The potato is steamed and crushed and nothing else: no milk, no butter, no cream. The moisture comes entirely from the sauce, which is three tomatoes cooked down until they lose their raw edge and thicken around the chicken. It is a plain dish on purpose, and the two tablespoons of tomato paste are what keep it from tasting thin in February.
Chinese · Main
Mashed Potatoes Under a Tomato and Chicken Sauce
Three tomatoes cooked down with minced chicken, onion and garlic, spooned over dry steamed potato. No cream, no butter, and nothing to hide behind.
- Prep15 min
- Cook30 min
- Serves2
- LevelEasy
Ingredients
| 1 | large potato , about 300 g |
| 1/2 | chicken breast , minced |
| 3 | ripe tomatoes |
| 1/4 | onion , finely chopped |
| 10 g | garlic , minced |
| 2 tbsp | tomato paste |
| 1 tsp | dried mixed herbs |
| 1 tsp | black pepper , freshly ground |
| 1/2 tsp | salt |
| 1 tbsp | olive oil |
Method
- Steam the potato whole over boiling water until a chopstick slides through it without resistance, then peel it while it is still hot and crush it with a fork. Do not blend it; a food processor turns it to glue.
- Blitz the tomatoes to a puree, mince the chicken, and chop the onion and garlic finely enough that neither shows in the finished sauce.
- Heat the olive oil in a pan, add the chicken and fry until it has lost its pink colour and started to catch at the edges.
- Add the onion and garlic and cook for two minutes, until the onion turns translucent and the raw smell of the garlic is gone.
- Pour in the tomato puree, stir once, then add the mixed herbs and turn the heat down to a bare simmer.
- Cook for fifteen to twenty minutes, stirring now and then, until the sauce has darkened, thickened and no longer tastes of tomato water.
- Stir in the tomato paste, salt and black pepper, cook another two minutes, then spoon over the crushed potato and eat while hot.
Notes
- The sauce should be thick enough to sit on the potato rather than run off it. If the tomatoes were watery, keep it on the heat a little longer before adding the paste.
- Minced thigh meat is juicier than breast, and the sauce covers the difference either way. Breast keeps the dish leaner, which is what the source was aiming for.
Ratios and technique checked against 尖尖实验室 on Douguo (茄汁鸡肉酱土豆泥). The method here is written by Stellaok; the photograph is the source kitchen's, credited on the image above and linked back to the page it came from. No recipe text is reproduced.