An important recipe

Every one needs to know how to make: mashed potato.

For this you need:
800g peeled King Edward potatoes
250g good-quality unsalted butter
150ml double cream
Fresh ground pepper to taste.

Chop up the potatoes into small-ish pieces and boil vigorously for twenty minutes in a large pan filled with well salted water. Drain the potatoes and place back in the empty pan over the lowest heat possible. Mash the potatoes until reasonably broken-up. Add the butter in five stages, mashing vigorously between each addition of butter so that the butter is completely incorporated before adding the next batch. By the time all of the butter has been added the potatoes should be mashed enough to be lump-free. Pour in the cream and mash/stir this in with the masher. It will initially go a bit thin, but if you mash and stir for a minute or two it will thicken up again to result in a very pleasing mashed-potato consistency. Grind in black pepper to taste and serve.

Mashed potato is an essential ingredient in such sophisticated nursery-dishes as smoked eel with bacon and mash.

Smoked eel, bacon and mash>

Look at that bacon! ‘Iron age’ bacon from Silfield farm. Shame they so rarely have it these days.