Tuesday, October 11, 2011

shredded potato pancakes

I was trying to use up the half onion and the potatoes left over from making Yoko Arimoto's delicious nikujaga, when it occurred to me that maybe I can use them to make shredded potato pancakes.

I've never made shredded potato pancakes before, but it's so darn easy and almost as naughty as french fries. I've made it a few times since then, with bacon! Thinly sliced bacon! Now that was naughtier than french fries.

I found the brilliant but totally simple recipe on the internet. I've noticed that I seem to always find / come up with good recipes when I try to use up my left-overs. Mayhap I shall do it more often?

The shocking amount of ingredients, plus salt & white pepper.

Vegans can substitute the egg with plain ol' water.

Thinly slice the onions, as thin as you can manage, like paper thin, if you can, can you? OK, maybe not paper thin, but thin enough.


Peel, then grate the potatoes, with your grater, if you have them, if you don't, that'd probably be a bit difficult.

The thinly grated yummies.

Add the rest of ingredients to the shredded potatoes, that's the egg (vegans: please see next paragraph), onion and the self-raising flour.

For vegans, the amount of water to add would depend on the amount of moisture coming out of the shredded potatoes. 2 teaspoons should be plenty. The mixture should just bind together and not at all watery


Time to get dirty, get in there with your hands and mix it all up.

Over a medium-low heat frying pan, heat a few tablespoons of canola oil.

I use my hand to portion, one handful per portion. My frying pan only allows me to cook four portions at a time.

Flatten them so that they're more pancake-like.

To each of the pancake, add a pinch of salt and white pepper.

Keep checking the bottom side of your lovely pancakes, when they're deliciously golden & crispy (about 5 minutes), flip the pancakes. Season the golden brown side with another pinch of salt & white pepper

If it seems to you that they're taking too long to get crispy (more than five minutes), then feel free to turn up the heat.

I would have the pancakes start on medium-low heat at first, because the potatoes need that time to cook through. Then, to make it crispy turn the heat up for a bit, before lowering the heat again to cook the other side or the next batch.


Soak the oil from the finished pancakes with paper towel.

I ate these babies for breakfast with a saucer of sambal (read: chilli sauce) from the indonesian brand ABC, and washed them down with a chilled can of coke.

I probably went too far with the coke.

Shredded potato pancakes
Adapted from Exclusively Food

Makes about 10 pancakes

Ingredients:
  • 625g (4 medium) potatoes, peeled and shredded
  • half a big onion, or one small onion, sliced
  • 1 egg (for vegans, simply substitute egg with 2 tsp of water)
  • 28g (2 tbsp) of self-raising flour
  • Salt and white pepper

Method:
  1. Thoroughly mix the grated potatoes, sliced onion, egg (or water) and flour together.
  2. Heat a few tablespoons of vegetable oil over a medium-low heat frying pan. To that, add the potato pancake mixture, one portion (one handful) at a time. Fit as many portion as possible into the frying pan.
  3. Flatten the pancakes. Season each pancake with a pinch of salt and white pepper.
  4. Keep an eye on it. After 5 minutes, the bottom side of the pancakes should be golden brown. Flip the pancakes. If not, turn the heat up and wait until they are golden brown and flip. Season the other side with another pinch of salt and white pepper. Set aside on a paper towel lined plate.
  5. Serve with your favourite chilli sauce. Repeat steps 3 to 5 for the rest of the mixture.
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