Hold onto your hats. I’m about to suggest you mash something other than potatoes this upcoming holiday season. Or at the very least, think about mashing an ingredient in addition to potatoes. I want you to think about innovating the classic side dish and instead, make mashed vegetables.
I won’t lie. I spend a lot of time in my kitchen roasting Winter veggies. Carrots, cauliflower, sweet potatoes, beets, fennel, pumpkin, any variety of squash on the planet, parsnips, turnips, rutabaga, celery root, kohlrabi, even hearty greens like raddichio and other endives can end up in there if they aren’t careful. Luckily, they usually aren’t. And it’s delicious.
But in an effort to try something new and step outside my own comfort zone, I decided one afternoon to mash a head of cauliflower with a few pieces of fennel I didn’t know what to do with. Because let’s face it, how many ways can you pan sear and roast fennel? The end result? Brilliant. If I do say so myself… A real WOW moment!
There are plenty of recipes for mashed vegetables but here’s what I did: To soften the vegetables I roasted them as usual – a decent serving of good quality olive oil, a seasoning of coarse sea salt and fresh cracked black pepper, and a very hot oven. 25 minutes later, the cauliflower was beautifully colored and the fennel was tender and glistening. Now, the contrasting flavors of these two vegetables were complimentary enough as is – sweet, earthy cauliflower paired with the spicy, anise tastes of the fennel was nothing short of delicious. But chucked in a bowl with a little cream, whipped until just smooth and combined ( aka perfection), the flavors were undeniably extraordinary.
Did I know these two vegetables would pair well together? I had an idea. When developing new dishes I usually aim to match ingredients together based on their similar or contrasting flavors. Salty, sweet, bitter, sour, hot, spice and umami…. Elements of these – or varying combinations of such – can be found in pretty much any dish. They key here, is balance. And experimentation.
Most people probably wouldn’t enjoy something that was so spicy it removed their tastebuds, or so bitter and sour it was impossible to enjoy. Hence the reason I didn’t put endive, raddichio and fennel together. It would be just too bitter. But by trying new recipes – like mashing unusual vegetables – we get to know what works, what doesn’t work and what simply MUST happen again. Like my smooth fennel, cauliflower mash.
Finish off any mash with a few fresh herbs and perhaps a light drizzle of good quality olive oil, or a sprinkling of toasted, crunchy nuts (maybe even a little crispy bacon or pancetta) and you’ve suddenly got a stunning side dish that can hold its own at the holiday dinner table, with or without the mashed potatoes.
Have you ever mashed vegetables? Are you a mashed potato kinda person? What vegetables work well for mashing? What don’t? How do you prefer to prepare your Winter veggies? Share your thoughts below or on our Facebook Page!
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