Recipe: Perfectly Creamy Mustard Mashed Potatoes (2024)

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Friday, 11 January 2013

I think it was on Christmas Eve I was brainstorming what I was going to have with the steak I cooked for my Christmas dinner, and after gazing at my open fridge door for about 15 minutes, I decided to have a bash at making some mashed potatoes; while I usually opt for meals that are all in one, rather than withseparatemeat/ vegcomponents, as it was Christmas I think I ought to make an effort. Now, anyone who, like me who went to a British Boarding School will tell you about mashed potatoes. Unless the food at their school wasparticularlygood (at my second school it was fantastic, but at my first it was merely average), we will tell you that we don’t like mashed potato. It was always dry, lacked flavour and if you left it a bit too long on the plate it made for anexcellentsculpturemedium, as many of us discovered to our delight.

As with many of the things I’d been fed at school (none of my boarding schools compare to the school I attended until the age of 10, if it were not for my mother cooking me a fantastic breakfast and dinner every day before and after school I think I might have been rathermalnourished!), I decided I did not like them, without really trying them. For years, Iadamantlytold my mother I hated mashed potato. However, when she finally coaxed me into trying hers they became one of myfavouriteincarnations of the humble potato; rich, creamy anddecidedlymore-ish. Thisversion of mashedpotatoesare a hybrid between my mothers mash, and the base of what I use to make homemade fishcakes; the wholegrain mustard gives the fluffy potatoes a decided kick which makes them a feature of the meal,ratherthan just a side dish. Serves 4, easily halved or doubled.

• 2 Large Baking Potatoes
• 2 tsp Wholegrain French Mustard
• 2 tbsp Milk or Single Cream (Heavy Cream)
• 50g Unsalted Butter
• 2-3 Sprigs Fresh Rosemary
• Freshly Ground Salt & Pepper

Peel the potatoes and cut into medium chunks. Put in a large saucepan of salted cold water, and put on the heat until the water is boiling. Add the rosemary sprigs to the water, and cook for about 20-25 minutes until all the potato pieces are cooked through and you can stick a knife through them with ease. Drain the potatoes, making sure you remove all the stray pieces of rosemary anddiscardingthem. Break the potatoes down with a hand held potato masher, and add the milk and half the butter. Mash well until the potatoes have a smooth and creamy texture. Add a little bit more milk if you think they could be smoother. Mash in the rest of the butter along with a good couple of grinds of salt and pepper. Add the mustard and mix well before serving, topped with another knob of butter and some fresh thyme or chopped chives if you’re setting them out in a warm dish to serve, rather than dishing it up onto everyones plates for an informal meal.

While they go really well with anything pork and beef (what you’d usually serve mustard with), I really enjoy these potatoes serve with sausage meatballs (remove the sausage meat from the sausage, divide and roll into meatballs, brown and seal the meat in a pan of hot oil, then bake in an oven the usual amount of time you’d cook the sausage) and onion gravy. This is the fate that the bowl of mash in the photograph met!

What are your favourite potato orvegetableside dishes?

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