Food, glorious food...

[mrph]

Today featured some unexpected cookery. Not exactly challenging stuff - a purchased pie, some greens, some mash - but quite nice. Now, if I could just get the timings right (and remember to warm the plates beforehand)...

Spinning out of this, a couple of questions for the readership -

1) What's the perfect mashed potato? What, in your opinion, needs to be added to make it a little bit special?

2) Which cookbooks are utterly wonderful things that need to be purchased?

Comments

[juudes.livejournal.com]

The modern trend is to have potatoes half-mashed so they still have soft pieces in (but not what I would describe as 'lumpy', which brings to mind inedible school mash!). One thing everyone agrees on: never use an electric processor to make mash; the potato fibres break down too small which creates a starchy paste. Heston Blumenthal has a method for restaurant-quality mash; someone else (possibly Hugh Fearnley-thing) suggested cooking potatoes in their skins in the microwave then peeling them, rather than boiling them, which makes the mash less watery (especially if like me you are lazy and cut the potatoes up small to make them cook quicker).

Also, I use a potato ricer which was the best £10 or so I ever spent on a bit of cooking equipment.

Things to add? Finely sliced spring onions (possibly sauted in the butter which you add to the mash), mustard with seeds in, chopped parsley, chopped rosemary, mashed roasted or sauted garlic. Or make mash with half potatoes and half steamed/boiled swede or other root veg (which you have to mash with a fork as it won't go through the ricer).

If it's to go with something I'm cooking in the oven anyway, I sometimes put the mash in a warmed shallow oven dish, spread it out and drizzle melted butter over the roughened surface - the idea is that it goes brown and crispy on the top but it doesn't always work!

[velvet-nothing.livejournal.com]

Oooh, I've done the microwave-then-peel thing and it was really nice! (But I burnt my fingers peeling them!! *ooops*)