Short ribs and mashed potatoes are one of my favorite combos. But I thought I'd try something a little different -- smoked mashers. So along with my short ribs, I cut up some russets into cubes as I normally would do when throwing them in water, and put them on my pellet smoker. I let them go for a couple hours at 200 degrees. They were not close to being ready to mash, and in fact, had a weird feel to them when I poked them. They felt like what I imagine a zombie's innards would feel like, but that may have been the wine...
I did salt and pepper them before putting them on (in an aluminum pan), so I don't know if perhaps the salt partially dehydrated them along with the heat. I ended up taking the ribs off (I finished them off in a beer braise) and turning up the heat on the smoker to 375 for the potatoes. That didn't help either, so I finished them off in the microwave. Mashing them was an adventure in splatterville as they really didn't mash -- more like chunked up.
The good news is that the smoky flavor did come through and went nicely with the short ribs, but that's the only positive -- the texture was way off. It was fun to try, but I'm hoping someone can steer me in the right direction so that I can avoid another zombie potato apocalypse. Thanks!
I did salt and pepper them before putting them on (in an aluminum pan), so I don't know if perhaps the salt partially dehydrated them along with the heat. I ended up taking the ribs off (I finished them off in a beer braise) and turning up the heat on the smoker to 375 for the potatoes. That didn't help either, so I finished them off in the microwave. Mashing them was an adventure in splatterville as they really didn't mash -- more like chunked up.
The good news is that the smoky flavor did come through and went nicely with the short ribs, but that's the only positive -- the texture was way off. It was fun to try, but I'm hoping someone can steer me in the right direction so that I can avoid another zombie potato apocalypse. Thanks!
