Un-chic Country Mashed Potatoes

prep time:: 5 minutes
cook time:: 15 minutes
total time:: 20 minutes

Makes 4 servings

from Clay: No, there are no “peels” in the mashed potatoes. Disgusting. And no, there are no lumps, which is just as disgusting. The Baby Jesus cries when you make lumpy mashed potatoes, as do my mother and both my grandmothers from beyond the grave. And by the way, when I was a kid and we still lived in a decent, God-fearing nation, potato peels went into the bucket with the rest of the hog slop, where potato peels belong.

ingredients

4 large potatoes (bakers or yellow -- I find that boilers have too much starch and result in gluey mashed potatoes)
1 t. salt
1 stick butter
milk

directions

1
1. Peel the potatoes. If you slice them, they cook much more quickly. Boil them in heavily salted water until fork tender, then drain.
2
2. Put the butter in the mixing bowl, and the potatoes on top. Cover for five minutes or so (this melts the butter and makes the potatoes easier to mash without nasty lumps). Use the whisk attachment, scraping down the sides and adding milk a tablespoon at a time as necessary. Add salt, and serve with anything.
3
3. My mother didn’t use so much butter in the potatoes (about half what I use), but she’d always plop a whole stick on top, so it would melt into yellow pools all over the mashed potatoes.

Source: Clay Marc Bond