Mary Berry's secret 9p ingredient for the perfect mash with 'warming' kick

10 March 2024 , 12:40

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One ingredient will make your mashed potatoes even better (Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Mary Berry adds one surprise extra ingredient to her mashed potatoes and Brits love it.

Dame Mary Berry is one of the UK's most beloved bakers and food writers and during her six-decade-long career has shared a vast array of recipes - both sweet and savoury - which are enjoyed by many. Mashed potatoes are the king of comfort food - whether it be smoothed with milk or cream, roughly mashed so you get the odd solid bit of soft potato, or even with cheese added.

What's so brilliant about mashed spuds is that they are incredibly simple to make with the classic ingredients being potatoes, milk or cream, butter, and salt and pepper.

However, in the typical Mary Berry fashion, she has created a recipe which spices things up a little by adding one extra ingredient - and you've likely got this ingredient in your cupboard already.

Mary Berry adds wholegrain mustard to her mash for a spicy, warming kick and people seem to love it with her BBC Food recipe having received a five stars rating. The added extra is also cheap as a 200g jar of mustard costs 65p in Aldi - meaning the two tablespoons or 28g you need for this recipe would only cost 9p.

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Mary Berry's mashed potatoes

Ingredients:

• 1.5kg/3lb 5oz potatoes, peeled
• 50g/1¾oz butter
• 100ml/3½fl oz milk
• salt and pepper
• 2 tbsp wholegrain mustard

To make your mash perfect, you should use floury potatoes such as Desiree, King Edward, or Maris Piper. First, you'll need to cut the potatoes into even-sized small cubes and place them in a pay of cold salted water. Bring the pan to the boil and cook until "really tender". The length of cooking time will depend on how big you cut the spuds.

Mary says it's important not to undercook your potatoes so you'll have to keep an eye on them. You then drain and return the potato cubes to the pan. Add the butter and milk and mash using a potato masher.

Once combined add the salt and pepper and then stir in the wholegrain mustard and there you go. Serving four to six people, this recipe takes less than 30 minutes to prepare and around 10 to 30 minutes to cook so it's a decent accompaniment for a mid-week meal for the family.

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Ruby Flanagan