Truffle Salt Mashed Potatoes + Everything else I made for Thanksgiving this year
Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you had a wonderful time relaxing and enjoying food with your family and friends. Despite it always turning into an Asian Thanksgiving in the Zhang household, I ended up seizing the kitchen to make a few seasonal Thanksgiving favorites like Pumpkin Pie and Mashed Potatoes. I even got a little bit adventurous and rode my macaron high from a few months ago to create some Pumpkin Spice Macarons (#basicbutbougie).
I wanted to highlight one of my proudest achievements this Thanksgiving: these mashed potatoes shown above. Made with truffle salt, (lots of) cultured butter, garlic-infused heavy cream, and topped with bacon and scallions. There are a lot of ways to mash your potatoes—using a potato masher, a ricer, or even a fork—but I went the extra mile and gained some extra biceps by sieving the potatoes through a mesh (they should be called “meshed” potatoes instead of “mashed” potatoes, am I right?! 🥁). I learned this method through this really helpful video by Tasty, and the potatoes ended up being silky smooth and very luxurious.
Mashed potatoes can act as a blank canvas for your favorite spices, and so I decided to pull something a little extra out of my pantry—truffle salt. I recently received a jar for my birthday from a shop in Oakland called Truffle Shuffle, and I’ve been using it ever since in pasta, eggs, and even on my avocado toast. So when it came time to make these mashed potatoes, I thought, why not throw a sprinkle of this in as well? It’ll give this traditional Thanksgiving staple an updated flavor reminiscent of truffle fries.
Truffle Salt Mashed Potatoes
Ingredients (serves 3-4 people)
- 4 potatoes
- 2 cloves of garlic
- ½ cup heavy cream
- ¾ cup/12 tbsp/6 oz of cultured butter*
- truffle Salt to taste
- bacon for garnish (optional)
- chopped chives or scallions for garnish (optional)
* I love the taste of cultured butter, but regular butter will do just fine!
Takes , Makes enough for 3-4 people.
Instructions
- Peel the potatoes and slice them into 1-inch cubes. Set them aside in cold water while you work to prevent them from oxidizing.
- Add the potatoes to a pot of cold water with a sprinkle of salt. Boil them for around 15 minutes, or until the potatoes are fork-tender.
- Strain the potatoes and put them back into the pot on the stove and stir them around for 30 seconds to 1 minute. This will ensure the potatoes lose all of their moisture.
- Mash your potatoes with a potato masher, or run them through a ricer or a wire sieve.
- Melt the butter and add it gradually to the potatoes while stirring. Try to do this while your potatoes are still in the warm pot on the stove, on low heat.
- Add the cloves of garlic to the heavy cream and heat them up in a saucepan (or the microwave, if you're feeling extra lazy).
- Remove the garlic cloves from the heavy cream and slowly add it to the potatoes while mixing.
- Mix the truffle salt into the potatoes, giving them a taste to determine the amount you should add. Try not to make them too salty if you're planning on adding gravy or bacon.
- Garnish with chopped scallions or chives, bacon pieces, and black pepper, if desired.
I also made a pumpkin cream cheese pie that was tasty but on the uglier side. I found the recipe on Pinterest about two years ago and decided to bring it back again this year to be the main dessert item.
If you’ve been following me on Instagram, then you’ll know that I’ve been on a macaron craze these last few months. The journey to create macarons that receive a passing grade hasn’t been easy, but it’s been fun to play around with food coloring and get creative with the filling. For the holiday season, I made these Christmas colored ones on the left, filled with a matcha green buttercream (not a traditional Christmas flavor, but it fulfilled the green part of the macaron). On the left, I created these pumpkin spice macarons, which is kind of like a rendition of my pumpkin pie above, only in macaron form. You can find the recipe for my black sesame macarons here.
I apologize once again for not posting as much as I used to. I’ve been honing in most of my attention on my music these days, and it’s been pretty stressful and emotionally-draining, to say the least. Spending some time in the kitchen and being creative with food has definitely lightened up my mood a bit.
I also just wanted to take a moment apart from the food/music to think about what I’m thankful for. Negative emotion can be a lot stronger than positive emotion, so a lot of the time I tend to ignore all the positivity that surrounds me, and hone in on all the negative parts of my life. But since it’s Thanksgiving, I really wanted to stop and give thanks to all the things that make me happy:
👨👩👧👦 To my parents. They uprooted their lives in China and brought me here for a better education. I still remember when we were living on $40/week when my parents were grad students, and I can’t be thankful enough of every ounce of their hard work to get me to where I am today. Though they were strict at times, I wouldn’t have the job I have today or be the musician I am today without them forcing me to study or play the violin when I was younger. Thanks for demonstrating a wonderful work ethic and showing me that hard work really does pay off, I love you :)
👯♀️To the friends who managed to see past the surface-level things and embraced the uglier side of me—thanks for calling me out on my BS and reminding me that I don’t need social validation to feel good about myself. I really needed y’all this year. (Also, thanks for making me laugh and laughing at my jokes)
👩🏻💻👨🏻💻👩🏫👨🏫To my incredible team at Pinterest. Thanks for making my M-F/9-5 a blast. I’m so fortunate to work in such a comfortable, inclusive environment that sometimes it doesn’t seem like work at all. Thanks for making me grow, too :)
👩🎤👩🏻🎨 To all the talented artists I met this year, whether in person or online. I admire you a lot, and sometimes I hate you for being so great at what you do. You force me to get my shit together and work harder so I can get on your level. Thanks for using your platform and talent to help me share a piece of my art with the world.
🎸 To my 3 guitars: you’ve gotten me into a lot of trouble and sometimes I cringe at how much I suck—but you helped me become a better musician and become more confident in front of a live audience.
🐶 To my dog: thanks for loving me unconditionally and making me feel like I’m the most attractive person in the world. Thanks for listening to me when I’m spilling my secrets. I love you!
📖To all the readers of this blog: Thanks for giving me a purpose to be creative. I really hope the content here inspires you, and that it prompts you to take some time out of your day to let your creative energy run wild.
♥ Cindy