Signature Mashed Potatoes – Much More than Potatoes

Hello everyone! Good news! Today I’m gonna share with you how to make my signature mashed potatoes! 🙂 You can either serve it as main dish or sides in addition to other dishes. The whole procedure takes around 1 hour (including boiling potatoes for half an hour). Let’s hurry up and you’ll see how delicious it will be when it’s finished. 🙂

First of all, the ingredients (for 3 people as main dish):

1. potatoes (1.6-1.8kg)
2. shrimps (180g)
3. carrots (360g)
4. green beans (150g)
5. onion (350-450g) (depending on how much you like onions)
6. milk (100-150g) (depending on how liquidish you want the finished mashed potatoes to be)
7. soy sauce (40-60g) (while frying onions, taste and decide)
8. mushroom (4 pieces)
9. garlic (2-5 cloves) (depending on how much you like garlic)
10. red chili
11. butter (40-50g)
12. scallion
13. salt (one table spoon) and black pepper (one tea spoon)

In general, we need one pot and one pan to cook this dish. Now, let’s start processing the ingredients. First of all, cut the carrots and potatoes into pieces (not too big as it will be difficult to boil and make them soft). Remember to add the carrots and green beans to the bottom of the pot and then add the potatoes (as someone told me even if potatoes are not entirely covered in water they can still be steamed till very soft. I believe carrots are the same but, just in case). Cover the potatoes and carrots in water (it’s ok if potatoes are not entirely in water because if you add too much water, it will definitely overflow when it starts boiling) and start boiling. Boil them for half an hour and switch off the fire.

Here is a little tip. Since I’m Chinese, I’m good at using chopsticks. 🙂

After it starts boiling, add one table spoon of salt and mix it, and switch the fire from 6/6 to 2/6 or 3/6 depending on the room temperature. Then put the chopsticks on the pot and then add the cover. They will effectively prevent water from overflowing.

During this half an hour, let’s deal with the other ingredients.

First of all, slice the mushrooms and cut the onion into small pieces. Afterwards, cut the red chili and scallion and grind the garlic. With everything ready, let’s start the frying.

1. Let the butter melt and then add red chili and scallion to fry for 1 min till you can smell them.
2. Add the mushroom, onion, shrimps.
3. Add the soy sauce. (depending on how salty the soy sauce is, you should try and adjust the amount)
4. Mixed them all and stir from time to time to make sure all the ingredients are mixed well.

You will see quite some water coming from mushroom and onions. Don’t worry, just keep frying and remember, don’t add a cover as we need to let the steam go. After around 8-10 mins, you will notice there’s basically no water left and the liquid left is kind of sticky. At this time, switch off the fire and add black and garlic. Fry again and mix them well.

Till this point, the boiling of potatoes and carrots should also be finished already. Pour out the hot water and add milk. You can mash them at the same time already. With milk, mashing is much easier. 🙂

At last, add the fried mushroom, onions and shrimps in and mix them together with the mashed potatoes, carrots and green beans, and your dish is ready to serve. 🙂

Bon appetite!