Take Mashed Potatoes With Your Summer Fruit
Every time I visit my father and stepmother, I eat a bowl of ice cream. Yesterday, after Dad shot some arrows, my stepmother gave me a choice of peach ice cream or blackberry ice cream, and I chose peaches. After about two minutes, my stepmother handed me a bowl of vanilla ice cream with zesty peach chunks on top.
Instead of slipping off the spoons as slices or cubes usually do, the little savory pieces sat patiently on the ice cream until I scooped them up with a spoon. “I love the way you grind things very finely,” I said, assuming it was the result of aggressive knife work. (My stepmother is a meat grinder — most of the ingredients are finely chopped, chopped, or diced into very small pieces — and I’ve always appreciated that in her preparation.) “I really used the potato maker,” she explained. “This helps to extract some of the juice.”
Going back to my bowl of ice cream and peaches, it made sense. The sprinkles were more like raw compote, juices and pieces swirled and mixed with vanilla ice cream, rather than falling to the bottom of the bowl. It was very simple, but ice cream and peaches tasted more like fresh peach ice cream.
Mixing fruit with mashed potatoes is a great way to mask any cosmetic imperfections. Thick spots and slight discoloration blend into the background, allowing the true fruit shade (in this case peach) to dominate. If you have berries or stone fruits that taste good but don’t look all that hot, just mash them up. Mash them well, then place the juicy fruit puree on top of your ice cream or cake. Repeat until you run out of fruit or until summer is over.