Pancakes: Re: German Potato Pancakes

Subject: Re: German Potato Pancakes
Newsgroups: rec.food.cooking
From: Shylock (shylock at ziplink.net)
Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 14:02:30 -0500
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Stimpel Tanja wrote:

>From: gparker
>I am looking for an authenic German potato pancake recipe.

This is our family recipe for potato pancakes. It is very easy to prepare and tastes really great:

1 kg raw potatoes
1 medium onion
1 or 2 eggs
3 to 4 tbsp flour
salt
oil

Grate potatoes, not too finely, put them into a sieve and press the water out of them. Grate the onion very finely. Mix onion,

potatoes and egg(s) together with some salt and the flour. Heat some oil in a frying pan. For each pancake, put about 3 tbsp of the mixture into the pan and form it into a flat pancake. Fry both sides until golden. Serve immediately, sprinkled with salt or sugar, together with applesauce.

Tanja Stimpel,
Schrobenhausen, Germany
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Dear Tanja:
I don't know why did you call this pancake "German". Galitzian (which means Westaer Ukraine, Eastern Poland territory) potato pancake are exactly like that. More expefienced cooks avoid to add flower. They believe that flower doesn't make pancakes "pure" potato...
From: Peter (petgross at sarenet.es)
Date: Wed, 26 Mar 1997 11:32:22 -0800
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If you add one grated, medium sized carrot to the mixture it will add color and taste. I agree potatoe pancakes originated in Poland and Chequia.
From: Martin Bemmann (martin.bemmann at urz.uni-heidelberg.de)
Date: Thu, 27 Mar 1997 20:52:15 +0100
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Peter wrote:
> If you add one grated, medium sized carrot to the mixture it will add
> color and taste. I agree potatoe pancakes originated in Poland and
> Chequia.

There is no (I repeat NO!!) need to add colour and taste! Even to add egg and/or flour is unnecessary. These pancakes called Reibekuchen or Kartoffelpuffer or Kroeppelscher etc. are a basic staple in the Rheinland region of Germany (around Cologne). There are many fast food restaurants serving only this dish and nothing else! It is made from grated raw potatoes, onions, pepper and salt only. After grating the potatoes you collect the liquid in a vesel and after some while the starch it contains will have set to the bottom of it. Now you spill the water and give the starch back to the potatoes. Mix the batter (eventually with an egg or so) and fry it ladle by ladle in a pan with hot oil (1/2 inch high) until they are golden brown. The pancaces should have a diameter of ca. 10 to 15 cm. Traditionally they are served immediatelly with apple sauce or better with apple syrup and dark brown wholemeal bread (and a lot of rye). They should be as hot to burn your mouth!
Hope I watered your mouth!