Smash 👍️
but seriously, I hated mashed potatoes as a kid and refused to eat 'em, but loved Smash. When we went to Butlins I couldn't get enough of the mashed potato... because it was Smash (and/or generic knockoff). To this day I love waxy boiled/roasted potatoes but still can't stand floury ones, yuk.
A few years back the o/h was getting fed up with boiling spuds for the kids, I suggested the Knorr equivalent of Smash and the day was saved. Kids loved it and it's actually not full of horrible additives like my o/h assumed.
I so agree! I can't stand the moisture sucking properties of floury potatoes in my mouth. Horrible!
Mashed potato, I generally find it a bit of a faff, tbh.
I might even search out those boiled potatoes in a can, if I were to make mash. Smash would do just fine for a topping.
Waxy potatoes are nice in a salad, with olives, lemon, herbs and tuna.
Yeah also find floury spuds not to my taste, think I even started a thread here fado fado!. Find the baby spuds uniformly waxy except for that one time I got baby white ones from lidl - note to self, read the feckin label.
https://www.knorr.com/ie/knorr-products/mashed-potato/knorr-mashed-potato-box.html
Here’s the Knorr equivalent. Do they still make it? Just about remember Smash as the ultimate 70s processed food, after Vesta curries, of course.
I pretty much just rice it all, directly on. You can just push it down if you need to.
Arguably, better results steaming with the skin on but they're a pain to peel hot so I usual peel beforehand.
A controversial opinion, I know, but I think cheese ruins the lovely crispy potato effect on a mash topped pie.
Yes, we regularly buy it in Dunnes.
The really weird thing (in Dunnes anyway) is if that you actually go to the bother of reading the spuds bags, EVERY single variety is described as "floury and full of flavour", even ones like Cultra or Maris Pipers which are almost always waxy.
There's some sort of cultural notion afoot that Irish people to a man and woman love floury spuds, to the extent that even non-floury spuds have to be labelled as floury 🙄
And when you're looking for actually floury potatoes because you need them relatively dry (e.g. to make gnocchi), you're hard pushed to find a suitable spud.
There are so many mashed potato recipes out there, little tweaks, that it can be prepared in as varied a way as something like scrambled eggs can.
One approach to making mash most people have never tried is to roast the potatoes (cut them into little cubes) before mashing, rather than boiling or steaming them in water on a stove top. There's a discernible taste difference, and in general water absorption is not a good thing in taste terms for potatoes.
The other thing we've started doing somethings is using a ricer on the mash. It further refines the consistency.
The ricer is definitely an additional faff, the roasting approach is no so bad.
Baked and then mashed potatoes are fabulous.
I was just going to post that. IMHO it’s THE right way to make mashed potatoes and if I’m doing something special then I’ll go that extra mile. Ordinarily I peel and chop spuds to uniform size, boil, then into a colander to drain and steam fur a few minutes she tgen back to the pot for lots of butter, some milk, salt and pepper.
Baked in their skins, and then skins removed before mashing I assume?
Usually yeah I scoop the flesh out of the skins.
Yup.
Then eat the skins 😋
Inspired by your fermented chillis tbr, I did a couple of jars of pickled red onions.
Pickled/Fermented, what else you going to get on such a hot day. 🤪
'Nduja. I've decided that I don't like it. It tastes of rotten meat.
Any suggestions as to what I can do with a punnet of gooseberries? I bought them fresh yesterday, I had one and it is very sour. I knew they were sour but haven't had them in years! So other than making jam, what else could I do with them?
My mother would make a gooseberry crumble, or tart, or mousse or fool. I personally can't stand them because they're so tart, but with enough sugar they'd probably be palatable.
This is what I picture every time I hear the word "gooseberry".
And I normally loathe Catherine Tate's "comedy".
I could take the heat on the way in...
Re gooseberries, I'd make a crumble, too. It's very nice mixed with rhubarb.
Thanks guys, I'll have to seek out some rhubarb and make a crumble!
Anyone here buy honey locally? (I realise locally is specific per person) Meaning to get in touch with some beekeepers to get some honey directly and wondering if anyone has any experience with it.
Closest I have done is buy the Dublin honey eg D3, D1 etc you see in shops around the place.
https://downtoearth.ie/products/the-dublin-honey-project-honey
This might help. :)
Oooh, nice.
I'm such a condiment and jarred/canned food fanatic, that I run out of shelf space in the kitchen to store it all.
But these storage boxes I bought from Amazon are brilliant. 6 collapsible, stackable, fabric boxes for around €20. I also use them to store socks, T-shirts and the like under my bed. Handy! (the lids are in the background).
Saturday, Mrs beer was away so I had a breaded chicken breast (wing and skin still attached). It was big just had green beans with it.
While I can't stand overcooked chicken breast, if cooked right, it's delicious.
This one, I browned one side in a pan for a couple of minutes, then into a hot oven for no more than 20 minutes. Perfectly juicy with no trace of pink, at all.
So, how long do people cook a chicken breast for in the oven for? To be honest I didn't think it would be cooked through in that time
20 is about right but would never cook chicken without using a meat thermometer.
Example, roast whole chicken yesterday in the dutch oven. Cooked to 160f in 50 minutes. A whole chicken. Butcher would tell you to give that 90 minutes.
Oh yeah, I can do a whole chicken on my upright roaster in 40 minutes in a hot oven.
But, yes, no doubt a thermometer is the way to go but for some reason, I've never gotten one or used one!
