Monday, October 29, 2007

New potato and cheddar mash

For what might be called a light supper, but in fact contains more calories than most plates of meat and two veg, I often try variations on cheese and potato. Here is one; here, another. I made the following because I had a lump of cheddar to use up, as well as a half-consumed pot of cream. For two.

500 g new potatoes
30 g butter
100 ml double cream
150 g cheddar, grated
Salt, pepper

Scrub the potatoes, cover them in cold water, bring them slowly to the boil (here's why), and simmer until tender. Drain, and return them to the pan, allowing them to steam for a minute or two. Roughly mash them, with their skins. (I gave them three or four goes with a potato masher; a fork would be fine.) Stir in the butter, cream, and cheese. Taste; you may not need much salt, because of the saltiness of the cheese. I think that you need plenty of pepper, though.

Tip the mixture into a warm oven dish, and put it into the oven at gas mark 6/200 C for five to 10 minutes.

Or, as I did, warm the mixture on the hob. Stir the butter and cream into the mash, and warm above a gentle heat, stirring cautiously (to avoid releasing too much starch into the dish). Then add the cheese, stir again, and give everything another minute. Season, and serve.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

hello Nicholas

Hope all is well with you. You say you are always experimenting with cheese and potatoes -- have you tried the Italian dish called frica? We've just returned from northern Italy and it was pure indulgence -- mashed potatoes pan-fried with asiago cheese. A thin crisp crust with a zillion calories below.

All the best, Beverly LeBlanc

Nicholas Clee said...

Nice to hear from you, Beverly. This sounds delicious. I haven't tried it; and must confess that I've never tried asiago cheese either. The difficulty of preparing this dish, I imagine, is that the melting cheese might cause the potato to spread and stick to the frying pan. But perhaps that's what one wants to happen.