Champ (Mashed Potatoes and Scallions)

Champ

Serves 4 as a side dish

Champ, a mixture of mashed potatoes and scallions that is sometimes called poundies, is served in a mound with a well of melted butter in the center. Traditionally, it's eaten with a spoon, starting from the outside of the mound and dipping each spoonful into the butter. In the old days, the tool used for mashing potatoes was a pestle-shaped wooden implement called a beetle. Thus the old Irish poem.

There was an old woman that lived in a lamp;
she had no room to beetle her champ.
She's up'd with her beetle and broke the lamp,
and now she has room to beetle her champ.

2 pounds boiling potatoes, peeled and
cut into 2-inch pieces
1/2 cup milk, light cream, or half-and-half
6 tablespoons butter
1-1/3 cups chopped fresh chives or scallions
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Cook the potatoes in boiling salted water until tender, 12 to 15 minutes. Drain and mash.

Meanwhile, in a medium saucepan, combine the milk and 4 tablespoons of butter. Heat over medium heat until the butter is melted. Add the chives or scallions, reduce heat to a simmer, and cook until the chives or scallions are soft, 2 to 4 minutes.

Add the potatoes, salt, and pepper to the milk mixture and stir until blended. To serve, spoon the champ into a deep bowl, make a well in the center, and top with the remaining butter. Serve at once.

The Irish Heritage Cookbook
By Margaret M. Johnson
Chronicle Books
Publication date: March 1999
Paperback, $18.95
288 pages
ISBN: 0-8118-1992-2
Recipe Reprinted by permission.