Carrot, sweet potato, swede and pumpkin mash must be the yummiest and easiest way to eat your orange vegetables. Creamy, sweet and buttery.
❓What's so good about this orange mash?
- Great for the purists among you. We’re keeping it monochromatic 🧡
- Increase the variety of veg in your diet – four veg in one side dish. And they’re all nutrition powerhouses.
- Genius way of hiding veg for picky eaters. Got someone who likes carrots but not pumpkin? They won’t be able to tell 😊
- Perfect balance of salty and (naturally) sweet, with a little hint of heat from white pepper.
- Terrific way of using up vegetables languishing in the fridge and giving them a new lease on life.
Jump to:
We simply simmer the veg in salted water until tender. Mash and add butter and seasoning. That’s it!
This can be suited to any dietary needs. You can replace the butter with a non-dairy substitute, such as coconut cream or olive oil. The proportions I’ve given here are low FODMAP. It’s already vegetarian and gluten-free.
Carrot, sweet potato, swede and pumpkin mash is the perfect make-ahead side. It will keep for a few days in the fridge. It reheats simply in the microwave. It freezes well too.
🌈Other bright veggie side dishes
I love serving at least three vegetable side dish options with my meats (not including white potatoes, which usually feature in some form!). Other go-to options include:
- perfect make-ahead greens
- beautiful sweet wedges of roasted red cabbage
- Ratatouille Tian is a beautiful layered featuring Mediterranean vegetables in a rich tomato sauce. It’s perfect for serving hot, warm or cold.
- Gemista are whole vegetables stuffed with soft rice and roasted. They ugly-delicious and add a wonderful pop of colour.
🥘 Ingredients
Kent/Japanese/Kobocha Pumpkin (different names for the same variety) – I use this variety because it’s lower in FODMAPs that the more widely used butternut. Any pumpkin variety will work fine if you don’t need to worry about FODMAPs.
I’ve suggested the same weights for the four different vegetables here. You can adjust this to your own preference. Leave one out, replace with something else, or change the ratios.
White Pepper – white peppercorns are black peppercorns with their outer layer removed. This reveals their lighter-coloured inner seed 🤯 I only just learned this. This process gives white pepper a milder and slightly sweet taste with a less intense aroma. It also means we won’t have dark specs in our mash. If you don't already have white pepper in your pantry, your usual black pepper will be absolutely fine.
🔪 Instructions
We peel the vegetables and chop them into slices appropriate to the speed with which they cook. Cut swede into the thinnest slices because it takes the longest to cook. Sweet potato, then carrot then pumpkin. Don’t overly worry about this. We’re erring on the side of over, rather than undercooking these.
The vegetables are simmered in salted water to cook and soften them. We want them to be consistently soft for easier mashing and a smoother result. This will take 15-20 minutes. Use a skewer/cake tester to pierce each type of vegetable and check they are all very soft before draining.
Drain the veg in a colander over the sink, discarding the water. Set the colander back over the emptied, still-hot saucepan to steam dry for a few minutes. Then start transferring to a ricer to mash. Load up the ricer in batches. Working over the sink, lightly press down to compress the softened veg in the ricer. This will squeeze out excess water. Some will release into the top; you can empty more water by inverting the ricer as well. Do this until you start pressing out more solid vegetable puree. Move over a bowl and press out to empty the ricer.
Using a ricer is a convenient way of squeezing out excess water and mashing finely. It's the metal hand-held press pictured below. Getting rid of the excess water will give a creamier, more intensely flavoured result. If you don’t have a ricer, using a masher or even the back of a fork will work fine.
NB: I now drain the softened veg, tip it back into the saucepan and use a stick blender to puree it. I honestly can not figure out why I didn't think to do this in the first place!
The puree should still be quite hot. Stir through the butter cubes, salt and pepper until the butter is fully melted. Serve or cover closely with plastic wrap to reheat later.
📖 Recipe
Ingredients
- 250 g sweet potato
- 250 g swede
- 250 g Kent/Japanese pumpkin
- 250 g carrot
- 50 g butter (cubed)
- salt
- 1 ½ litres water (or enough to generously cover the veg)
- ½ teaspoon whole white peppercorns
Instructions
- Prep Veg – peel and slice according to cook time. In order of speed of softening – pumpkin (quickest – cut into thicker chunks). Then carrot, sweet potato and swede (slowest to cook so cut thinner).250 g sweet potato250 g swede250 g carrot250 g Kent/Japanese pumpkin
- Simmer – add all the veg with one teaspoon of salt to a medium saucepan. Bring to the boil over high heat. Reduce to a simmer. Cook the veg (uncovered) until it is all very soft (about 20 minutes).salt1 ½ litres water
- Salt & Pepper – use a pestle and mortar to finely grind ½ teaspoon salt and the white peppercorns. Set aside.½ teaspoon whole white peppercornssalt
- Drain & Steam – strain the veg in a colander and set the colander over the still-hot saucepan to steam dry a little.
- Mash – working in small batches, load a ricer with veg. Before you go for it and squeeze through (‘rice’) the veg, hold it over the sink and clamp it closed. You’ll be able to press some water out and a bit of very watery veg to discard. Tilt it upside down too; some will pour out the top as well. When you've pressed out the excess water, move over a bowl and squeeze out the (now drier) vegetables. Mash all the veg in this way. OR use a masher or stick blender (it won't go gluey like mashed potato can if you blend it).
- Butter & Seasoning – add the butter cubes and seasoning while the vegetable puree is still warm. Stir until the butter has melted. Cover closely if not using straight away.50 g butter
Comments