The French Use A Special Ingredient For The Fluffiest Mashed Potatoes

Even without all the bells and whistles, mashed potatoes are a near perfect food. Sure, you can add mascarpone to the mix or throw your taters in an Instant Pot with bacon, cheese, and finely chopped scallions, and certainly nobody is going to be upset about it. (Find all that and more in our list of the 12 best mashed potato recipes.) But when it comes down to it, all you really need to make a mind blowing mash is salt, butter, and milk or heavy cream — perhaps a little bit of cheese, too, if you're feeling fancy. That's all the French use to make their famous Chantilly potatoes, except with one transformative distinction: the heavy cream is whipped first.

Putting whipped cream onto your mashed potatoes may sound like a scene pulled straight out of the movie "Elf" — but we're not talking about piling Ready Whip on your side dish. Instead, Chantilly mashed potatoes will have you incorporating a homemade whipped cream recipe, sans sweeteners, into the ensemble. In essence, the big difference between heavy cream and whipped heavy cream is the light airy texture, which the latter lends to the dish.

Making Chantilly potatoes starts off in much the same way as any mashed potatoes recipe: with peeled and boiled potatoes. You may typically opt for a more rustic texture — perhaps using a masher to smash them before calling it a day. However, Chantilly potatoes are done in the same style as Julia Child's famous garlic mashed potatoes, for which a ricer is necessary. Passing the soft potatoes through a ricer before blending with the other ingredients ensures that the texture will be supremely smooth and velvety when blended with the creamy ingredients.

The potatoes are then combined with butter and milk to form the quintessential potato purée, much like Anthony Bordain's famous potatoes, which were inspired by culinary legend Joël Robuchon's iteration. But the job isn't yet done. To really amp up the creamy texture, a cup of (must be) cold heavy cream — whipped until soft peaks are formed — is gently folded into the mashed potatoes. Topped with a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese and popped in the oven for 12 minutes, the potatoes start to bubble and brown, yet the whipped cream miraculously holds its former texture enough to give the potatoes an almost soufflé-like mouth feel.