A slightly sweet mash with undertones of green herb and a light woodsy earthiness, it’s a lovely lighter spin on a side dish classic. The earthy richness of the potatoes is tempered with the sweetness and herbaceous qualities of celeriac (celery root) and parsley root, which also provide an incredible lightness to the dish, resulting in a mash that just melts on the tongue. This dish is a perfect play on the balance between rich and light, in both flavour and texture and is sure to delight everyone at the table.
The ingredients aren’t very complex here, we have yellow potatoes (though you can use whatever ones you would like, the texture of waxier/finer textured potatoes are definitely preferred here), celeriac, and parsley root (of course), a light vegetable broth for our cooking liquid and to bring in some umami notes, garlic to enrich the flavours, a little thyme and oregano to amp up the herbal notes in the roots, nutritional yeast flakes to add further richness, a slight buttery quality, and provide a little colour boost. Finally we have some sour cream and oil (olive oil is delightful in this) or butter that is added after cooking to bring in some creaminess, a little acidity, and round things out.
After cooking, the liquid get’s drained off (don’t worry, there is plenty of flavour in the vegges already), saving a little in case you want to thin things out a tad, then everything gets mashed or run through a ricer. You can leave the skins on the potatoes or remove them, the choice is yours, however, if you’re using a ricer i would highly recommend leaving them on, they won’t go through the ricer and they do add a lot of flavour.
Ricing the roots will yield the lightest and airiest result with the finest texture, without turning it into a heavy paste. I highly recommend it if you have a ricer laying around, if not, simply mash everything up or press through a coarse strainer. Try not to stir too much while mashing, it can potentially make the potatoes gummy and you’ll end up with a much denser end result.
After mashing or ricing, you add in your oil/butter and sour cream, and whip it up with spoon or heavy duty whisk (or you could probably use a hand mixer, just be careful of OVER mixing for the same reasons mentioned above with the mashing.) You can serve this anytime you’d serve mashed potatoes, you can do serve it up naked, topped with a little fresh chopped herb (chives are incredible here), or it is mind-blowing when paired up with a rich, salty gravy. The play between the light sweetness of the mash and a salty gravy is just….it’s just awesome. That same sweetness means that this dish is an absolutely flawless choice to pair with any rich, salty dishes, it really helps to balance those out and keep your overall plate from being too rich and heavy.