These delicious Crispy Potato Cakes are known as Placki Ziemniaczane if you are from the south of Poland, Placki Kartoflane if you are from the north, and Latke if you’re Jewish!
We serve them with sour cream and lemon, or with the addition of smoked salmon, but you can also serve them with a sprinkle of sugar.
Time: 40 minutes
Serves: 4
Ingredients
- 500g potatoes, with the skin left on, coarsely chopped
- 1 egg
- 1/2 onion, coarsely chopped
- 45g potato flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- vegetable oil, for frying
Method
Put all the ingredients, except the oil, into a food processor and process to make a batter. There should still be bits of potato and onion floating around. It’s quite a forgiving recipe, and a totally smooth batter is a bit much to expect.
The batter at this stage is quite liquid. Alternatively, you can grate the onion and potato and combine with the remaining ingredients in a bowl.
Read: Stuffed Sweet Potato
Heat one tablespoon of the oil in a cast-iron frying pan or flat griddle plate over a medium-low heat. You really do need cast iron, as no other surface seems to work as well. If you don’t have a pan, try using the grill plate of your barbecue. Just make sure it’s clean first!
Spoon 1/4 cup of the batter into the pan at a time, spreading it out to form a little round pancake. Cook for five minutes, or until they are set on the top, then turn over and cook for a further 5 minutes, or until lightly browned. Remove from the pan and set aside. Repeat with more oil and the remaining batter to make about 12 ‘cakes’.
Read: Eggplant Lasagna
Once you have cooked the cakes the first time, heat two tablespoons of oil in the same pan over medium-high heat. Return the cakes to the pan, working in batches, and cook until golden brown and crisp on both sides. Serve immediately with your chosen accompaniments.
Recipe taken from Borsch, Vodka and Tears by Benny Roff.
