Monday 2 April 2012

More potatoes

Sometimes I get ideas out of the blue, and this is a typical example. I was intending to make a potato cake from mashed potatoes which are pressed into a hot, oiled, frying pan to brown on both sides, but just as I was getting ready to put them into the frying pan I thought  "I wonder what would happen if I stirred an egg into these before I fry them?". So I did, and the result was a delightful, fluffy, light cake. They accompanied the Boeuf Bourguignon very nicely.

Ingredients

5 medium sized yellow potatoes, such as Rooster
1 egg, beaten
salt and freshly ground black pepper
oil to grease a non-stick frying pan (I used a wok)

Method

Peel the potatoes and cut into chunks. Put them into a pan of boiling, salted water and simmer until they are just tender to the point of a knife. Drain and then mash them, checking seasoning with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Oil a non-stick frying pan and put over a hot heat. Stir the beaten egg into the potato mixture and press the mixture into the frying pan, smoothing the top surface. Reduce the heat and allow the potato mixture to crisp and brown underneath (about 5 minutes). Put a plate over the frying pan and invert the pan so that the potato cake drops onto the plate. Slide the cake back into the pan so that the other side of the cake can crisp and brown for another 5 minutes. Slide or invert the pan again to put the cake onto a serving plate. Serve cut into wedges.

3 comments:

  1. I am surprised that you put the diced potatoes into hot water, my Mother always put root veg into cold water and then brought it to the boil, anything frown above the ground goes into boiling water. I do the same.

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  2. Toffeeapple: I put them into boiling water for a couple of reasons. Firstly, because we have no mains gas: I don't want to have to use up bottled gas to get the water to temperature. Secondly, the potatoes are cut into 1" cubes, which means the heat gets to the middle before the edges break up. This is especially true of waxy potatoes. Trying that method with floury potatoes, e.g. Kerrs Pinks, would be a disaster waiting to happen. If I were to use Pinks for this recipe I would steam them.

    The practice of putting anything green into boiling water is a very good one: brief cooking keeps the nutrients in and sets the green colour. Another tip for cooking green vegetables in water is to oversalt the water. That raises the temperature of the boil and the cooking can be done even more quickly. The reduced cooking time means less leeching of nutrients and the extra salt doesn't have time to transfer to the food.

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  3. Time for updates!

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