not exactly mashed potatoes

After the stuffing decision, the next question was how to mess with the traditional mashed potato recipe so that it could no longer be called simply "mashed potatoes". Addition of other root vegetables seems to be a good choice for inclusion in this category. We had seen quite a few not exactly mashed potato recipes in our food magazine browsing and ms_ani had settled on one for the big event (T-day). Unfortunately it could not be located at the last minute and some fast thinking creativity was called upon to save the day. We had these parsnips in the fridge as the leading candidate for the secondary root vegetable. Though we'd never eaten them before, they seemed to pop up in quite a few of the altered mashed potato recipes. They look like fat albino carrots, which distinguishes them from their similar root relative the turnip, which is also foreign to our diet, though not because of any conscious decision, just the inertia of habit.

ingredients

root vegetables or close relatives
6 large potatoes, peeled, cutup
1 lb parsnips, peeled and chopped
1 leek, chopped fine
2 cloves garlic
additives
butter
salt and freshly ground pepper
milk

instructions

  1. Boil the potatoes and parsnips together in salted water until soft, about 15 minutes at full boil.
  2. Sauté the leek and garlic in some butter until softened.
  3. Mash the potatoes with electric beaters, adding just enough milk to soften the result but not so much that it begins to flow. Then combine the sauté mixture and pepper with the mashed tubers. More salt is probably inadvisable at this point.

notes

  1. This is a judgment call on the quantity of milk. It depends on how big and how many potatoes you have. You have to have some experience in this or just add a little at a time. And the amount of butter depends on your health objectives for this particular dish.
  2. This simple recipe was hiding after the chestnut stuffing recipe in our original paper archives where it was overlooked until webified.
nxmshdpt.htm: 2-aug-2001 [what, ME cook? © 1984 dr bob enterprises]