I Love Duchess Potatoes

This is not a recipe; it is a cooking loophole.

To practice sustainable hosting, make a plan that keeps your sanity intact. While planning for meals is helpful, planning for a feast is essential! Choose dishes that can be made one, two and even five days in advance. That way on feast day, you’ll warm things up, set them out, fluff up your wig and feel ready for anything.

Several types of salads can be prepped a day in advance. Pies can be made two days before hand. Duchess potatoes can be made a week early! And that is why I love them.

Easter is an unusual holiday. It doesn’t include a large shopping component and unlike other holidays, there isn’t consensus on what to eat. So serve salmon, or lamb or ham or whatever your grandma did for the main dish. Just make sure to time box your cooking. If you’re cooking a time and oven consuming meat, consider making simpler vegetables on the stove. For the starch, I’ve got a suggestion… mashed potatoes with a twist.

Duchess potatoes let you present a lovely version of mashed potatoes, with the relaxed attitude of a hostess who did minimal work, well in advance. My motto on these matters, “It’s none of their business.”

Ingredients:

Instant Mashed Potatoes

Chicken Broth

3 Egg Yolks

Egg White (if you want it)

Salt & Pepper

A Touch of Nutmeg

Just dump some instant potatoes into the chicken broth and stir. Nope, the chicken broth doesn’t even need to be warm. Keep dumping and stirring until you get the nice mushy consistency you want. Dump in three egg yolks and stir those in. If you want more, add them. Do your little taste test and sprinkle your seasonings. You are done.

 

If you have a pastry bag and cute little tips, have a great time. If you don’t, don’t go get one. Dump your mashed potatoes into a gallon size, storage bag and snip off a tiny piece of a bottom corner. Pipe them out onto wax paper and set the trays into a freezer for four hours. Once they’re frozen solid, they can be put together into the same container.

Feel like being extra fancy? Brush egg whites over them just before you send them into the oven.

When you’re ready to cook them, pre-heat your oven to 375F degrees. Set the frozen potatoes onto a tray and put them directly into the oven for 45 minutes. If they’re not frozen, heat them for 15 minutes.

My confidence in the taste of these is Olympian. I did develop one little insecurity while I was making these last time though…

Does this look at all like an infamous emoji you’ve seen lately?