Published September 1, 2000.
Cooking the potatoes in their skins and peeling them after cooking for rich, earthy flavor was the first step toward our ultimate garlic mashed potatoes recipe. For richness and great garlic flavor, we used plenty of melted butter, stirred in half-and-half after adding the butter, and toasted the garlic cloves in a covered skillet over low heat.
Avoid using unusually large garlic cloves, which will not soften adequately during toasting. Yukon Gold, red, russet, or white potatoes can be used--each turns out a different texture. For smooth mashed potatoes, a food mill or potato ricer fitted with the finest disk is the best choice. For chunky mashed potatoes, use a potato masher, decrease the half-and-half to 3/4 cup, and mash the garlic to a paste with a fork before you add it to the potatoes.
Dear Friend,
These days, it’s pretty easy to get free recipes on the Internet. I’m sure a search for “roast chicken recipe” will turn up thousands and thousands. But, as with so much on the web, you should tread lightly if you don’t know the source.
In America’s Test Kitchen, our motto is, “Recipes that Work,” and our mission is to be your trusted source for recipes that work every time you use them. Our test cooks spend their days obsessively testing recipes until they offer consistently great results. As we like to say here, “We make the mistakes so you don’t have to.”
CooksIllustrated.com is the only place you can find not only 20 years' worth of our foolproof recipes, but also objective ratings of cookware, and blind taste tests for hundreds of everyday supermarket ingredients (hey, without the proper ingredients and equipment you can still run into problems — no matter how good the recipe).
Let me make a simple, no-nonsense offer. Try out our website FREE for a 14-Day, No-Hassle Trial Offer. I’m pretty confident that CooksIllustrated.com will quickly become an invaluable resource for everything from quick, weeknight suppers to huge, holiday feasts for family and friends.
Thanks for your consideration,
Christopher Kimball
Founder and Publisher
