Wednesday was foul – a bitter wind, relentless precipitation, veering capriciously between downpour & puppy slush.
Comfort food was called for. As I contemplated a tub of Sainsbury’s premium brand mashed potato, which comes in a plastic tub unsuitable for a conventional oven & instructions to decant it into a ‘similar sized’ container before cooking, a new idea!
I tipped the potato onto a large-ish piece of lightly oiled foil; it retained its solid form, but some quick work with a fork broke it up. Then patted it down into a circle less than half an inch thick. A potato pancake with a peaky topping.
Then into the hot oven alongside the lamb fillets.
It worked better than I could have hoped, golden with brown crunchy bits on top, soft & fluffy inside.
It saved on cooking time too. The instructions said 45 minutes, which seems excessive for mashed potato which is at least half cooked to begin with, but I suppose the heat takes a long time to penetrate to the centre of a semi-solid mass in a deep pot.
With some heated-up left-over home-made lentil & red pepper soup for one veg-cum-gravy & green beans, our supper was ready in half an hour.
I suppose it’s obvious really, that you do not have to be bound by the instructions, can use bought mash in any favourite recipe. It just takes longer than it should to understand which diversions might be dangerous in the modern world of mass-produced dishes.
For my next trick – cheese, potato & onion cakes, which even home-made from scratch need left-over mash which has spent at least one night in the fridge.
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Mashed potato
