For some of us, making potatoes like Mums is a challenge. Instead of mashed potatoes like Mum's, they turn out tasteless, lumpy and dry. And then we resort to instant mashed potatoes, which are bland and turn out like library paste without the flavor. Or your mashed potatoes are so watery they sort of spread all over your plate - more like wallpaper paste. Ugh!

Even if you're not the sharpest tool in the shed when it comes to cooking, you can make really good homemade mashed potatoes. Choose the right potato and the right tools, and your potatoes can look and taste as wonderful as Mum's.

What you use to mash your potatoes with makes a difference. You may be accustomed to the slightly lumpy, classic mashed potatoes produced with a wire or stainless steel potato masher. If there are a few small lumps, at least everyone knows the potatoes are homemade. To use a potato masher, you mush up the cooked potatoes with the other ingredients using up and down and back and forth movements. It takes a little work to make really good mashed potatoes with a potato masher.

Some people prefer to use a potato ricer. It makes smoother mashed potatoes. With a ricer, you mush up the potatoes using mostly an up and down motion, forcing the spuds through the holes in the ricer until all the lumps are broken up. Many people swear that a ricer is the only way to make mashed potatoes.

Some people - including those of us who are too lazy to work a potato masher or ricer - like to use an electric mixer. A mixer produces good whipped potatoes. They may be a little dry because a lot of air gets incorporated into the potatoes. That's why purists scorn the mixer in favor of mashing potatoes by hand.

Other Considerations

In order to make good mashed potatoes, you have to cook them first. And even before you put the potatoes in a pot, you have to decide whether to peel them or not.

Peeled potatoes produce smoother, creamier mashed potatoes without bits of skin in them. They have a uniformly white color.

On the other hand, when you peel potatoes, you throw away a lot of the vitamins with the peel. Unpeeled mashed potatoes are more visually "interesting" with those bits of peel throughout, and they have a bit more texture, as well as lots more vitamins.

After you decide whether or not to peel your potatoes, you are ready to cook them. Put the potatoes in a pan of cold water, and bring it to a boil. If you boil the water first, the potatoes kind of seal themselves when you put them in, and they don't cook right for mashing.

Use the best ingredients you can when mashing the potatoes. Yes, you can make light, airy, very good and low fat potatoes by mashing with chicken broth. But they won't begin to compare to the creamy texture and buttery flavor you'll get by using real butter and milk or cream.

Additions to Your Mashed Potatoes

Once you've mastered making really good homemade mashed potatoes, you can add things to your potatoes for flavor, texture and interest. Some of the things you can add while you are mashing the potatoes are:

Cheese
Onion
Garlic
Mint
Corned beef