Jordan has to stand next to me and give me a bunch of little kisses while I cook. Every home cook has that one dish they’re more confident in than any other. The one dish that they know can truly blend in with the pros. Or can it? Today, one imposter chef takes on two very professional Mythical chefs to see if they got what it takes. So everyone, put your hands together. Please welcome today’s imposter Chef Kendahl Landreth. Thank you. Come on down, Kendahl. Thank you so much. Thank you. And Kendahl, you’ve been talking a lot of smack off camera. I know because I really do think that my mashed potatoes are incredible because I’m not afraid to put six whole sticks of butter per potato in my mashed potatoes. Love that. So I feel ready. I love that. You do a lot of Midwestern mom characters on your TikTok on Instagram. I do. I feel like you can channel that into this. This is the perfect dish for that. Yes, I’ll be cooking entirely in character, the whole time. That was part of the contract. Yes, yes. And also, as you know, I don’t know if you all know, the judge of this show, Jordan Myrick, is your girlfriend. Yes and they’re very much the cook of our house. I don’t cook anything and I’m very, very bad at it. Even little things that you’d think anyone can make that, I truly, truly cannot. But I made these mashed potatoes a couple years ago and they tasted edible. And Jordan’s so sweet. So every week they were like, “Kendahl, please make your famous mashed potatoes.” They’re not famous to anyone else except Jordan. So I think they’ll be excited to have ’em today. They’re about to be famous now. And Jordan has no idea that you’re here. No, no idea at all. Do you think they’ll be able to taste your love that you put into these potatoes? Or- Yeah. What if they mistake your love for Lily’s love? That would be- Mistake Lily’s love for your love. Ooh. Uh-oh, Lily, that would be deeply upsetting to me. I’m gonna put a bunch of little kisses in my mashed potatoes so I think they’ll be able to taste it. Me too. Well, now we’re gonna have a problem. Now we all gotta kiss our potatoes. This is getting really upsetting. Well, we’re all gonna take our best stab at mashed potatoes. Jordan’s gonna blind taste test them and they’re gonna see if they can, one, two. Catch the imposter chef. We are finally making a dish from my culture. Mashed potatoes. If I was a fruit, I’d probably be a banana, if you know what I mean. But yeah, so we have these whole potatoes. They’re Yukon potatoes. I boiled them whole and I’m just gonna start skinning them. I already skinned a few off camera ’cause it’s a little bit boring. I boiled them whole because I wanted to keep all the starch in and the water out. And I think of the skin as a protective layer. I really want like a creamy, nice, non lumpy mashed potato. And my strategy here is to just go super simple. I don’t need like garlic and you know, cheese, and thyme, or any sort of herbs to make this good. I just wanna go simple. Okay, we’re gonna just get these mashing. Overworking your mashed potatoes is going to result in a gluey texture. And I’m not trying to eat no glue. And then you thought I was gonna pull out a ricer. Maybe you didn’t, but I’m gonna pull out a tamis. A tamis has like a finer mesh here so I just get no lumps and I avoid overworking the potatoes. So I’m gonna scoot this over here and move this over here. And I’m just gonna, you know, I’m just gonna take my hands and just plop it in here and I’m gonna tamis them through. Also, what are really good in my opinion, are instant mashed potatoes. When my parents got divorced, my dad always like had them in the cupboards and I would just like eat like a whole thing of instant mashed potatoes. And it was kind of like the only thing keeping my heart warm and happy at the time. So yeah. But speaking of instant mashed potatoes, you should head over to Sporked.com if you don’t have time to make no mashed potatoes homemade. ‘Cause they’ve got ratings on all the good instant mashed potatoes and all your grocery recommendation needs. So Sporked.com. So I cultured butter ’cause I like to ferment things in the Mythical Kitchen. You basically take heavy cream and a little bit of buttermilk and let it sit at room temp until it gets kind of, I didn’t wanna add cheese, but I did wanna have like another depth of flavor and it does smell like cheesy without it being cheese. So it’s not a cheat, it’s just good stuff. Oh, and I did wanna show. This is my other fermentation. I kind of wanna touch it, but I don’t wanna kill it. This is my, well there’s like a few scobies in here, but we did like a mystery kombucha taste test on GMM. And then, I just kept her because she’s cute. She’s really cute. If you wanna buy this, I will sell it to you for like $300. I also have my Kerrygold butter because she’s good too. And I’m just gonna slice this up and just add in some butter and a little Kerrygold. You can add too much butter to your potatoes too. You don’t want it to like separate. Also, I’ve seen like a lot of recipes where they melt the butter too and that can cause separation. I want this to be nice and homogenous and so I’m just gonna do that. I’m gonna throw in, I’m throwing in a little MSG. I don’t think it’s a cheat. I think it’s gonna make my potatoes taste a little more like potatoes. Just the way salt makes your food taste like your food. And then taking my potatoey fingers. I guess I can take off these gloves. We don’t need the gloves anymore. And then I’m gonna stir this in. I’m gonna add a little more butter. Why not? And then I’ll add in some pepper and then I’m gonna add in my cream. Like I said, I don’t wanna over mix this, I just kind of want to combine everything together. It is kind of like a taste as you go situation. I’m not measuring my ingredients out or anything. Just kind of going with the flow here. So it is coming together. You don’t have like a gluey texture. Okay. That’s super under salted. More salt. I did salt my water when I boiled them too. When you boil potatoes, the salt doesn’t penetrate all the way through them. So you do wanna like oversalt it just like how you do your pasta water. Just mix this in there. I’m gonna add a little more cream. Oh my gosh, this smells so good. It smells like Thanksgiving. Okay, this is coming together really nicely. Give it another taste. A little more salt. I can really taste that cultured butter in there. It gives it almost like a sour, creamy texture. I feel good about this. Give this one last mix and then, yeah, like, this mashed potato, I think, is really just gonna trick our judge. And we’ll grab our bowl. Nice, like, little homey bowl. Grab a spoon and then just, I’m not gonna go crazy with like the plating or anything. I’m just gonna make it look nice and homey. Just take this whole knob and just give it a little pat. Just give it a nice little gloss. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That is what the first taste I want our judge to taste is like the kind of cheesy. Little salt, little pepper. And these are my beautiful mashed potatoes. We gotta discuss about 15 to 25 minutes worth of potato theory before I start cooking. Potatoes, what are they? Nobody knows. They were found in Peru. No potatoes in Europe until the 1492 Colombian exchange. Not popular until the mid 1600s. They were thought to actually be way too feed the poor because they are very drought resistant. They keep for a long time. Don’t require the water of grains. I don’t really like ’em that much. So I’m taking some Yukon Golds. These are a medium starch potato. Russets are a high starch. Red are a low starch. Some people think you want really high starch for mashed potatoes. They tend to hold air really well. So if you want really whippy, russet works. But I like mine smooth and silky. If I do like mashed potatoes. I just prefer everything other than mashed potatoes. So a lot of people will do their potatoes whole and then they’ll mash that, which makes a certain amount of sense because you are effectively steaming the inside of the potato and you are preventing a lot of water from absorbing. And people think that will make your potatoes less watery. What I want though, I wanna prevent free starch from being removed from my potatoes because that’s what makes mashed potatoes gluey. And to me, that’s the death of mashed potatoes. What I’m gonna do, I’m gonna cut ’em up real small and then I’m gonna drop them into a big pot of boiling water. I’m gonna shut the heat off because starch is released when all the potatoes rub against each other. You know, it’s like when you’re in a crowded sauna and you’re kind of just like rub, you know, not a great analogy, but the potatoes rub against each other and starch is released. And then that loose starch is what creates gluiness. So I’m gonna try and get perfect little squares, prevent them from rubbing against each other. Get ’em fully saturated with water. Because when you boil a whole potato, all that agitation on the outside from the rapidly boiling water is going to create that free starch. Do I think any of this will actually matter in the final taste of my mashed potatoes? No. What matters is I’m putting mayonnaise in it. Boom. No longer boiling. Well, okay, just stop it. Just, just stop. There it is, there we go. Pot, milk. Milk goes in the pot. Why am I doing this? Saw Gordon Ramsey do it once. He’s British, British people love potatoes. They hate anything that tastes good. We’re gonna add then there. I’m gonna take a shallot. Shoot. I’m gonna take the whole shallot in there, skins and all. Shallot skins just taste like shallots. Totally fine. Shallot skins actually have a lot of pectin in it. Does that have anything to do with this? No. Just a cool old fact. Garlic’s going everywhere, that’s going in there. We’re gonna strain all this. So you know, it’s whatever. Yeah, it’s like when you make a stock, you add a bunch of onion skins in there and it thickens it. What does that- Nobody knew about the natural pectin inside onion skins? Now I feel weird. White pepper not using black pepper with my mashed potatoes because like all classically trained French chefs like myself, you know, that you don’t add black specks to white creamy foods. You add little white powders. I’m gonna chop some chives. I wanna garnish the chives. Chives and potatoes are really, really good. Why did I do that? I did that the opposite. No, I want to, shoot. Shoot. Yeah, well we’re here. Great way to cut chives. Wrap a white paper towel around it and then you kind of keep it in a bundle. Do I think the chives are gonna give me away as a professional chef? Yes, yes I do. But so will the Kaluga caviar that I’m adding to the top. I chopped a lot of paper towel in that too. I’m gonna go ahead and remove that. Perfect. Let’s see if those potatoes are done. So you can see, it’s not boiling at all. And these are not moving anywhere. Ah, sorry. Gimme like five minutes to let these potatoes cook. I’ve strained my potrados. Now, I’m gonna put them in a ricer. This to me is my single favorite method of making potatoes. You puree them. All that starch is just gonna get super gluey unless you’re using a very low starch potato. And so I put them through a ricer. You can also use a food mill. Some French chefs may use a tamis, but I don’t like that because it’s just like, who do you think you are. Using a tamis, come on, get outta here. So I’m just going to kind of. What was it like Play-Doh Fun Fest? You guys know what I’m talking about? I didn’t have toys growing up, I had like a ball, you know. And I played with it and I was grateful for the ball that I had. But we just like didn’t, yeah, we weren’t like a toy family. Rice your potatoes. You don’t want to potato your rice. Put that there. This milk, milk, I’m gonna strain it in. We got all that onion flavor, all that chive flavor, a little bit of dust from the counter got in there and I’m just gonna put a fair amount of that. I like a good liquidy mashed potato. And then I’m gonna keep heating the milk. I’m gonna put that on top of there. This is gonna double boil it ’cause I don’t want direct heat from the pan. I’m gonna take some white pepper. Pinch, that’s fantastic. Nice. fine ground. Salt, salt’s a thing I enjoy. Dump a bunch of that in there. I’m gonna take this, mix it with a, that was a lot of milk I put in there, eh. . Hoo-hoo-hoo. All right, no, that’s fair. This is looking worse than I wanted it to. Here, let’s go with this. Why does it, I feel like I riced it and it still looks lumpy, that’s fine. And take some butter. Just kind of expel a lot of it in there. Room temp. There we go. And yeah, that is so wet. Shoot, dammit. Dammit, all right, cool. Well, let’s give it a taste. Let’s see where we’re at. Oh crap. Oh, that sucks so bad. Yo, someone want to make a dollar? Yeah. I don’t care, can somebody grab me a food processor? I’m doing it. Ah, crud. Screwed the pooch. This is like, you know, it’s just a little bit of mayo, you know, like that kid in high school who was just like, talk about world politics as if like a 15 year old had any idea how any of the world worked. And you’re like, you know this in theory. That’s me, but on the scale of mashed potatoes. So this is going into the food processor, I don’t care anymore. Plugged in, what does this, how do you do, goddammit. It going in here now? No. Oh no. I don’t know what happened. And I cannot apologize enough. We can just redo this episode, right? We don’t have to air this. I feel like this is really gonna hurt my credibility. And yeah, now it’s just a matter of doing that. And then what would help this? Ah. Okay. Now we’re getting. So here, let me wipe this out. No, I’m getting a new bowl, hold on. Hold on, hold on, hold on. You got this. Takes a village, everybody, it takes a village to make- Takes a village to make a single bowl of mashed potatoes. There we go. Nice French. We are now doing a French pomme puree. A little gluey, but the glue, here’s the thing, the glue’s helping actually. I think, oh, this could help. Oh no. A little bit more mayo. Hold on, no, ye of little faith. And I feel like I know Jordan’s palette better than anybody in this room right now. And so, here we go. Plan for here is all as clean as you go. There we go. Clean station. This is going right, I just went from one bowl to another for no reason. And I want to completely set this. I’m gonna kind of kind of give it a little zhuzh. Little zhuzh. We’re going, wait, what happened? Okay, hold on, I need more things. Little butter. What am I doing? What is it? Butter’s not gonna help. Gimme another, hold on. Do a little ninja split. Kinda try and do a little like- Canal? Yeah, this is a little, like, butter canal. This bad boy, you know. You know, at some point, two completely mismatched spoons. This is going poorly. And right on, oh, that’s okay. A nice off to the side. It’s so . And here you have it. Your beautiful, simple mashed potatoes, clean russet cookery. What this really showed today is that you don’t have to know how things work to be good at ’em. But if you know how things work and you’re really bad at it, it is embarrassing and soul-crushing. Enjoy, Jordan. Top that, Kendahl. Okay, today I am making my famous to my girlfriend mashed potatoes. I am very overwhelmed already because I’ve never been this organized going into this. Usually, I just look, after I’ve made the potatoes, at what’s in my fridge. Sometimes we’ve got coffee creamer in this. There’s no limits to what I’ll put in these mashed potatoes. And that’s what I love about mashed potatoes. You can put anything in them and it just makes it more delicious. So first I’m going to, I read this in a cookbook one time, I’m gonna put butter on the stove and I’m gonna put that in there. Uh-oh, it’s sizzling. Already too much commitment to that. And now I’m just gonna start throwing some stuff in. So this is garlic powder. I think garlic powder, put it in everything. Put it on everything. And you can’t do too much. That’s feels good to me. I’m making this for my partner, which is really beautiful because I think you just have to do it from your heart and you just have to, they’re gonna feel that this was all done in the moment and that it wasn’t measured at all. So I’m matching these potatoes and I kept them full. I didn’t like cut them up or anything like that. I like my mashed potatoes thick. I don’t want them runny. I don’t, honestly, usually, if I was making them for myself, I’d keep the skins on, all of the skins. My girlfriend does not like that. And so I’ve not done that this time. I love just a bunch of stuff in my mashed potatoes. I will put like sausage in my mashed potatoes. I want them to feel like you’re eating a Ben and Jerry’s potato AmeriCone Dream. I’m gonna keep them less mashed than I would because I’m gonna put this stuff in it and I’m gonna have to move it around more. And so, you don’t want it at the consistency yet that you’re gonna do it. I feel like this is so funny because I’m telling you this as if someone’s gonna follow this recipe, which you should not do. Okay, I’m gonna pour this cream in here. Every time I’ve made mashed potatoes at home, I have wanted to put cream in it and never had it in my fridge. So this is actually deeply exciting. I’m gonna stir the cream in. Is this good, or we . 10 outta 10. Good. I need so much reassurance when I cook. And this is actually how it is at home too. Jordan has to stand next to me and give me a bunch of little kisses while I cook. Now we’re going to pour the butter on. Yeah, that looks pretty good. All right, so now I’m gonna move this over here and I’m gonna take one of these, I don’t know the name of a single one of these utensils I’m using. But spatula, rubber spatula? I’m gonna use this. Well, read the name on it. On the spoon? Yeah, it should be on the handle. Smatula. Mm. Very rude to do, since I have dyslexia and I think you know that. So now everything is good. We’re gonna put the butter in. And you know what? We’re just gonna do it all. And Jordan says, a huge fly I have in the kitchen is not, they always say you can add more, you can’t take away. So, and I wish I had thought about that before I’d done what I’ve just done. But I don’t think, honestly, anytime I’ve made mashed potatoes and I taste them, I’m like, there’s still not enough butter. There’s still not enough salt. So this is the salt I’ve been given. We’re just gonna do it all. This is the garlic powder, I’m not gonna do it all. Don’t worry, that would be crazy. We’re just gonna do a little bit, okay. And I’m gonna kind of put the butter at the bottom so it can be melting. Make it a little sauna while I grate my cheese. Now you’ll watch this. This is so good. Once again, I think mashed potatoes are a great thing to start out if you’re a beginning chef like I am because you just can’t mess it up. Well, actually I kind of just watched Josh mess it up. This is a nice little plate. It’s very flat. Very nice. Okay, I’m gonna stir this up. Okay, now I’m gonna go back to, no, no, I’m gonna use the fork. This is what I have in my kitchen. I don’t know what this is. And I use, I like it hand done. And I think it takes a little longer, which I think is sweet because I think that mashed potatoes are something that has to be made with love and time and not in a food processor like I’ve seen some do it. Keep smashing. Once again, I like them, I like them having little, I don’t want it to be too liquidy. I like it kind of thick. I haven’t put that much cream in it. That’s how I like everything. Like even when I make my Kraft mac and cheese, my other famous dish, I don’t put as much liquid as you’re supposed to. Doing stuff at the same time is really hard for me. I once had a doctor tell me I had zero executive function. Now I don’t know what that is, but it sounds like, it feels like it’s coming into play now. Where I’m really gonna shine is the plating. If you’re thinking now, this is not gonna be good. Oh, I should try it, probably. This is great. Okay. I think it’s good. I think it’s ready. Now, I’m gonna do, this is my favorite part. I’m gonna pack it into this bowl really tight. I just came up with this. This is, I’ve never even seen anyone else do this before. Seriously. Really tight. Kind of like you’re doing a sand castle. This is why it needs to be thick for this part. This might take a minute ’cause you have to, you can really get a lot in there if you’re packing it down the way you should be. If you’re doing this along with me at home, which I don’t know how you would be doing this. This is good. Okay. If you can believe it, I’ve almost fit, well, most of these mashed potatoes in this tiny little bowl. This is how, I don’t know if any of you have been to a fine dining restaurant, but this is kind of how they do it there. I don’t know how this is gonna work, but I’m gonna sand castle it onto this plate. Okay. Okay, this is good. This is just right. Now some of you at home are like, that’s not gonna come out there. And yup, you’re right. So we’re gonna try another, we’re gonna try something else. I’m gonna loosen the sides. Okay. Yes. Oh. Woo. And because this is for my girlfriend, I’m gonna put a little heart in the top. That’s good. It looks good. And that’s how you make Kendahl’s famous mashed potatoes. Ow. Welcome Jordan from Sporked.com. Hello. Now before you, you have three mashed potato dishes. Please enjoy. Great. I’ll start with this one. It’s so ugly, but I’m sure it tastes good. You said they’re all mashed potatoes? That’s correct. Or potato dishes, okay. It’s good. It could use some salt. It’s interesting how there’s pieces of potato. The chunks are very big chunks. A lot of maybe rosemary. Mm, okay. I mean, it’s good, it mashed potatoes. This is beautiful. Oh, there’s so much butter. You’ll love to see it. And it’s so soft. Also, the tiny chives. I forget tiny chives are a thing. And then I see them on something and I’m like, why am I not eating those every day. Mmm. It’s, I mean. Ooh. What, what? They’re like a little smoky on the back end almost. I don’t know what it is. I dunno if it’s bacon fat or there’s like a little smoked Gouda in there or something. But wow, nothing quite like a buttery potato. And then this one. Okay, this looks like the cacio e pepe of mashed potatoes. And I think that’s beautiful. Also very, very nice and buttery. Wow. It tastes like the cacio e pepe of mashed potatoes. I hope they tell me that that’s what this is. That would feel really good to me. Mm. I don’t even remember what I’m doing here. These are so good. Like, am I picking one? No, I’m deciding who’s not the professional. Okay, great. Jordan, we’d like to hear which of these is your favorite and which do you think was made by the imposter? Okay. My, wow, really hard to pick a favorite, honestly. They’re all really good. Two specifically are really good. I won’t say which ones. I don’t know, let me, okay, hold on, hold on. I’ll tell you which one’s my favorite. Okay. I think these might be my favorite. I love how much pepper’s on them. I love fresher. Fresher. I can’t say it. I love freshly cracked pepper. Okay. And the one that I think was not made by a chef, unless Josh is doing some kind of, you know, interesting thing that I’ve maybe never heard of culinarily, I think it’s these. I think these were not made by a professional. All right, Jordan, your favorite dish was made by Lily. Okay. And you were correct. All right. The imposter was actually the one and only Kendahl Landreth. Oh my God. I make these for you at home. And you say you like them. This is not how you make them at home. Yes, it is. It means you’re lying every time you say they’re your favorite you’ve ever had. Are my mom’s getting divorced? This is terrible, you’ve been lying. Wait. Actually, yum. No, no, you don’t even deserve. And I put a heart on it for you. It’s so, you put a heart on this? Yeah, you already ate it. You didn’t even look at it. That is so funny. It’s so funny now to know that, in the office, they were like, bathroom’s closed for talent in the, and it’s like Kendahl. Hi. I am talent. Wow. No, actually, I don’t wanna hug, you know- Okay, then, you know what? This is- Then I’ll hug you. Hi. I put a lot of love into it for you. Yours were delicious. And so were yours. I tried my best. These were both really good. And these kind of did their own thing. And I loved that. And isn’t that what we’re all here for? You know, cooking really is an expression of individuality. But some individuals- Right. Are objectively worse than others. So- And that’s what we’ve seen here today. Josh made his in a food processor. I didn’t mean to- Which, I- I screwed up. Okay, I love these. Do you not like the scrambled eggs I make you? No, I love those. You said they’re your favorite. They’re the only scrambled eggs you’ll eat. No, these are a little different than the ones you make at home. The ones you make at home normally are creamier. There’s normally less chunks than that. Well, but I couldn’t do creamier ’cause I wanted to make a little sculpture for you. Okay, and you are so creative. And that is one of the things I love about you. I can’t believe you’re here. I know. Does everyone in the office know? Uh-huh. Oh my God. Yeah, yeah. We had her name on the call sheet of Xavier Dolan. So you may have thought that Canadian filmmaker Xavier Dolan was gonna be announced- Wow. But, no, it was Kendahl the whole time. Is that why you wore a Xavier Dolan shirt today? I didn’t even look. I didn’t even look. You were so excited? I did, yeah, and you know what, and then, of course, in the other room, I was talking to Trevor. And Trevor was like, “How is Kendahl?” I was like, that’s nice, how sweet of him. Wow. That’s fun. Yeah. I love you. Yeah, I love you too. Aww. And I love you guys. Love you too. And I love you. And I love all of you. But really, Kendahl, thank you so much for playing along. Thank you so much. I appreciate your cooking, unlike Jordan here. Jordan, thank you as always. Thank you, I love these. We know you’re being impartial because you fully tanked your own relationship on television. Lily, you’re just flat out a better cook than me. We know that. Kendahl, tell the people where they can find you. You can find me at @KendahlLandreth on any social media platform and you can find me in Jordan’s house, not cooking ever. That’s true, I do the cooking. The Sporked team is tirelessly taste testing groceries every day so you can buy only the best. Find what you’re looking for on Sporked.com.