The Startup Cook – Baked Mashed Potatoes

For the past two weeks the climate here in Colombo has not been conducive. It’s wet, gloomy, cold and therefore an appetite booster. Aren’t you hungry all the time? Isn’t snuggling under a blanket with a warm plate of food all you want to do? Maybe that is just a personal ambition, but anyway in spirit of this melancholy weather I give you a Laura Vitale inspired Baked Mashed Potatoes.

The original recipe requires a lot of cream and cheese, but as we in Sri Lanka all know cream and cheese are extremely luxurious items, hence our indulgences towards it must be limited. As predicted, this particular recipe is slightly tweaked from the original recipe due to the present economy. However it does not taste anything less than divine. It’s absolutely creamy, smooth, flavoursome and the cheesy hints are to die for. This is the dish you want to take and snuggle under your blanket with.

Ingredients

3 large potatoes
¼ cup of milk + 4 tbs of milk
2 (sandwich) cheese singles
5 tbs of butter
3 tbs of bread crumbs
Salt
Pepper
Oregano

Directions

Preheat the oven to 170 Celsius. Prepare a baking dish and set it aside.

Wash potatoes thoroughly and cut them in to halves.

Put the potato halves in a saucepan, fill it up with water and add a teaspoon of salt to it.

Place the pan on a medium high flame and let the potatoes boil.

Meanwhile, wash the parsley and fine dice it.

Once the potatoes have boiled, take it off the heat and drain off the water.

Peel the potato halves, place it in a heavy based bowl, add the butter, two teaspoons of salt, ½ teaspoon of pepper, a dash of oregano and whisk with a hand mixer.

Once the potatoes are mashed, pour in the ¼ cup of milk and whisk until lump free.

Chuck in the chopped parsley and fold gently.

Spoon the mashed potato in to the prepared dish and smoothen out the top with the back of a regular tablespoon.

Pour the four tablespoons of milk on top of the mashed potatoes. Place the two cheese singles on top of that.

Dust the top with the breadcrumbs (until the cheese is well hidden).

Bake for 40 - 45 minutes.

Directions, Warnings and Tips

Potatoes take forever to boil. Boil them in halves or you will be boiling forever.

Serve this delicious baked mashed potato with sausages and bread. YUM!

I finished The Reader – YAY! Really don’t like that book…

Potatoes need and love salt. Keep tasting till you’re happy with the salt level.

Fold in some grated cheddar with the parsley and optimise this dish to an unparalleled level.

If you prefer use a food processor instead of a hand mixer. It is easier.

The oregano is optional of course.

My food processor could not be found for this recipe. But the hand mixer worked just as well.

I was shaking my leg to Meghan Trainor’s All About That Bass while making this.

By Shazzana Hamid