashed Potatoes You Will Ever Make’ on the Epicurious channel.

Here, professional chef and culinary instructor Frank Proto shared his process for making quality mashed potato.

Rather than effectively being potato purée, his recipe does have some lumps in it to create an authentic mashed potato experience.

How to make the world’s best mashed potato

Proto’s recipe only requires a few ingredients, but selecting the right potatoes for the job is crucial.

The recipe only requires a few ingredients (Image: Newsquest) What he recommends is using a mixture of Russet and Yukon Gold varieties which are more commonly available in the United States.

They are harder to come by in the UK, but there are alternatives you can use such as Maris Piper or King Edward, which is what I went for.

Aside from that, the only other food items you’ll need are 115g of salted butter and a cup (approximately 268ml) of double cream.

To get started you’ll need to peel the potatoes. I was making the recipe as part of a sausage and mash meal that would feed five people so I ended up using around 1kg of the King Edward variety.

The first step involves peeling and chopping the potatoes (Image: Newsquest) After that, Proto recommends rinsing them and putting them in a bowl of cold water to prevent them from oxidising.

From here I cut them into big chunks as that helps to absorb flavour from the butter and cream later on in the process.

I discovered later on that I should have cut the chunks a bit more evenly than I did, as some cooked far quicker than others so you can improve on my error if you decide to make this yourself.

Once the potatoes were cut I put them into a pot of cold water, added a little bit of salt, and switched the hob on.

The water needs to be boiling before being turned down to a simmer to cook the potatoes (Image: Newsquest) This section of the recipe is crucial as the water needs to get to a stage where it is boiling, and once that is reached you can turn it down to leave it on a simmer.

From here it should take around 20 minutes for the potatoes to cook through, which you can check by how easily you can push a knife through them.

If they’re ready they should be soft and slip off the knife without too much hassle.

At this stage, get a saucepan out and put the butter and double cream in.

The butter and double cream need to be combined (Image: Newsquest) This should then be heated up so that the butter and cream slowly combine to make a mixture.

Once the potatoes are cooked through, drain them and place them in a bowl where you’re going to mash them.

The butter and cream combination (Image: Newsquest) These can wait for a few minutes whilst the butter and cream are heated up so that the excess water can escape from the potatoes in the form of steam.

After everything is sorted, you can get onto mashing.

The butter and cream mixture needs to be combined with the potatoes in the mashing process (Image: Newsquest) Season the potatoes with a bit of salt and pepper, and pour around half of the butter-cream mixture on top.

From here you can get to mashing, helping all the ingredients combine.

This should start to make creamy mashed potatoes. Continue with this, slowly adding in the remaining butter-cream mixture to complete the process.

The mashing process should result in creamy mashed potatoes (Image: Newsquest) After that, I served up the mashed potato with the sausages and vegetables I’d been cooking alongside it.

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The verdict

Overall, I found the mashed potato to be exceptionally creamy and rich adding a nice element to the dish.

The final dish (Image: Newsquest) It could probably seem a bit much depending on how much you ate of it, but a normal-sized portion works very well.

As I’ve found with a lot of ‘world’s best’ recipes, it’s not exactly healthy due to the butter and cream added in but it is undoubtedly very tasty.

If you’re looking for a hearty comfort food then this certainly fits the bill, and it doesn’t take too long to make as an extra bonus.