Delicious homemade mashed potatoes can be flavoured with spinach and carrots. Shape like small Christmas trees, the mashed potatoes are not only tasty, but also look festive.
The baked mashed potatoes, duchess potatoes, are creamy and soft, just like regular mashed potatoes. The ones with carrots taste lightly as carrots, the ones with spinach have quite strong spinach flavour (unless less spinach is used).
Whatever we don’t eat right after they are made, I store in a closed container in a fridge and warm up in a frying pan with a lid on, on medium low heat.
Ingredients
- 750 g / 1.7 lbs peeled and washed potatoes
- 150 g / 0.3 lbs peeled and washed carrots
- 150 g / 1 cup frozen spinach
- 5 garlic cloves
- 50 g / 0.2 cups butter
- 40 g / 0.2 cups cooking cream / heavy cream
- 25 g / 0.3 cups grated hard cheese (like Grana Padano, Parmesan, Manchego)
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 tsp salt (plus for boiling potatoes and carrots)
- 1/4 tsp black pepper
- 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1/3 tsp sweet paprika powder
Directions
- Cut the potatoes and carrots into small pieces. Boil the potatoes with the garlic cloves and about half a teaspoon of salt in one pot and the carrots with about a third of teaspoon of salt in a separate pot till they are soft. Drain and put into separate bowls.
- Defrost the spinach and dry them as much as possible either by putting in a microwave for a few minutes and stirring once in a while or in a small pan on the stove.
- Mash the potatoes with a fork, potato masher or ricer. Don’t blend the potatoes as they may get gummy and not hold the shape afterwards. Add butter to the potatoes while mashing them. The butter will help to get the potatoes creamy. Add and mix in also the spices and the cooking cream. Do not overwork the potatoes, but check and make sure not to leave lumps.
- Mix in the grated cheese and taste the mashed potatoes to check if more spices need to be added.
- Mash the carrots with a fork or with a blender. Do not add any liquid. Adding a little bit of mashed potatoes can help when mashing the carrots with a fork.
- Separate the egg yolks from egg whites. Add the egg yolks in the bowl with the mashed potatoes and the egg whites in a separate bowl. Mix the mashed potatoes with the egg yolks.
- Divide the mashed potatoes in somewhat three equal parts and add one to the spinach and one to the carrots. Mix the spinach and the carrots with the mashed potatoes.
- Add a pinch of salt to the egg whites and beat them with an electric mixer till they form stiff peaks.
- Divide the egg white into three somewhat equal parts and add to each of the potato mashes – the plain, the spinach and the carrot. Gently fold the egg whites in the potato mashes
- Heat the oven to 180° C or 400° F.
- Cut the parchment paper in the size of the baking tray and grease with a bit of oil. The duchess potatoes will nicely separate from the parchment paper when they have cooled a little and the bottoms will stay soft.
- Using a piping bag, shape the potato mashes on the parchment paper and bake the mashed potatoes for about 12 – 15 minutes till they look set and peaks have slightly browned. If you want, sprinkle them with a bit of hard grated cheese.
- Let them cool for a few minutes on the baking tray and enjoy!
Notes
- For best results, measure ingredients with a scale. All recipes are made with weighed ingredients using grams. Cup measurements are provided for your convenience.