Emeril Lagasse's Bold Twist Takes Mashed Potatoes Up Several Notches

There's nothing wrong with a simple bowl of buttery mashed potatoes. No matter whether you crush them with a fork, whip them in a mixer, or run them through a fancy ricer, this versatile side dish is always a winner. This classic carb also makes the perfect blank canvas for experimenting with richer flavors. Take American chef and restaurateur Emeril Lagasse, for example, who likes to zhush up his spuds with the bold aroma and sweetness of caramelized garlic. Lagasse's recipe for mashed potatoes features all the common ingredients you'd regularly find in this comforting dish, such as unsalted butter, heavy cream, and seasonings. 

However, the celebrity chef doesn't simply slosh the cream into the hot potatoes and get to mashing. Instead, he adds butter and a couple of cloves of garlic to a saucepan first and allows the alliums to develop a golden color on one side before flipping them over. Once both sides of the cloves are soft and caramelized (this can take 6-7 minutes), he removes them, allows them to cool, and chops them up. Finally, he returns the chopped garlic to the same saucepan, adds the cream, and warms it slightly. It's this aromatic and rich mixture that he mashes into his cooked potatoes and seasons with a dash of salt and white pepper.

If you want to make Lagasse's mashed potatoes at home, be sure to remove the garlic from the sizzling butter as soon as it caramelizes. Garlic can very quickly burn and become acrid and bitter if left unattended. Even if you turn the heat off under the saucepan, the garlic will continue to cook in the residual heat, so be sure to remove it so it can retain its luscious texture and sweet flavor. Alternatively, roast whole heads of garlic in the oven for an hour and squeeze out the mellow, golden cloves by hand. What's the difference between caramelized and roasted garlic? Caramelized cloves tend to be sweeter, as the lower cooking temperature allows the natural sugars to permeate through more thoroughly.

While Lagasse's mashed potatoes are supposed to be aromatic and rich, there are ways to lighten them up if you're after a side dish that isn't as heavy. For instance, adding in some cooked celery root is the key to making sweet, buttery mashed potatoes sans all that extra cream. Also known as celeriac, this root vegetable can be mashed into your spuds to lend them a delightful earthy sweetness and creamy texture. Adding freshly chopped scallions or even stirring through a dash of wasabi powder are just a few more clever ways that celebrity chefs elevate mashed potatoes.