KFC-Style Potato & Gravy at Home

Ingredients

Home-kitchen amounts for 4 — standard home-cooking quantities for this dish, not the chain’s recipe (chains do not publish theirs). Difficulty: Easy.

• 1 kg sebago or russet potatoes, peeled
• 1 tbsp salt (for the water)
• 75 g unsalted butter, cubed
• ½ cup (125 ml) cream
• ¾ cup (185 ml) full-cream milk
• Gravy: 1 chicken stock cube and 1 beef stock cube (or 2 tsp each chicken and beef powder)
• 2¼ cups (565 ml) boiling water
• 50 g unsalted butter
• 4 tbsp plain flour
• ½ tsp onion powder
• ¼ tsp finely ground black pepper

Method

1. Cut the potatoes into 3 cm cubes, boil in salted water 15 minutes until very soft and starting to fall apart. Drain and steam-dry 2 minutes.
2. Pass the hot potatoes through a ricer (or a masher with holes). Do not use a beater — it makes the mash dense.
3. Warm the butter, cream and milk together, then stir into the riced potato a little at a time until soft and creamy. Season.
4. For the gravy, dissolve both stock cubes in the boiling water. Melt the butter in a saucepan, stir in the flour and onion powder for 30 seconds, then whisk in the stock a little at a time until lump-free. Simmer 3 minutes until thickened, then stir in the pepper.
5. Spoon the mash into bowls and ladle the hot gravy over. Tip: rice the potatoes while they are hot and add the butter-cream mixture hot, a little at a time — cold liquid or a beater is what turns KFC-style mash gluey.