Basil Mashed Potatoes

Cooking for a crowd and cooking with other people always bring out the best in me. So last Sunday when I cooked dinner for my mom and my sister and her family while we were visiting my mom in St. Louis was enormous fun for me. This was our menu:

Pan-roasted pork loin roast
Basil mashed potatoes
Mushroom sauce
Salad with spinach, blueberries, glazed walnuts, and red onion with raspberry vinaigrette

My brother-in-law cooked with me (or was sous-chef, as he put it) and working with Doug is always an inspiration to me. He’s a fabulous cook himself and an idea man. While we were shopping for the dinner he said “Hey! I had something at a restaurant the other night—sort of mashed potatoes with pesto. Why don’t we make that?” So we did.

One note on preparing potatoes for mashed potatoes. You can microwave them, steam them, or boil them but however your actually cook them you don’t want them to absorb too much water. When making mashed potatoes I always steam them in a bamboo steamer. I can slice them thinner so they cook more quickly and they never actually come into contact with the water. If you’re only making a small amount (say for one person), microwaving works fine. If you boil them, you won’t want to cut them any smaller than quartering and them and you should monitor the potatoes carefully and remove them from the heat and drain them as soon as they’re done.

Basil Mashed Potatoes

Serves 4

4 potatoes, washed, peeled, quartered and cooked until they can be pierced with a fork
½ cup basil leaves, washed and cut into chiffonade
2 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced and cooked for one minute in a little olive oil (I used garlic from a jar because that’s what we had)
2 Tbsp. butter
2 oz. cream cheese
2 Tbsp. grated parmesan cheese
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
A little milk for thinning

1. Mash the potatoes roughly. I did it by hand with a potato masher but YMMV.
2. Mash in the olive oil, basil, butter, garlic, cream cheese, and parmesan cheese until the potatoes are as mashed as you like them (I like a few lumps but suit yourself).
3. Thin the potatoes to the consistency you like with milk and season to taste with salt and black pepper.

These potatoes are great with a pork roast but they’d also be fantastic with roast chicken or salmon. Or eaten directly from the pot with a spoon. And they went very nicely with the mushroom sauce, let me tell you.

I’ve added this recipe to my master list of recipes.