Side Dish - Mashed Potatoes with Roasted Garlic and Five-Spice Powder

Tonight's main dish of Kalua Pig came courtesy of my shopping at Ono Kine Grindz the other week. I really wanted to pair the pig with a nice side that had a bit of Pacific influence. While flipping through my Taste Of Hawaii cookbook, I found a recipe that sounded simple, yet delicious!

Well, actually the recipe wasn't all that simple, as you had to peel potatoes, steam them up, roast garlic, heat cream just until boiling, then mash everything together with spices and serve!

As you may know from previous blog entries, I am famous for starting recipes without reading them the entire way through! That is precisely what happened here, as I somehow interpreted this recipe to be way less time consuming than it actually was. Don't get the wrong idea though, I am really enjoying this cookbook, and think you readers would too!! (Actually have another recipe from it sitting in my freezer right now.)

Lucky for you, I will give you the "Cliff Notes" version, and offer a less time consuming alternative to the full blown, home-made mashed potatoes.

Unabridged:

Roast 3 garlic cloves in olive oil in a 325 degree oven for about 20 minutes.
Remove from oven, let cool a bit, then chop super fine.
Prepare the potatoes by steaming in a vegetable steamer (over boiling hot water) for 20 minutes. Heat 1/2 cup heavy cream in a small saucepan until just boiling, then remove from heat.
Mash potatoes, adding the heavy cream, roasted garlic, then several pinches of five spice powder, finishing up with salt and pepper (to taste) and chunks of butter melted in (about half a stick).
Make sure they are mixed well, to mashed potato consistency!


Cliff Notes:

Buy instant mashed potato mix.
Roast garlic in the oven for 20 minutes.
Prepare potatoes as directed for 6 servings (or thereabouts).
Stir in a little butter, then add roasted garlic, several pinches of five spice powder, salt and pepper to taste. Easy!

The moral of the story is probably that the home-made will likely taste a bit better than the instant potatoes, but if you are looking for a way to spice up a ho-hum side dish, what better way to do it than by adding the basic flavor ingredients from this recipe?! The potatoes went really well with the kalua pork, a nice subtle flavor due to the five spice powder. Nice!

If you are interested in this recipe, I also found lots of other delicious ones by doing a google search for mashed potatoes with five spice. Enjoy!