Instead of a long story about how my recipe reminds me of a cosy winter evening in the mountains, I start with a quick difficulty list. This means you can easily decide if you’re up to it or if you’d rather toss a pizza in the oven.
For ingredients, 1 means you may already have all of them at home and 5 means you may need to special order an ingredient.
For equipment, 1 means the most very basic of tools need and 5 means needing to buy a special piece of equipment you may not use often.
For method, 1 means as easy as prepping and tossing in the oven and 5 means you’ll feel like you’re juggling flaming knives.
Ingredients: 1/5
Equipment: 1/5
Method: 1/5
This recipe makes 4-6 portions
Ingredients:
- 1 kg red potatoes (peeled or not peeled as desired)
- 1 cup milk
- 150 ml soured cream
- 100g salted butter
- salt, pepper and paprika
- lemon juice
Equipment:
- 1 large cooking pot
- 1 colander
- Sharp knife
- Cutting board
- Potato masher
- Medium baking dish
Method:
- Fill a cooking pot with water and add a generous amount of salt and stir
- Chop potatoes into approx 1-inch cubes and add to the pot
- Bring the pot to a boil. If peels are still on, boil until peels just start to come off. If peeled, boil until a potato can be easily squashed by a spoon.
- Drain water using the colander and put potatoes back into the pot.
- Add milk, soured cream and most of the butter leaving about a 5th of it for later
- Mash potatoes until lumps are largely gone. If potatoes are still too thick, add a little more milk
- Season with salt, pepper and a dash of paprika and continue mashing. Season with salt and pepper to taste continuously
- Once complete, scoop the potatoes into the baking tray. Preheat the oven to 200C
- Coat the top of the potatoes with the remaining butter
- Once the oven is hot, bake the dish uncovered in the oven until crispy on top. Usually about 20 minutes, and can turn on the broil setting for the last 5 minutes to get extra crisp.