A month or so ago I went to an Italian restaurant where I was served pesto mashed potatoes and it was one of those hitting my forehead type of moments, “Why didn’t I ever think of that?” They were fantastic, but lacking in butter. Perhaps they used olive oil only. They had just a hint of garlic and basil, not overbearing as you may expect. It didn’t taste like pesto pasta, nor garlic mashed potatoes, but a unique, flavorful mashed potato. I was able to duplicate the recipe, and wanted to share it with you, though my version has more butter than theirs did. Rich, decadent and creamy! Enjoy!
Ingredients
- 3 lbs. potatoes, peeled and but into bite size pieces
- 1 Tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
- 7 cloves garlic, minced finely, grated or crushed
- 21″ of organic basil herb blend (It comes in a tube, found in the produce section of your grocery store. I used “Gourmet Garden brand.)
- 5 Tablespoons butter
- 2 Tablespoons of potato water
- 2 1/2 Tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
- a pinch of sea salt
- a pinch of white pepper (or black)
Instructions
- Boil potatoes until just tender. Some of the smaller ones may fall apart when pierced with a knife, but you do not want most of them to fall apart, as this will cause your mashed potatoes to turn out mushy.
- Preheat the oil in a small sauce pan.
- Sauté garlic and basil paste for about 2 minutes.
- Add garlic and basil to food processor.
- Drain potatoes and reserve a little of the water.
- Add the potatoes, butter, potato water, salt and pepper to the food processor; and pulsate until all chunks are whipped smoothly.
- Serve warm.
This sounds delicious! I bet adding pine nuts would be great as well (either whole after blending if you like a bit of crunchiness, or before, just for the additional flavour). Definitely going to try this!