MASH POTATOES WITH KALE “SPINACH” & FRIED ELDERFLOWER (VEGAN)

Ahh – this takes me far back to my childhood in Slovenia. Every time this amazing bush of elderflower would bloom – we the children would go and pick it in our buckets. Some would be turned into juice by my mother and others would be fried. I know it sounds weird – but it is actually very delicious and an interesting snack. You can eat it with various things, but today I made the vegan version of it and the launch was amazing. I had potatoes to use and a lot of organic kale is growing at the moment in the garden. So this was the following product:

Ingredients for 2-3 people

6 medium sized potatoes (you can use 5 normal ones and 1 sweet potato)
1kg of kale
oats cream or any vegan cooking cream
vegan butter
3 garlic cloves
salt, pepper, nutmeg, cumin
6-8 elderflower florets (cut them from a tree with an inch of stem)
for the batter: any veg milk 2 dcl, 3 – 4 table spoons of self raising flower, 50 ml of any kind of beer, salt –
mix this into semi-thick mixture

PREPARATION:

1. Peel the potatoes and boil them for the mash (20-25min)

2. In another pot – put in 1 tbsp of vegan butter and put in half of kale. When it simmers down – add the rest. Add a bit (1-2dcl) of boiling water and the cream. Season with salt, pepper, boulion if you’re using it, cumin, nutmeg. Leave to simmer for 20min. Take few pieces of cooked potatoes and add them to the kale “spinach”. Than blend everything with a hand blender. If you need your spinach to be thicker – add some thickening source. I use 1 tbsp of flour dissolved in an inch of cold water and I add this to the “spinach”. 4 min before turning it off the heat – put in 3 mushed cloves of garlic. 

3. Wash the elderflower. Prepare the batter – any veg milk 2 dcl, 3 – 4 table spoons of self raising flower, 50 ml of any kind of beer, bit of salt –
mix this into semi-thick mixture. Heat the cooking oil in a pan – you’ll need just to cover a pan and a dash more. Than hold the elderflower by its stem – and pop it in the batter mixture to cover the florets. Put straight to the heated oil in a pan. leave for 2 min on every side. When you’re putting it in the oil, press them down a little. And when they begin to fry, use the scissors to cut off the steams – so you can turn the frying elderflower around more easily. 

4. When the potatoes are cooked, drain the water, use some salt, 1 tbsp of vegan butter, 1dcl of veg milk and mash them to the consistency you like them.  

5. Arrange everything on the plate and enjoy.