MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHOAN PERFECT MASH

 I’ve always had a fondness for the state of Idaho, and since I’ve never actually been there I suppose you’d have to say that my fondness is for the IDEA of Idaho.  And this fondness is largely because of the Idaho potato.  So when I saw a packet of Idahoan Perfect Mash, instant potato mix, ‘perfect in 1 minute’ in my local supermarket, well obviously I couldn’t resist.

Now, I am not foolish enough to believe everything I read on food packaging but wouldn’t the appearance of that word ‘Buttery’ on the packet above suggest to the unwary consumer that there might be some butter in there?  No, no, don’t be so naïve.  

    The small print on the packet says it contains rapeseed, coconut and sunflower oils, milk solids, cream and buttermilk, none of which seems like a bad thing, and of course the pack doesn’t actually say that it contains butter, just that it’s buttery – and you can see why they wouldn’t say ‘rapeseedy’ on the pack.

Equally you might argue that I could add my own butter, just as I would with actual mashed potatoes, but by that token if you have to add the butter yourself, then any food in the world could be construed as buttery.

And it so happened we had some savoury spicy mince in the fridge, left over from a not particularly successful Mexican taco adventure, 

so we spiced it up some more, made and added the instant mash, and put it in the oven to make a sort of Conjunto Shepherd’s Pie.

 

And then after a while as we looked it heating in the oven, we thought the potato topping looked awfully dry, at which point we decided to add a whole lot more butter.

 

The end result was perfectly OK – fusion you might say, but I wouldn’t.