Friday, July 11, 2008

.potato pancakes #1.

I was on Yahoo instant messenger the other night with my girlfriend, Christy. She's my gal pal from Texas. Yeehaw! LOL



She loves to cook and was telling me about these potato pancakes her grandmother used to make. She said they were out of this world and hers just didn't hold up. So I thought I might tackle this challenge.



From the title you can see that this is experiment #1. These potato pancakes are made with grated potatoes. Next time I make them, I'm going to use mashed potatoes and compare the two. But what's not to love? Fried potatoes. Can't hate that!



Begin with peeled potatoes. Use white or yukon gold. Do not use russet or baking potatoes. They are too mealy for this.



Grate the potatoes.



Put all of the grated potatoes on a couple layers of paper towels. We need to squeeze all of the water out of these bad boys.



Squeeze! I needed to do this twice which meant squeezing the first time, opening up the towels and then dumping them onto new towels because this one was saturated with liquid.



Put the potatoes in a bowl. Crack in two eggs.



Add 1 tsp salt



Some pepper.



Add a little tabasco.



And a light dusting of garlic powder.



Add 4 Tbsp of flour.



Use a fork to mix everything together.



Chop one small onion.



Heat a tablespoon of butter in a pan.



Saute until the onion is browned and softened. Remove from pan and put directly into the potato bowl. Mix.



Grab a small handful of the potato mixture and plop carefully into a skillet filled halfway up with hot oil. I use a cast iron skillet for this kind of frying because it retains heat very well and keeps it consistent.



When the one side is nice and golden, flip over. I used two turners to avoid splashing.



You want to be patient when frying these. Don't get your oil too hot because the outside of these will burn and the inside will be raw. EW! Don't turn them too soon. Let them cook as long as you can let them on each side to ensure they get cooked through.



When they're gold on each side, pull from the oil and let rest on paper towels. Reseason with a sprinkle of salt. Serve warm!

5 comments:

heidigoseek said...

I do love potato pancakes. These look great! I have also tried the mashed potato variety, usually when I have leftovers. I think I like the grated better, but they're both fantastic.

ani hearts japan said...

I am wondering what might you eat with these.... They look delicious and I would like to try them, but what do I make to go with them???

cindyMN said...

I never heard of making potato pancakes with grated!! isn't that more just like hashbrowns?? I always use mashed.
ALso..we serve ours with sour cream on top, and some chive.

squillen said...

ani, you can eat them with anything. Grilled fish, grilled chicken, steak. We had ours with Alice Springs Chicken that night.

Cindy, they are kind of like hashbrowns but a little different with the garlic and tabasco.

Anonymous said...

I wasn't sure if the other post went thru..so, here again is what I tried to say. We eat our potato pancakes (just like yours) with applesauce and sour cream. A big ole plop of each on the plate with the pancakes. Awesome!