LAB NOTES: Restaurant Grade Mashed Roasted Potatoes and Turnips

  Hello All, 
Wayne AKA, the Mad Food Scientist here.
Last weekend I made a version of vegan Gardener’s Pie. Which is basically
Shepherd’s, or Cottager’s pie, but without meat, and in this case all animal products.
As part of that endeavour, I used a tip that I picked up from YouTube and roasted the potatoes for the mashed potato top of the pie, I also added in roasted turnip cubes.
This is a bit of a kitbash.

17 November, 2024: Restaurant Grade Roasted Mashed Potatoes And Turnips Experiment #01 and #02
INGREDIENTS: 
Baking potatoes
Sunflower seed oil
1 TBSP Sea salt
Fresh ground black pepper
1 Palmful Oregano
1 Palmful Basil
1 Palmful Rosemary
1 Palmful Thyme
Vegan Worcestershire Sauce ( https://dcl.accelsim.com/2024/10/27/lab-notes-vegan-worcestershire-sauce-take-ii/ )
Vegan Butter ( https://dcl.accelsim.com/2024/11/23/lab-notes-vegan-ninas-aquafaba-butter/ )
Split Pea Milk ( https://dcl.accelsim.com/2023/09/11/lab-notes-super-creamy-split-pea-milk-taketwo-yellow-split-peas/ )

METHOD: 
Preheat the airfryer/Oven to: 232C/450F
Wash and cube the baking potatoes
Put the cubed potatoes in a bowl with cold water to keep them from turning black.
Drain the cubed potatoes.
Put the cubed potatoes in a bowl.
Line the baking dish with parchment paper ( I used the parchment paper I used to roast the Turnips )
Add the oil and seasonings
Use Mk 1 Human hands to toss to coat.
Put the cubed potatoes in the lined baking dish.
Roast for 30 minutes.
Remove from the airfryer/oven stir
Return to the oven for another 30 minutes at 220C/425F
When done, put the cubed roasted potatoes and cubed roasted turnips into a large bowl.
Add the vegan butter and crack some pepper. Put in some vegan Worcestershire sauce
Mash with your masher until mostly smooth.
Taste and add sea salt if needed.
Gradually add the split pea milk folding gently until you reach the desired consistency.
Taste again and adjust the flavour profile.

LAB NOTES: 17 November, 2024
This turned out rather well, but the potatoes were just a bit too roasted.
I think I’ll drop the two temps to: 220C/425C and 200C/400C next time.
The mashed potatoes turned out well.

OBSERVATIONS: 17 November, 2024
I will definitely be reducing the two temps next time and making the potato chunks larger.

OBSERVATIONS: 20 November, 2024
I made this again tonight as part of making more Gardener’s pies.
Cutting the chunks larger and reducing the temperatures definitely made for a better 
mashed potatoes. Sadly, I didn’t have turnips to roast this time.
I think I’ll get more and use them the next time I really want to pull out all the stops. 

I’ll continue to Fool Around And Find Out in the Domestic Culinary Laboratory.