Alastair Little, Richard Whittington

Potato Pancakes

Preparation info

  • Difficulty

    Easy

  • Makes

    4

    Substantial Pancakes

Appears in

The Daily Mail Modern British Cookbook

The Daily Mail Modern British Cookbook

By Alastair Little and Richard Whittington

Published 1998

  • About

Potato pancakes are very good with smoked salmon and scrambled eggs, or with bacon and a fried egg. There are lots of different ways of making them, with richer versions containing cream as well as eggs. The amount of eggs varies too.

The best thing to cook them in is a blini pan, because this will give you a perfect round thick cake, but you can get excellent results with an omelette or crêpe pan, particularly if you use plenty of egg whites in the mix as these will cause the pancakes to rise well.

If you have leftover mashed potatoes then they will form the basis of perfectly good parmentier batter.

Ingredients

  • 450 g/ 1 lb potatoes
  • 60 g/ 2 oz flour
  • 125 ml/ 4 fl oz milk
  • 2 eggs, plus whites of 3 extra eggs
  • salt and pepper
  • freshly grated nutmeg
  • sunflower oil, for frying

Method

Preheat the oven to 150°C/300°F/ gas 2. Cook the potatoes in boiling salted water, drain and then mash them dry. Beat in the flour.

In a bowl, whisk the milk with the eggs and extra whites. Beat this into the potato to form a thick smooth batter. Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg, then leave the batter to stand for about 10 minutes.

Heat your pan to smoking-hot, then film the base with sunflower oil, wiping out any excess with a paper towel. Pour in one-quarter of the batter and turn down the heat slightly. Cook for about 3 minutes, lifting gently with a spatula to check that it is nicely browned underneath before turning and cooking the other side.

Transfer them to to a warmed plate in the low oven while you cook the rest of the pancakes, wiping the pan with oiled paper for each.

© 1998 Alastair Little. All rights reserved.