Potato Pancakes

"jmcquown" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I've got some leftover mashed potatoes. My Scottish grandmother made
potato
pancakes from leftover mashed.

My German grandmother made latkes... grated potato pancakes.

Which do you prefer?

Jill

Nonsense. Nobody can make pancakes from mashed potatoes.

Cite, please.

1..
2....
3......

JUST KIDDING, JILL!

jmcquown said:

I've got some leftover mashed potatoes. My Scottish grandmother made potato
pancakes from leftover mashed.

My German grandmother made latkes... grated potato pancakes.

Which do you prefer?

Latkes.... there is no competition there.

jmcquown said:

I've got some leftover mashed potatoes. My Scottish grandmother made potato
pancakes from leftover mashed.

My German grandmother made latkes... grated potato pancakes.

Which do you prefer?

Jill

My grandmother made grated latkes (always with a bit of knuckle from
the grater). She also put in a tablespoon or two of melted shmaltz
(rendered chicken fat) which upped the flavor ante to over 100.

My mother-in-law made pure vegetarian, mashed potato latkes.

Having eaten both for almost three decades, the grated latkes with
shmaltz win hands down.

April G.
San Antonio, TX
http://agru.etsy.com

jmcquown said:

I've got some leftover mashed potatoes. My Scottish grandmother made potato
pancakes from leftover mashed.

My German grandmother made latkes... grated potato pancakes.

She must have had another name for them, or else she learnt to make them
in America. "Latke" (from the South Russian/Ukrainian dialect word
"latka" or "oladka", a variation of the standard "oladya"😉 has long been
adopted into Yiddish in those areas and is now used in America. It has
never been used in any German-speaking countries, where this kind of
potato pancakes are variously called Reibekuchen, Rivkooche,
Reiberdatschi, Kartoffelpuffer, Reibeplätzchen, etc.

Quoted message said:

Which do you prefer?

Another kind of potato pancakes popular in the northern parts of the
Rhineland called Pillekuchen, which is similiar in concept to the
traditionally made Swiss Rösti and even somewhat to some versions of the
American hash browns. Here is a recipe adapted from _Kulinarische
Streifzüge durch das Rheinland_ by Hannes Schmitz.

Bergischer Pillekuchen

1 kg (2 pounds) potatoes
about 125 g (4.4 ounces) streaky bacon (in a piece, not in thin rashers)
2 onions
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly-ground pepper
1/2 teaspoon freshly-ground nutmeg
3 eggs
2 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons sour cream

Peel and rinse the potatoes and cut them in thin sticks, (as for
matchstick or shoestring potatoes). Cube the streaky bacon and fry it
in a large pan until it gives off some fat. Mince the onions, add them
to the bacon and fry until soft. Add the potatoes and continue to fry,
turning them over often, until golden brown. Add the seasoning. Mix
the eggs, flour and sour cream, with a bit of salt and pepper, pour the
mixture over the potatoes and let it thicken. Serve with green salad.

Victor

"jmcquown" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I've got some leftover mashed potatoes. My Scottish grandmother made
potato
pancakes from leftover mashed.

My German grandmother made latkes... grated potato pancakes.

Which do you prefer?

Jill

Coat em in some crushed corn flakes and pan fry.

Dave Smith said:

jmcquown said:

I've got some leftover mashed potatoes. My Scottish grandmother made potato
pancakes from leftover mashed.

My German grandmother made latkes... grated potato pancakes.

Which do you prefer?

Latkes.... there is no competition there.

Yep - they have a much better texture. They get much crispier.

-sw

On Thu, 27 Sep 2007 23:23:39 GMT, Sqwertz <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

On Thu, 27 Sep 2007 16:03:46 -0400, Dave Smith wrote:

potato pancakes.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Which do you prefer?

Latkes.... there is no competition there.

Yep - they have a much better texture. They get much crispier.

-sw

This is something I have had in mind to try for some time now. I
meant to do it last year, but things happened so I never got around to
it.

I guess I will have to start perusing the archives to see what
everyone recommends as to fixing these.

Christine, whose mind is turning towards cooler weather foods.

agrunspan said:

My grandmother made grated latkes (always with a bit of knuckle from
the grater). She also put in a tablespoon or two of melted shmaltz
(rendered chicken fat) which upped the flavor ante to over 100.

I fry my hash browns and latkes in chicken fat whenever possible
(80% of the time). My chicken fat comes from rendered chicken
skins and neck/thigh fat. The skins are then eaten as chicken
skin chicaronnes and the fat frozen for exclusive use of frying
potatoes.

Like so: http://i10.tinypic.com/4q8ab2e.jpg

-sw

On Thu, 27 Sep 2007 18:27:17 -0500, Sqwertz <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

agrunspan said:

My grandmother made grated latkes (always with a bit of knuckle from
the grater). She also put in a tablespoon or two of melted shmaltz
(rendered chicken fat) which upped the flavor ante to over 100.

I fry my hash browns and latkes in chicken fat whenever possible
(80% of the time). My chicken fat comes from rendered chicken
skins and neck/thigh fat. The skins are then eaten as chicken
skin chicaronnes and the fat frozen for exclusive use of frying
potatoes.

Like so: http://i10.tinypic.com/4q8ab2e.jpg

-sw

I wish I could get mine to look like yours. 😉

I save chicken fat whenever I can as well. I have a bag of chicken
fat pieces in my freezer...must be about time to render it. I tend to
use the fatty pieces from whole chickens, the big gobs of it just
inside the cavity. Those gobs don't render down to the crispy bits
you have...at least I have never been able to get them that way.

Christine

Christine Dabney said:

On Thu, 27 Sep 2007 18:27:17 -0500, Sqwertz <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Like so: http://i10.tinypic.com/4q8ab2e.jpg

I wish I could get mine to look like yours. 😉

I save chicken fat whenever I can as well. I have a bag of chicken
fat pieces in my freezer...must be about time to render it. I tend to
use the fatty pieces from whole chickens, the big gobs of it just
inside the cavity. Those gobs don't render down to the crispy bits
you have...at least I have never been able to get them that way.

I render the whole "fat and skin bag" at once. What you see
there are just the remaining skins. The larger cavity fat
globules just melt into liquid for the most part.

It's important to simmer at low heat until you don't see any moe
bubbles from the skins. This means all the water had been drawn
out. There is one point about halfway through the frying where
they all stick together like a huge ball of glue. Just keep
cooking and they'll separate.

-sw

"jmcquown" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I've got some leftover mashed potatoes. My Scottish grandmother made
potato
pancakes from leftover mashed.

My German grandmother made latkes... grated potato pancakes.

Which do you prefer?

Jill

Prefer a latke, but we rarely have them. I do like to add a few things to
the leftover mashed though, and fry them up. Never met a potato that I
didn't like.

Jill asked:

Quoted message said:

I've got some leftover mashed potatoes. My Scottish grandmother made
potato pancakes from leftover mashed.

My German grandmother made latkes... grated potato pancakes.

Which do you prefer?

I much prefer grated potato pancakes. I don't care for the mashed-potato
version at all. Given leftover mashed potatoes, I might try to make gnocchi.

Bob

jmcquown said:

I've got some leftover mashed potatoes. My Scottish grandmother made potato
pancakes from leftover mashed.

My German grandmother made latkes... grated potato pancakes.

My Polish/German mother made grated potato pancakes. Lovely with
applesauce and sour cream, or with maple syrup if you insisted.

I usually take leftover garlic roasted potatoes* (probably around 2
cups), warm them up a little in the microwave then smush them up in a
bowl with a couple of beaten eggs.

I heat a nonstick skillet with a couple of tablespoons of butter over
med/low heat. Make your patties by dropping 1/3 cup scoops of the
potato/egg mixture (approx) into the prepared pan. Leave some space
between them, you'll need to flatten them a little with a spatula so
that they're no more than a half inch thick.

Fry slowly until golden brown on the bottom. Flip patties carefully and
brown the other side. Serve with strong coffee with cream (and sugar or
chocolate syrup) and whatever fresh fruit you've got around.

*Garlic Roasted Potatoes

2 - 3 lbs small red potatoes, scrubbed, cut into bite-sized chunks
1 palm full of peeled garlic cloves (maybe 1/4-1/3 cup?)
2 tablespoons olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 375.

Toss all ingredients together in a shallow roasting dish. Bake at 375,
stirring every 10 minutes or so, until potato wedges and garlic cloves
are fork-tender and well browned - probably 45 minutes to an hour.

This makes more than the two cups of potatoes called for above.

jmcquown said:

I've got some leftover mashed potatoes. My Scottish grandmother made potato
pancakes from leftover mashed.

My German grandmother made latkes... grated potato pancakes.

Which do you prefer?

Jill

Hi Jill, my Lithuanian grandmother used to make potatoe pancakes as
well. She would grate them & then wrap them in a cloth to wring all
the moisture out of them. they were delicious! Lara.

Victor Sack said:

jmcquown said:

I've got some leftover mashed potatoes. My Scottish grandmother
made potato pancakes from leftover mashed.

My German grandmother made latkes... grated potato pancakes.

She must have had another name for them, or else she learnt to make
them in America. "Latke" (from the South Russian/Ukrainian dialect
word "latka" or "oladka", a variation of the standard "oladya"😉 has
long been adopted into Yiddish in those areas and is now used in
America.

She was born here although she was of German descent (her maiden name was
Ruffner and her parents were Reithmillers). So yes, she learned to make
them here.

Quoted message said:

It has never been used in any German-speaking countries,
where this kind of potato pancakes are variously called Reibekuchen,
Rivkooche, Reiberdatschi, Kartoffelpuffer, Reibeplätzchen, etc.

Whatever, dear! They're grated potato pancakes as opposed to the ones made
from leftover mashed potatoes.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Which do you prefer?

Another kind of potato pancakes popular in the northern parts of the
Rhineland called Pillekuchen, which is similiar in concept to the
traditionally made Swiss Rösti and even somewhat to some versions of
the American hash browns. Here is a recipe adapted from _Kulinarische
Streifzüge durch das Rheinland_ by Hannes Schmitz.

Bergischer Pillekuchen

1 kg (2 pounds) potatoes
about 125 g (4.4 ounces) streaky bacon (in a piece, not in thin
rashers) 2 onions
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly-ground pepper
1/2 teaspoon freshly-ground nutmeg
3 eggs
2 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons sour cream

Peel and rinse the potatoes and cut them in thin sticks, (as for
matchstick or shoestring potatoes). Cube the streaky bacon and fry it
in a large pan until it gives off some fat. Mince the onions, add
them to the bacon and fry until soft. Add the potatoes and continue
to fry, turning them over often, until golden brown. Add the
seasoning. Mix the eggs, flour and sour cream, with a bit of salt
and pepper, pour the mixture over the potatoes and let it thicken.
Serve with green salad.

Victor

Depends on which meal we are talking about.

Potato pancakes are nice with a proper fried (British) breakfast, grated
potato patties are better as part of a dinner/supper that involves a
sauce of some kind.

I have never tried making potato pancakes with cold leftover spuds
though, I've always made them whilst the spuds were still hot.

Steve

jmcquown said:

I've got some leftover mashed potatoes. My Scottish grandmother made potato
pancakes from leftover mashed.

My German grandmother made latkes... grated potato pancakes.

Which do you prefer?

Jill

jmcquown said:

I've got some leftover mashed potatoes. My Scottish grandmother made potato
pancakes from leftover mashed.

My German grandmother made latkes... grated potato pancakes.

Which do you prefer?

Jill

I don't make them from leftover potatoes, but I do make them from pretty
much mashed consistency.

Make sure to use peanut oil when you cook them. Makes all the
difference in the taste of the final product.

Oh yum! It's getting to be that time of year to make them again.

--
Queenie

*** Be the change you wish to see in the world ***

"Choco" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

jmcquown said:

I've got some leftover mashed potatoes. My Scottish grandmother made
potato
pancakes from leftover mashed.

My German grandmother made latkes... grated potato pancakes.

Which do you prefer?

Jill

Hi Jill, my Lithuanian grandmother used to make potatoe pancakes as
well. She would grate them & then wrap them in a cloth to wring all
the moisture out of them. they were delicious! Lara.

I was just about to write in exactly the same thing. My Lithuanian Dad used
to make them sometimes. He called them potato pancakes, I don't know what
he called them in Lithuanian.

Jen

jmcquown said:

I've got some leftover mashed potatoes. My Scottish grandmother made potato
pancakes from leftover mashed.

My German grandmother made latkes... grated potato pancakes.

Which do you prefer?

Jill

I prefer latkes. The made from sweet potatoes version is also good.