Hay Smoked Mashed Potatoes

Hay smoked mashed potatoes.

Let's face it, I'm by no means avant garde with most of my cooking.  Rene Redzepi is.  He has arguably the best restaurant in the world with a large staff and they spend their days inventing new flavors and techniques.  But I was bored.  So very bored.  Winter stared in November and has not let up for months.  Just snow, ice, and cold.  This is something out of research not my brain.  But like most of my posts, I am trying to sum stuff up from my research.  For starters, smoking or cooking in hay is not a new thing.  People have been doing it for years in the old world.  It is not a technique that you stumble across in day to day "let see what Pinterest thinks I should have for dinner" surfing.

So, where did I find this idea and why did I try it?  I heard about it at some point and kind of put it away in the back of my mind.  Finally, I decided to try it just for kicks, but mostly out of boredom.  One of the things I noticed in my research was how the definition of hay was not defined.  It was just referred to as hay, like you could go to your local market and pick up a bag of it.  It would be hanging there with the word "Hay" on the bag.  I spent enough time in the Midwest bailing the stuff to understand is a general term.  Basically, hay is dried forage.  Meaning food for animals.  Hay can be any edible grass or plant that animals can eat that can be cut, dried, and stored.  If you mow the ditch around a highway, rake it into a wind row, let it dry, and bail it, you have hay.  It may contain many different plants, but mostly grass.  Now, if you bail dried stalks of wheat or oats, you have straw.  That is used for bedding for animals and is not the same as hay.  So, hay goes in the feeder and straw goes on the floor.  Hay is green, straw is yellow or gold in color.

That being said, hay can be made up of many different things.  Where I grew up, alfalfa is the main type of hay.  For this recipe, we will be using alfalfa and Timothy hay made from Timothy grass.  So, you may be thinking that you really enjoy sitting next to a wood fire roasting marshmallows and hot dogs.  The smell bring many people back to a camping trip of fireplace during a cold winter.  A grass fire does not bring about those memories.  We associate grass fires with smoke and stink.  Not something we would put in a fire pit and cook hot dogs over.  So why would this be any good.  To be honest, I really don't know, but it is.  In fact, it works so well with potatoes that it is now my favorite type of mashed potato.  You just need to try it for yourself.

Hay Smoked Potatoes

What you will need:

• A good vent hood, or do this outside on a grill side burner.
• A pot that you don't mind making smell like smoke for the rest of its life.  It should have a heavy bottom to disperse the heat.
• Aluminum foil
• Timothy hay
• Alfalfa hay
• Some Russet potatoes.  I hear you can use just about any kind, but I have used Russets because that is what I had on hand at the time and they worked out swimmingly.
• Your normal mashed potato ingredients like butter, milk, half and half, salt, pepper, etc.  I would keep it simple and not go crazy with anything else until you try them this way first.

The process:

• Place a piece of foil on the bottom of the pot.
• Put about 1 C of Timothy hay and 2 C of alfalfa hay uniformly on the foil.  Hay can be purchased at most pet stores and is relatively inexpensive.
• Place another piece of foil over the hay.
• Arrange the potatoes (unpeeled, raw) on the foil.
• Cover and place on the stove.
• Turn the stove to high and wait until you see smoke.  Let it smoke for 5 minutes.
• Reduce heat to low and cook for 50 minutes.
• Remove the potatoes to a plate and let cool
• Once they are cool enough to handle, peel and make mashed potatoes like normal.  

Reserve some boiling water if you want to add more smoky
flavor to your mashed potatoes.

What struck me was how pungent the potatoes were after smoking them.  And to be honest, it was not the most appetizing smell.  However, once the skins are peeled off and they are boiled and turned into mashed potatoes, they are mildly smoky.  The smoke flavor is sweet and melds well with the potatoes.  So far, they have been a huge hit an I am glad to have tried them.  I guess that maybe being housebound, in the dead of what I can only describe as one of the seemingly longest winters ever, can yield some rewards.