POTATOES, MASHED
What may be termed high-class mashed potatoes are made by mashing up ordinary boiled potatoes with a little milk previously boiled, a little butter, and passing the whole through a wire sieve, when a little cream, butter and salt is added.
In private houses mashed potatoes are generally made from the remains of cold boiled potatoes, or when the cook, in boiling the potatoes, has made a failure. Still, of course, potatoes are boiled often expressly for the purpose of being mashed. This is often the case where old potatoes have to be cut into all sorts of shapes and sizes in order to get rid of the black spots. As soon as the potatoes are boiled they are generally moistened in the saucepan with a little drop of milk. It is undoubtedly an improvement, and also entails very little extra trouble, to boil the milk first. There is a difference in flavor, which is very marked, between milk that has been boiled and raw milk. Suppose you have coffee for breakfast, add boiling milk to one cup and raw milk to another, and then see how great a difference there will be in the flavor of the two. A little butter should be added to mashed potatoes, but it is not really essential. Mashed potatoes can be served in the shape of a mould, that is, they can be shaped in a mould and then browned in the oven. If you serve mashed potatoes in an ordinary dish, and pile them up in the shape of a dome, the dish will look much prettier if you score it round with a fork and then place the dish in a fairly fierce even; the edges will brown, but be careful that they don't get burnt black.
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From Cassell's Vegetarian Cookery - A Manual Of Cheap And Wholesome Diet by A. G. Payne
