Pancakes: Potato pancakes
Subject: Potato pancakes
Newsgroups: rec.food.cooking
From: buffylyre at aol.com (Buffy Lyre)
Date: 10 Jul 1998 06:53:00 GMT
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Potato pancakes are really good. I never had them until we ate in Pennsyl but we had them in NY too. This is a simple recipe and it makes really good potato pancakes.
Potato pancakes
4 medium potatos
1 medium onion
1 egg beaten lightly
2 tablesp fine dry breadcrumbs
1 teasp salt
1/2 teasp pepper
butter or bacon fat
Wash and peel the potatos. Grate finely and drain off the water that collects in the bowl. Squeeze the potatos to get out as much water as possible. Grate the onion into the potato and mix in the egg, breadcrumbs, salt, and pepper. Heat the butter or bacon fat in a skillet. Put in 4 large spoonfuls to make 4 pancakes. Fry slowly until brown and crispy on the bottom, then turn and brown the other side. Remove the cooked pancakes, add more fat, and repeat until all the pancakes are done.
These are good with applesauce or sour cream.
From: harvey at bennettengineering.com (Harvey Bennett)
Date: Fri, 10 Jul 1998 07:36:33 GMT
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I have never had much luck with using raw potatoes for potato pancakes. I much prefer to use cold mashed potatoes. To mash the
potatoes, I cut the potatoes into chunks, boil until tender, then add 2 TBSP margarine, salt, pepper, and milk and mix with electric mixer until well mashed. I don't add much milk because I like very thick potatoes, not creamed potatoes. I usually make extra to have some left over for the recipe below.
Title: Potato Pancakes
A Cold mashed potatoes 1 cup
B Flour 1/2 cup
C Salt 1 tsp
D Pepper 1 tsp
E Sharp Cheddar Cheese 1/3 cup
F Egg 1
G Small Onion 1, diced
H Oil 1/4 cup
Mix A-G. Heat oil in a heavy frying pan. Drop spoonfuls of potatoes into oil. When brown on the first side, turn them over and press flat. When brown, remove and drain.
From: Chet (chet at ptd.net)
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 00:28:02 GMT
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I love to make Potato pancakes, maybe some of you have a tip to make it easier to grate potatoes, presently I do them by hand (very time consuming) and they come out delicious, I don't have a food processor. any ideas to speed the grating of the potatoes up!
From: harryd at telusplanet.net (Harry A. Demidavicius)
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1999 04:44:54 GMT
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Tried the "electric" method - no good. Totally different texture and consequently the taste. have been back to the hand ground method for years.
From: Alan Boles (agboles at hotmail.com)
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1999 08:09:52 -0500
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That french chef J. Pepin sugguestted on TV that you use a food mill to grate your tators. I scoughed and used the FP and got some sort of snot. Undaunted I laffed it off and then tried the the hand blender, snott again. It seems that if you use a higher speed inplement to grate tators you break open their cells and a gluten type reaction occurs. It isn't gluten that actually causes the mess in the bowl. If sorry I had it explained to me once but have forgotten. But do not use high speed kitchen utensils on tators (not a good thing).
From: imocku at aol.comspamenot (IMOCKU)
Date: 21 Jul 1999 13:29:02 GMT
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>But do not use high speed
>kitchen utensils on tators (not a good thing).
Actually, I disagree.
I make potato pancakes by making half the batch of potatoes and onions rather fine in the food processor and making the other half a slightly chunkier consistency (we're not talking BIG chunks of potatoes here), then I mix the two batches together. With the right amount of eggs and matzoh meal they hold together perfectly every time.
Ilene (LI, NY)
Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in his shoes. That way, when you criticize him, you are a mile away from him, and you have his shoes.
From: Peter G. Aitken (peter at pgacon.com)
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1999 11:05:34 -0400
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You can make perfectly excellent latkes using a food processor but you MUST use a grating disk and not use the regular chopping blade. A grating disk does nothing differently than hand grating (unless you like the flavor added by those bits of skin). There was a long thread on this topic on rec.food.cuisine.jewish, you can find the old messages on DejaNews. Many people agreed with me that the "trick" is to immediately take the grated potatoes and immerse them in cold water. THis not only keeps them from turning brown but most important washes a lot of the starch away, resulting in crisper latkes. Then drain the potato shreds and a handfull at a time wrap in a clean towel and squeeze as much of the water out as you can. Then procede with your recipe.
From: jdrnin at earthlink.net (Ed. Roberts)
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1999 14:17:26 GMT
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On FoodTV, I saw them use a Spatzel (sp) press. It looks like a large garlic press and gives a superior texture to the potatos. They just boiled the potatos in large chunks and ran them through the press. No shredding involved. I got one as a gift and never knew how to use it until saw that.
From: rsanborn at SoftHome.net (Robin)
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1999 15:01:15 GMT
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jdrnin at earthlink.net wrote...
> On FoodTV, I saw them use a Spatzel (sp) press.
Sounds like a ricer--*excellent* for making mashed potatoes!
From: Jack (jkeller at voicenet.com)
Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 04:42:14 GMT
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Chet wrote:
> I don't have a food processor.
>any ideas to speed the grating of the potatoes up!
FWIW, I use a mandoline to cut the potatoes into matchsticks. I prefer the resulting texture and taste.
From: mgwegner at execpc.com (Michael G. Wegner)
Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 17:18:58 GMT
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We used to use one of those old cast iron meat grinders. Worked great!