Potato pancakes

[Deleted]

Nobody really uses peanut oil in France anymore in spite of those American commercials that you remember (I remember them also). It is all sunflower, canola or olive oil for the main uses.

Anyway, does anybody make potato pancakes here, or am I going to have to do one of my demonstrations?

[fumobici]

I do but I essentially just came up with my own method out of thin air and trial and error. In a nutshell, I parboil, grate, season and fry. They come out exactly as I prefer them that way, and if I do say so they seem always to net compliments.

[Deleted]

I make potato pancakes during cool weather. Was a regular Sunday evening supper item with sausage when I was growing up. I love them.
I grate raw potatoes (russets) and onion,add egg,salt and pepper,flour, and laddle them into piping hot oil in the big cast iron frying pan.

[Deleted]

Yes, that's my method as well, casimira, although I have allowed myself to experiment with spices in recent years.

[bjd]

I love potato pancakes but haven't made any in years. I did eat them several times in Poland/Ukraine on holiday a couple of years ago. And I used to have a Czech friend who made them with lots of garlic inside, but served with lingonberry jam.

[Deleted]

Apr 16, 2010 4:57:52 GMT kerouac2 said:

Yes, that's my method as well, casimira, although I have allowed myself to experiment with spices in recent years.

I would welcome ideas for a variation of. What kinds of spices do you use.? For some reason,I would shy from using garlic,save,maybe a teeny bit. Some finely chopped chives perhaps.

[fumobici]

Chives, rosemary, salt and pepper are all I've ever found unambiguously helpful. I love garlic but I'd never add it to potato pancakes.

[Deleted]

Yes,I never really enjoy adding garlic to potatoes. Even when garlic roasted potatoes became all the rage,I wasn't mad about them.

[lagatta]

I love garlic, including garlic roasted potatoes, but I'd tend to use either chives or finely-chopped green onions in potato pancakes. Chives have a true affinity for potatoes.

[Deleted]

Apr 16, 2010 10:25:24 GMT casimira said:

Apr 16, 2010 4:57:52 GMT kerouac2 said:

Yes, that's my method as well, casimira, although I have allowed myself to experiment with spices in recent years.

I would welcome ideas for a variation of. What kinds of spices do you use.? For some reason,I would shy from using garlic,save,maybe a teeny bit. Some finely chopped chives perhaps.

Sometimes I add a spoon of curry powder. If I have parsley or cilantro on hand, I can chop some into the mixture. And I have sometimes even thrown an orphan carrot into the grater. Garlic would not bother me at all.

[hwinpp]

Re potatoe pancakes, I love them but don't do them myself any,ore. I used to do them exactly like Cas but in Germany it seems to be apple compote has the monopoly to go with them.

How do they turn out if the potatoes are parboiled before grating?

[Deleted]

Sept 3, 2010 5:10:49 GMT hwinpp said:

I once bought peeled potatoes in a jar, more expensive of course but not that bad, actually no difference in taste to normal potatoes.

I am only just now seeing this....I can't even fathom this at all!!!! Where was this HW?? And why would you buy it?? Were regular/fresher unpeeled potatoes not available to you? I guess I would buy it if I had no choice but....

I made potato pancakes tonite to go along with leftover meatloaf from last night. It was the kind of supper we would have had when I was younger,our dinner on Sundays often being earlier in the day,and a late supper.
I don't know that parboiling the potatoes for them would work out too well. I've always used raw when doing them. Parboiling would not lend to grating them very well it seems.

[Deleted]

Yes, parboiled potatoes would produce a completely different result, not necessarily bad, but definitely not the taste or texture that I want from potato pancakes. If I am not mistaken, I think that rösti are made from cooked potatoes.

[onlymark]

Rösti ticks all the boxes with me but I tend to always make it with grated raw potato. I think you can make it with either and it still be rösti but if I cook the potato first, or already have cooked potato, I will then add bacon and call it Bratkartoffeln.

[fumobici]

Lightly parboiled potatoes will grate fine and result in pancakes where the individual grated pieces inside the pancakes will feel less distinct in the mouth, it's a bit smoother feeling. I like the contrast between that texture and the crusty fried exterior slightly better than using raw grated though the difference is (or should be) pretty subtle.

[Deleted]

I did a search and found that potato pancakes have been mentioned regularly in various threads, but apparently there is no official place (before now!) to list recipes for them.

The kind that my grandmother taught me how to make are about as simple as you can get:

Two thirds grated potatoes
One third grated onions
Eggs
Flour
Salt, Pepper

We actually used a hand rotary grater back then and it was hell, particularly during the grating of the onions. My grandmother would grate the potatoes first, because they would make a lot of juice that she would drain off carefully to keep the starch. Only then could you add the onions.

Anyway, the potatoes, onions, eggs and flour would be mixed together. The point of the flour was to reduce the soupiness to an acceptable level, so often flour would be added several times along the way. Since I personally do not bother to drain the potatoes, I use a mixture of flour and corn starch until I get the right consistency.

Salt was a very tricky matter, because you really had to put a lot of salt before you could taste it at all, and then you had to be super careful not to overdo it.

Frying was done in a big skillet with very hot oil (which also had to be added over and over again). It's better to make small pancakes, so you can generally do four at a time. Obviously you turn them over when they are golden and crispy. At a certain point, it is also better to turn the heat down to medium to gain better control over the cooking process.

They are great hot and crispy, but I also like them limp at room temperature. They are pretty awful straight out of the refrigerator, though -- taste like cold congealed grease if you don't warm them at least a little.

Many other ingredients can be added to make variations -- garlic, carrot, courgette, chives, parsley, curry, chili.... It's up to your personal taste.

[tod2]

Enormous thank you Kerouac! I will give them a try. I suppose the ones they make at the organic market on Blvd Raspail just have the Comte cheese added and then is called a galette? The cheese is very overpowering and I thought a bit of a rip-off at 2.50euros each. They weren't all that big either.

[Deleted]

Anything with Comté cheese would normally be a Jura recipe -- halfway between the potato pancakes of Lorraine and the gratin savoyard of Savoie -- the closer you get to Switzerland, the more cheese starts piling up on the dishes. It's all a matter of regional taste. The main cheese of Lorraine is the Munster from the Vosges, and that knocks a lot of people over just walking through the door, much less eating it.

[bjd]

Polish potato pancakes don't have any onions in them and are often eating sprinkled with a bit of sugar (and a glop of sour cream for real Poles). And a Czech friend of mine used to make them, adding garlic but then we ate them with lingonberry jam.

[Deleted]

This is exactly what my grandmother's version looks like.

[Deleted]

Here is a recipe that is probably close to the Polish recipe mentioned by bjd. It says that you can put red currant jam on them.

[LouisXIV]

Here is another recipe: www.ehow.com/how_11727_make-potato-latkes.html I make them every once in a while and I think this is a Jewish dish, Potato Latkes.

Kerouac2: I did have a problem with grating potatoes, but now any more. A friend of mine in France mailed me one of these graters: www.guillouard.com/us/cui07G.htm , they are made in Nantes. I have used them for a number of things and especially for carrots. It really takes the work out of the job of grating. In Paris and think you can get them at BHV, I purchased at BHV a food mill to puree: www.guillouard.com/us/cui01.htm , this also does a great job. In fact I used it this morning.

[Deleted]

Louisxiv, I have abandoned manual graters for doing this, as I suffered enough in my youth. I just use the grating disk on my food processor and all of the grating is finished in less than one minute.

I continue to wonder how Jewish cuisine cornered the market on this in North America, because as far as I know anywhere in Europe, this item has no religious connotation and I even know quite a few Muslims who consider this dish their own.

The name in France is just crêpes (or galettes) aux pommes de terre, unless you go to Alsace where they call them krumber or, more formally, Grumbeerekiechle.

The crêpe or galette term is merely regional and does not describe different items in most cases.

[Don Cuevas]

I haven't latked yet this Hanukah.
I must get to grating.

[Deleted]

Ah,these were a regular Sunday supper item particularly in the wintertime growing up. We would have a sit down dinner earlier in the day and then later on my mother would fry up batches of these and serve with kielbasa sausage.
I remember that we would have both types,ones without the onions as BJD mentioned,and ones with onions. Both were served with sour cream and or homemade apple sauce.
God, I love them!
The little cafe around the corner from where I live has been offering them all throughout Hannukkah this past week.

[bixaorellana]

Dec 9, 2010 21:52:45 GMT Don Cuevas said:

I haven't latked yet this Hanukah.
I must get to grating.

And you can have them with this!

[joanne28]

Bixa, that's hilarious! Talk about missing the point.

[Deleted]

;D Just caught it!!! Thanks Joanne!!!

[Deleted]

I screwed up my potato pancakes last weekend. I was outraged. I don't know how it happened.

[fumobici]

Potato cakes, like crab cakes, are surprisingly difficult to get right. I'm still not 100% confident even though I think I can make them.