Making Blue Mashed Potatoes
Last weekend, while we were out at Stanley’s, we picked up a few blue potatoes. Liz had heard good things from a coworker, and we decided to try them out.
Me personally? Never heard of such a thing. I knew of the regular potato and the red ones, but blue? Totally news to me.
After boiling and peeling, they looked… VERY weird. Without the skins, they looked like they were bruised all over. But in the few spots where you could see inside a potato, the blue color was even more pronounced (and looked even more out of place).
This is probably the most un-appetizing comment I could be making, but at the time I thought “Wow, it looks like we’re cookin’ up Smurfs.”
Yeah. Sorry about that.
Mashed and mixed with a bit of cream and salt/pepper. Again, it looked and felt very weird as we were going through this process.
Liking our prior meal of Sage and Rosemary Pork with Brussels Sprouts, we made something similar tonight. Plated next to the green of the brussels sprouts, the mashed blue potatoes looked off.
Again, me with another un-appetizing comment – as we were serving up the potatoes, I said to liz: “Wow, it looks like Grimace just took a big shit on our plates.”
I’m happy to report that the blue potatoes, though odd in color, tasted great. They were pretty much just like regular potatoes, so I’m not sure what the big fuss was about. There was a hint of sweetness/sugar to the potatoes, which was the one thing that stood out. But other than that, pretty much just like any other potato.
If nothing else, it was a cool little experiment. Blue potatoes – who knew?
a loooong time ago i remember hearing that humans evolved to avoid blue foods because they might be poisonous. (in this case blueberries and blackberries don’t count because, despite the name, they look purple.)i have nothing corroborating this but it may be a thing to investigate…
nickd (December 11, 2008 at 9:32 am)I can totally buy that. On looking at these guys, and noting the color, my first thought wasn’t “Oh YES, I want to eat this.”The idea of blue food (naturally blue food) makes me think of mold, so I can see there being a natural aversion (avoision?) to such things. In doing some digging around, I found out there are both blue and purple potatoes.All these different colors. It’s like a rainbow of starch!
avoision (December 11, 2008 at 10:09 am)The purple ones are supposed taste even better than the blue.
Liz (December 11, 2008 at 2:58 pm)for someone who craves blue food, the mold idea is a new concept.then again, the blue food i have in mind is more like pureed smurfs and leaves an unnatural blue tongue ;)….off to have a blue cotton candy shake. for b’fast.
g (December 12, 2008 at 6:37 am)I have no experience with blue or purple potatoes – but I did raise some heirloom purple/blue Tomatoes a couple of years ago. They were the color of an eggplant and they were delicious! However, the first time I tried one, I was kind of scared so Nick’s theory/factoid makes sense to me as well.
jen (December 12, 2008 at 7:15 am)I work with disabled adults. We are going to have an all-blue lunch this coming week. I cooked a large pot of all-blue potatoes to make a blue stew. It turned out to be a beautiful, bright, icy blue color. We will be having blue tortilla chips and some blue raspberry koolaid. My students can’t wait to have this lunch and have been talking about it for weeks….even their families want to see this all-blue lunch!
Auntie Barbara (March 28, 2009 at 10:49 pm)Here’s what I think… EWWWW
Anonymous (November 9, 2009 at 11:23 am)You should see what they look like after a few days in the fridge. Heh.I gotta say though – despite the color, they’re still quite delicious.
avoision (November 9, 2009 at 11:36 am)