Wasabi Mashed Potatoes lifts your meal to the heavens!
This is the simplest and easiest way to give your meal a lift in the flavour stakes and move it from the normal to the extraordinary realm.
We have found this particularly effective when having a rich meal at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Also adding wasabi to the gravy helps as well. There is a recipe here for Wasabi Gravy. 🙂
A typical turkey dinner with all the fixings. Plenty of space for Wasabi Mashed Potatoes and Wasabi Gravy.
There are lots of Wasabi Mashed Potato recipes out there. The problem is that most of them use the coloured horseradish stuff either as a paste from a tube or powder from tins. This recipe uses Namida® 100% Pure Wasabi Powder and the flavour of the side dish is outstanding. Enjoy.
Introduction
Wasabi mashed potato is an easy recipe to make that will add a different flavour and colour to your meals. You need to understand how true Wasabia japonica performs to get the best out of the dish.
Serving size
This recipe will provide sufficient Wasabi Mashed Potatoes for approximately 6 side servings.
The recipe quantities can be increased or decreased to suit the number you are cooking for.
Ingredients
3 pounds (1.4Kgs) Potatoes for boiling. The best potatoes to buy are new Russet potatoes.
The potatoes should have a nice shape (makes it easier to peel them), be smooth to the touch and undamaged (no bruises, cuts, etc). New potatoes are preferred as they have thinner skin and are firmer.
Do not buy potatoes that have sprouted or have a green tint to the skin. Store the potatoes in a cool, very dark place (not the refrigerator) to avoid getting a green colouring to the skin. If this occurs peel the green off – the rest of the potato will be OK.
- 1 teaspoon Salt
- 1 Tablespoon Namida® 100% Pure Wasabi Powder
- 1 Tablespoons of butter
- 1 teaspoon lemon juice
- 1/3 cup of warm milk
- Chopped chives or parsley as garnish
Method
- Peel the potatoes and cut into equal sized pieces.
- Put potatoes to a saucepan of cold water. Ensure that the water is at least 2 inches (50mm) above the top of the potatoes. Add a teaspoon of salt to the water.
- Bring the water to the boil. Cover saucepan, turn down the heat and boil gently until the potatoes are fork tender – takes about 25 to 30 minutes. [Overcooking will make the potatoes disintegrate into a mush and become quite sticky.]
- Remove from heat and drain. Cover the saucepan with a double thickness of paper towels and replace the lid. [This absorbs the steam and the potatoes will be dry and fluffy.]
- Leave for a few minutes for the potatoes to dry.
- While the potatoes are cooking make up the Namida® Wasabi Paste. This is done by mixing 1 Tablespoon of Namida® 100% Pure Wasabi Powder with a small amount of COLD water. Mix to a stiff paste and set aside. [See note and video.]
- Mash the potatoes quickly in the saucepan with an old-fashioned potato-masher or use a potato ricer, this will keep the potato mix hot. We don’t recommend using an electric mixer as it is easy to over-mix and turn the mashed potatoes into a gluey mess.
- Add the warm butter to the potatoes and mix together.
- Add warm milk to the mix a bit at a time and thoroughly beat together until the mixture is smooth and fluffy.
- Mix the Namida® 100% Pure Wasabi Paste into the mixture quickly so that the mixture becomes an even green colour.
- Serve immediately with chopped chives or parsley as a garnish.
The secret to wonderful mashed potato is not to let the potato mixture cool down or get cold.
If the mixture does get too cold then warm it up over a very low heat, but this needs to be done before you add the Namida® 100% Pure Wasabi Paste. Heating the paste will drive off the Wasabia japonica volatiles and reduce the flavour profile of the mashed potato.
Note: The longer you leave the Namida® 100% Pure Wasabi paste the stronger the flavour will become. This is true up to about 15 minutes , after that the flavour starts reducing. To retain the flavour at the strength you want, wait until the flavour develops to the right point, add a teaspoon of lemon juice and stir into the paste, cover with food wrap and put into the refrigerator until needed. After a couple of hours throw it away and start again.
Here is a video which shows you how to make the best Wasabi paste you have ever tasted. 🙂
