Sunday, October 11, 2009

Potato..Pototo..




With the cooler weather comes my love of root veggies big and small, especially potatoes, which, along with onions and apples, were part of my family's original trinity. Often, on Sunday's potatoes were boiled or baked in batches to be used as part of our weekday meals. Mashed, fried, rebaked and made into warm or cold salads potatoes were far more popular than rice. This last weekend I made a potato pancake using pre baked potatoes on hand. I shared it with a friend of mine from Zurich. He called it a Rosti..we called it a potato pancake here's the recipe -

1lb large yukon gold potatoes (about 4-6)*
1 medium onion
1t Salt and 1/2t Black Pepper
1/2 stick butter
Veggie Oil


Frying Pan, Box Grater, Pancake Spatula

Potato needs to be cold. Left over baked or solidly boiled potatoes are best.
If you are going to prepare them specifically for this recipe make them the night before.

To prepare baked potato Preheat Oven to 375F

Wash and prick potatoes with a fork and put on center oven rack
Bake for about 1 to 1-1/2 hours - until tender when pressed with fork.
Let cool and then put them in refrig to chill.
Potato must be COLD! (don't try the freezer, it doesn't work :| )

When ready peel skins off potato and shred into bowl using the box grater.
Coarsely grate onion onto 2 paper or a hand towel to absorb the extra liquid.
Gently squeeze in towel(s) to remove excess moisture and toss in with potatoes.
Add salt and paper and use fork to mix and avoid breaking up the shredded veggies.

Heat frying pan (I suggest non-stick!) over medium head and add 2 tbs butter and 1 tbs oil.
Spread across bottom of pan and then add potatoes, spreading evenly and pat down with spatula so that cake will cook evenly.
Cook until underside is gold and brown, remove from flame and then carefully invert cake onto plate.
Return pan to heat, add remaining 2 tbs butter and 1 tbs oil, heat a bit and slide cake back
into pan uncooked side down.
Let cook until gold and brown, plate and cut into wedges.

I like mine with mustard!

*add 1 medium tart apple if you have or like - shred and handle like onion

2 comments:

kerfuffler said...

That looks fantastic!

My mom always used raw potatoes, grated and squeezed, for her potato pancakes. The potatoes were very finely grated with our mouli grater, so they cooked all the way through.

When I only had a grater that grated coarsely, I tried "partially cooking" the potato before grating. I guess I assumed that grating would not work if it was all the way cooked. I suppose cooling the potatoes all the way down must be the secret to grating them after they are cooked!

Unknown said...

Yes, bake them the night before before and in fact don't worry if they are still cold when grating. I have also made them with raw potatoes (sweet potatoes are really good!), using a kitchen towel to press out the liquid but it's too much work!! lol

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