The Absurd Amount Of Garlic In Julia Child's Mashed Potatoes

Julia Child's iconic cookbook "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" contains leagues of legendary recipes like flavorful beef bourguignon, bacon-filled quiche Lorraine, and flaming Crêpes Suzette. While some of her more adventurous recipes may be best left in the past (we're looking at you, beef aspic), others are worth a try, even if their ingredients might read as a little extreme.

Take, for example, her garlic mashed potatoes (or purée de pommes de terre à l'ail). Most garlicky mashed potato recipes might call for a couple cloves, which are then simmered in a butter and milk mixture before being added to the boiled potatoes. Child's recipe multiplies that idea, calling for 30 total cloves of garlic, or at least two whole heads.

Chopping and sauteing 30 cloves of raw garlic would likely taste overpoweringly acrid, so Child's recipe asks you to blanch your cloves with the skin on for a few minutes to take away their bitter edge. Only after draining and peeling the garlic do you then add them to a skillet with butter, letting them brown. When ready, you'll add the pile of garlic to your béchamel sauce, and proceed as usual with your mashed potatoes.

Blanching and sauteing garlic brings out its sweeter side without taking away from its sharp tang. Because it creates a more subtle, well-rounded flavor, your resulting recipe will taste luxuriously rich rather than shockingly garlicky. That's why Child calls for 30 cloves. 

Julia Child's method for garlic mashed potatoes involves blanching the cloves, but there are myriad ways to bring a little garlic into your purée de pommes de terre. If you'd rather not break out another dish for blanching, you can still reach Child's epic garlic proportions by roasting the garlic to upgrade your mashed potatoes. Cut the tops off your garlic heads, drizzle them with olive oil, and wrap them in foil before roasting in the oven. The resulting cloves will be soft and dark with notes of sweet caramel-like flavor, perfect for stirring directly into your potato mixture.

Neither blanching nor roasting garlic will give your mashed potatoes much texture though. For a little added character and satisfying crunch, try topping your mashed potatoes with garlicky breadcrumbs. Butter, breadcrumbs, pepper, and a little parsley toasted together with minced garlic makes for a perfectly complementary potato topping, plus the mixture can even be served on the side if you're hosting. Your guests can add as much (or as little) of those garlic crumbs as they like to their mashed potatoes.