Frozen Mashed Potatoes
Mrs Esca and I live on our own and we eat very well. Nothing usually gets wasted since stuff left over from one meal is often eaten the next day after a little Culinary Modification. Mrs Esca has a great fondness for the small potato like Jersey Royals, which are currently in season. She also likes a Jacket Potato as an alternative to mashed and of course she also likes Roast Potatoes. My personal preferences are for the Jersey Royal or those little potatoes which are called Pearls. Roast I can do without as I can also the jacket spud. Mashed Potatoes are my favourite. Sorry for the preamble but I wanted to get the picture across. However, to get to the nub of this thread - many potatoes in the Supermarkets are now sold in plastic bags of 2.5 or 3 kilo. Now this is too much for Mrs Esca and me to use in a week and often we find the blasted spuds sprouting, especially the Red Rooster spuds. I have special preference for the King Edward Potato and also Desiree and Maris Piper varieties. All three seem to be a good all round spud which will mash quite well albeit the King Edwards do seem to take top spot here.
Last week, during our weekly shop, Mrs Esca saw a pack of Frozen Mashed Pototo in the freezer cabinet at Morrisons which was a bit pricey considering the amount of spud you got. This then raised the question of whether we could freeze mashed potatoes in our freezer. The idea being that we could then buy a 3 kilo bag of King Edwards, Desiree or Maris Piper cook and mash them and then freeze what we didn't use. The main question was whether the defrosting process would release a lot of water thus making the spuds inedible. I found a "small" 2.5 kilo pack of King Edwards which we duly prepared, mashed and ate for our Sunday Lunch. The rest was packed in a small plastic box and was frozen. Today the pack was defrosted and I have just had it with some Parmesan Cheese and finely chopped Onion mixed in with dotted butter on the surface and then reheated in the oven. It was brilliant. No excess water and was just as if it had been left overnight in the fridge.
The next step is to buy a 3 kilo bag of named variety spuds, possibly King Ted or Desiree, boil the lot and then pass it through a hand ricer, mix with a little milk and seasoning and then freeze in two portion packs, Say about 500gm per portion. Since most of the time in preparing mashed pototoes is in the boiling, draining and final steaming of the spuds prior to mashing this will reduce Shepherd Pie or Cottage Pie preparation by a significant amount and reduce the washing up afterwards. In short it will reduce waste, reduce preparation time and fuel usage and will also save us some of our pension.
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