Every great meal needs a good base, usually the most popular bases are rice, pasta, potatoes or vegetables. Mashed potatoes are one of those dishes that whilst relatively easy to make it is also relatively easy to get wrong. There’s nothing worse than lumpy mashed potatoes so you have to take the time to make them correctly, with love and care, as you should with all your home cooked meals. Once you get it right it is a delicious compliment to any meal. Once in a while though you want that warming taste of a dish like mashed potatoes but you have limited time, the alternative solution is ready made mash which doesn’t taste as good as the real thing. That is until Idahoan launched it’s range of easy to prepare potato packs which include mash potatoes that can be made in a minute and oven bake meals of Creamy Dauphinouise and Cheesy Gratin. To celebrate the launch of their range of potato products I was invited to attend The Idahoan Challenge featuring a range of potato dishes cooked by Masterchef stars Billy and Jack in which myself and a group of fellow foodies had to guess the difference between Idahoan mash and actual mashed made from scratch.

The dishes were creative and unusual and although I guessed 4 out of the 7 courses on the menu correctly I have to admit that it was not always easy to spot the difference. I really enjoyed the Croquettes and pressed potato with three cheese sauce. The deconstructed cottage pie was delicious, the beef was so rich that the potato helped to cut through that depth of flavour. I didn’t enjoy the honey potato cake (who knew that you could make desserts with potatoes!?) although the honey comb was lovely and I didn’t even attempt the potato truffles as I don’t like white chocolate.

These products are definitely levels above the standard instant mash powders that some of you might be used. I can’t remember the last time I used instant mash, purely because I don’t like the artificial texture but these products have definitely changed my perspective.  It was also great to discover new and unusual ways to use mashed potatoes for dinner. The variety of flavours, aside from classic, as well as the bakes mean that there is something for everyone.

You can find the Idahoan bakes in ASDA, Tesco, Morrison’s and Ocado and the Idahoan mashes are in ASDA, Tesco, Morrison’s, Ocado and Sainsbury’s.

I was an invited guest to their launch event, no payment was received in the writing of this piece.

Review by Abiola Lawal

Last Thursday we were invited to a wonderful evening hosted by Young’s and Geronimo in London’s Ladbroke Grove at the beautiful pub, The Elgin.

Blackmoor’s very own game dealer, Chris Sole was in attendance and he ran through the history of wild game in the UK and Europe and also took us through an amazing live demonstration of preparing fresh game which included venison, pigeon partridge. His butchering skills were awesome and this was not for the squeamish, but the meat lovers that we are at Who’s For Dinner we were loving it. All of these succulent meats were then prepared for our plates in tasty dishes that would appeal to varied palettes and accompanied by charming wines from Berkmann Wines, specially chosen to compliment the meal perfectly.

This was an awesome evening and we would definitely recommend that you check out some game from Blackmoors in the autumn/winter menus across Young’s and Geronimo pubs. Even if you are new to game many of the dishes are light, flavourful and very classic.

Menu on the night

Prepping the venison accompanied by a variety of wild fowl game

Fresh meat

Fresh meat

Wood Pigeon starter

Partridge breast main

Toffee apple dessert

Venue: The Elgin, 96 Ladbroke Grove, Notting Hill, London W11 1PY