Food - Drink
The Scientifically-Proven Ingredient For The Smoothest Mashed Potatoes
By LAUREN ROTHMAN
Potatoes can always be relied upon to bring yummy flavor and a range of textures to any home-cooked meal, and no potato recipe is more iconic than mashed potatoes. Mashed potatoes are quick and easy to make, and if you’re preparing to make them soon, you can make them extra-smooth using this one ingredient you might not have even heard of.
If you're an avid at-home bread baker, you may have heard of diastatic malt powder, an enzymatic powder derived from malted grain that helps break down the starch in potatoes into sugars. This powder is the secret to velvety mashed potatoes that don't even require the typically dairy-rich ingredients of butter, milk, or cream.
To incorporate it into your mashed potatoes, fill a pot with water, add 2 grams of sugar and 3 grams of salt for every 100 milliliters of liquid, and then add peeled, cubed potatoes to simmer until tender. Then drain them, place them in a bowl, and mix in 1 gram of malt powder per 100 grams of potatoes before passing them through a ricer into a plastic zip-lock bag.
Here comes the science-y part: Set the bag of riced potatoes in a pot of hot water (about 125 degrees F) for 30 minutes so that the enzymes in the malt powder are activated and start eating the starch. After a half hour, take the potatoes out of the bag and heat the puree to at least 167 degrees to halt the enzymatic process.
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