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Potato Rice
Boil 2 pounds of potatoes; mash them with 2 ounces of butter and 4 tablespoonfuls of boiling milk, and season with pepper and salt. Put them into a large colander, and press them through this on to a hot dish, and whilst doing so, shake the colander every minute or so, that the potatoes may fall lightly like rice. Serve very hot, with broiled steak or sausages.
A riced potato garnish rather than a dish of rice — the name describes the shape the potato takes as it drops through the colander. The whole point is lightness, so nothing here should be worked hard.
- The hinge: never let it fall twicePress once, straight onto the warmed serving dish, and let the strands lie where they land. Stirring, spreading or re-piling collapses the threads into mash and the effect is gone.
- Choose a floury potatoRussets, King Edward or Maris Piper give the dry, mealy crumb that separates into strands. Waxy salad potatoes turn gluey under pressure and will clog the colander.
- Colander or ricerA ricer or a food mill with the coarse plate does this more cleanly than a colander. If using a colander, it needs large round holes, not fine mesh, and it must be held well above the dish so the strands have room to fall apart.
- QuantitiesTwo ounces of butter is 4 tablespoons or 55 g; four tablespoons of boiling milk is 60 ml. Both are modest for 2 lb (about 900 g) of potato, and a wetter mash would be less likely to hold its shape as it falls.
- Milk must be boilingCold milk chills the potato and makes it sticky. Heat it to a simmer and add it to potatoes that are still steaming dry from the pan.
- Heat everythingThe dish, the colander and the potatoes should all be hot. Riced potato has enormous surface area and cools within a minute or two, which is why the original says to serve very hot.
- YieldServes four as a side, or three generously alongside steak or sausages.