Homemade Creamy Seafood Mashed Potato

Homemade, I guess. A mashup of pizza and mashed potato. Tastes good, presentation could use some work.

First, the mashed potato. A regular potato, washed, no need to peel, straight into the pot. Boil in hot water first, then turn to low heat, then let it sit covered for a bit. Make sure it’s cooked through — a chopstick should slide in easily.

Then fish it out, dunk it in cold water, peel it, and mash it up with a spatula.

One tip: mash it while it’s still hot. Chop up a slice of butter, toss it in, and stir. Adds that creamy aroma. While stirring, add milk a bit at a time. Some people say you should heat the milk first — honestly, regular milk is fine. How much depends on the consistency you want. Don’t make it too runny. Just eyeball it.

Next, stir-fry the shrimp on low heat. You can chop up some bacon and sausage too.

Take a big plate, press the mashed potato down into a base. Spread the chopped cooked bacon and shrimp evenly on top — best to press them in.

Then cheese on top. How much depends on the quality of your cheese. The stuff I bought wasn’t great, so it looks like a lot, but once it melts it’s really not much.

Finally, into the oven. Around 200°C for 20 minutes, until the cheese on top starts to turn slightly golden.

Out of the oven and it smells great. The mashed potato has that creamy aroma, the seafood flavor comes through, salty-sweet and just right. Delicious.

Next time I’ll work on the presentation. Funny thing is, I originally wanted to make pizza — just couldn’t be bothered to knead the dough.