Yesterday's mashed potato I put in the fridge

After supper a pot or bowl still holds warm mash: butter shining, the spoon standing in it. Easy to say “leave it on the hob till morning” — and by then a dry crust, the room’s smell, and the hand no longer wants to touch it. I cool it in a wide bowl and put it in the fridge under a lid or film.

Yesterday's mashed potato I put in the fridge. Roast wedges are another note; cold boiled potatoes their own; raw tubers in a dark drawer another story. Here it’s mash with milk or butter: next day with a cutlet, into a bake or cakes — not an open pot on the ring.

In the cold it keeps a soft taste a day or two. Before eating I reheat it until it’s steaming hot — in a pan with a spoon of milk or in a frying pan, not “just warm”. If there’s a grey film on top, a sour smell or mould — into the bin, not on the plate. I don’t drag an open bowl through the whole day “just in case”: either into the cold that evening, or finished.

I don’t need mash cooling on the hob while I wash up. I need a bowl from the fridge that I reheat in the morning for meat or into cakes. At yours does yesterday’s mash reach the cold — or already sit on the hob until the dry crust?