Brown Butter Mascarpone Mashed Potatoes

Today I bring you my one and only contribution to Thanksgiving this year: brown butter mascarpone mashed potatoes. Hurray!

It's no secret that I loooove Thanksgiving, but I'm gonna go ahead and admit that my love does not come from the food. I love food, duh, but Thanksgiving food just isn't my favorite! If I never eat turkey again, it'd be ok! Stuffing is good, but not the best food in the world. Everything else... meh. Obviously I'm digging the desserts (chocolate pecan pie: I miss you already!), but the only real part of DINNER that I love is mashed potatoes. And cranberry sauce. But let's focus on mashed potatoes. {To be clear, I love Thanksgiving because my family is awesome and spending the long weekend with them in Oregon is ALWAYS fun!}

For me, mashed potatoes are a vehicle for cheese and butter. Actually, all forms of potatoes are a vehicle for cheese and butter. Poutine? Baked potatoes? Hashbrowns? All amazing, all smothered in cheese and butter. Or fat of some sort. When I discovered the cheese section at our local grocery store (!!!!) I noticed an abundance of mascarpone. I went through a mascarpone phase early last year, but haven't touched the stuff since. So, I bought some! I was originally planning on making some sort of no-bake cheesecake, but got lazy and that hasn't happened yet. Mostly because the nutella I bought for it has been rapidly consumed by spoon. Sorry/not sorry!

With this mascarpone on hand, I thought "why not make the world's creamiest mashed potatoes?" Yeah, why not!? Plus, brown butter. Because, again, why not?? You really can't go wrong. You can do whatever you want to the potatoes, but I recommend keeping the skins on (because I like texture!) and not pureeing them completely (again, texture!). Use salt and pepper generously, and make sure to have enough on hand to make into potato pancakes Friday morning! DO IT FOR ME, I BEG YOU!

With that, I might pretend that Thanksgiving isn't happening. It's hard to be so far away for such an important holiday! I'm not sure if we'll do anything at all here in Bali, other than give thanks! Maybe one of the local bakeries will be making pumpkin pies (fingers crossed!) so we can get a little taste of home. Aaah I miss having an oven. Enjoy your holiday! I'll be licking my iPhone as I keep up on instagram!

Brown Butter Mascarpone Mashed Potatoes

• Author: by Mary
• Prep Time: 5 mins
• Cook Time: 20 mins
• Total Time: 25 minutes
• Yield: 4-6 1x

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Ingredients

Units USM Scale 1x2x3x

• 2 lbs yukon gold potatoes, quartered
• 1 cup unsalted butter
• ¾ cup mascarpone
• ¼-½ cup heavy cream
• salt & pepper

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Instructions

1. In a large soup pot, cover the potatoes with cold water and bring to a boil.
2. Let cook until the potatoes are fork-tender, then remove from heat and rinse with cold water. Drain again.
3. While the potatoes are cooking (or cooling), brown the butter. In a heavy saute pan over medium heat, melt the butter. Stir occasionally, scraping the bottom of the pan, and bring the butter to a simmer. It should fizzle and pop. Continue to stir occasionally. Once the popping has died down, keep an eye on the solids in the pan: we want them to be a dark golden brown, but not to burn. Once they are golden brown, remove from heat and pour in with the potatoes.
4. Add the mascarpone, and mash the potatoes either with a masher or a hand mixer, to your desired consistency. Add cream as needed for thinning (I used only ¼ cup).
5. Add salt and pepper to taste (I used at least ½ teaspoon of each).

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