Before Christmas I went to see Rick Stein Live at the London Palladium. It was a live cookery show combined with a Q&A. Rick Stein, the celebrity chef, was being interviewed on stage by fellow chef Brian Turner, sharing anecdotes and commenting on video clips of television programs he had made. In between, he cooked a variety of dishes helped by his son Jack, who is a chef at his father's Seafood Restaurant in Cornwall. Some lucky members of the audience even got to go on stage and try the food Rick cooked!
One recipe stuck in my mind because it looked simple but very tasty. We watched a clip from a programme a few years back (several years in fact, judging by how much younger Rick looked) which may have been in Cyprus or Greece. Rick was speaking to the camera next to a local woman who was pounding potatoes in a giant pestle and mortar to mash them. Olive oil and a lot of garlic was then added - Rick commented a few times that you can never have too much garlic - and mashed into the potato. I decided to recreate this at home a few weeks later.
My pestle and mortar is only meant for herbs so instead I used the pestle with the potatoes in a large glass bowl. They were boiled until soft.
Crush with the pestle
Add a generous glug of olive oil, salt and a lot of garlic - I'd recommend roasting the cloves of garlic first then scooping out the middle. I think I used four cloves.
Mash again until creamy. It's hard to get the potato completely smooth using a pestle so I'm not sure I would do it this way again but it's fun for a sort of rustic feel. Surprisingly, I'd never added garlic to mashed potato before, and wouldn't normally have used this much if it hadn't been for the Rick Stein show, and I thought it was really good.
sounds good---I might try it.
ReplyDeleteOoh I do love mashed potatoes and that bowlful looks most tempting. I always put loads of garlic in mine.
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