So, let's say you've made up an excessively huge batch of mashed potatoes, and as much as you love them, there's just no way you could possibly get through them quickly enough. Also, it just happens to be a Saturday morning, and you feel like having a hearty breakfast. Pancakes sound good, but darn it, you're out of syrup! If only there was a way to make savory pancakes, using stuff you have an abundance of already... Oh wait, THERE IS!
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| GET IN MAH BELLEH! |
Of course, just savory pancakes by themselves can be a bit boring. Let's make a full breakfast of this!
First, the star ingredient!
Mashed potatoes are obviously the base ingredient for this recipe. Pretty much any variation would do; for example these I made the other day using pretty much all the vegetables in my fridge that needed used up. It's not just potatoes, but also onion, celery, cabbage, and bacon (yes, of course that's a vegetable!). Regardless of what vegetables make up the mix, just make sure that potatoes or some similar high-starch vegetable makes up the bulk of the mass, so it stays together well. Use the same process shown in
the previous installment of I Can Cooking!
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| Big bowl of "mashed everything." |
Now for the rest:
Haha, you were expecting there to be more, weren't you? Seriously, that's all you need to turn mashed potatoes into potato pancakes. Aside from that, I'll only be using breakfast sausage, cheese, and hot sauce.
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| All part of a balanced breakfast! |
Step 1: Lots of mixing
This is pretty much the only hard part of the process. Get a somewhat deep bowl, put it about halfway full of the mashed potatoes, then add your egg and a bit of flour. Stir in the flour until it's fully integrated, then keep adding more and stirring it in a bit at a time. There's no exact measure, as it all depends entirely on the moisture content and consistency of the potatoes. The basic guideline is to keep adding flour until it gets hard to stir and you begin to see the dough begin to "string" a bit. I'll show you later, don't worry.
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| If you wanted to make potato bites, just stop with this amount, ball up the mix, roll in more flour until the surface is dry, then fry. |
Since it takes a while to mix the batter together, we may as well do something productive in the meantime; ie. make this a full breakfast! Lets start by cooking up the breakfast sausage.
Pull the sausage, and drain on some paper towels. Try to keep as much of the grease in the skillet as you can.
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| I know it's hard to believe, but one can overdo it on the grease. |
Still not done with the dough? Fine, go ahead and fry up some eggs while we're waiting...
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| Preparation method for the eggs is up to individual taste. However, since the potato pancakes aren't as porous or absorbent as a crusty bread or English muffin, I'd suggest flat-fried rather than sunny-side up. |
When you've added enough flour to make a proper dough, it should look about like this. It'll be thick and heavy, and "string" slightly.
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| Batter up! |
Step 2: I can't find anything clever to say about pancakes...
You should still have a bit of the sausage grease left in the pan; it'll keep the pancake from sticking. If you didn't make sausage (or bacon), don't fret! Butter or olive oil work just as well!
Just scoop out a decent bit of the batter and spread it about a bit, then wait for it to be flippable. Lots of variables as to when to flip, but the general guideline is when you lift up one edge of the pancake and there's just a bit of browning on it, and you can slide the pancake around in the skillet and it stays together as a solid piece.
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| Usually, they'll be made smaller than this. |
Like so. Pull the pancake when both sides have a decent bit of browning, and/or you can poke it with a fork and the fork comes out smoothly (I wouldn't say "clean," as is the point of judgment for cakes and whatnot... these having a rather different texture and density to them. But as long as it doesn't get stuck it's good to go).
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| PANCAKE MASTER |
Step 3: Pancake done... so now what?
Congrats, you now know how to make potato pancakes! These are usually best served as a side dish, with some sour cream. But this is breakfast! Let's make a breakfast sammich that'll utterly blow away the stuff those fast food guys have to offer!
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| This is tasty, but why stop here? |
Layer 1: Eggs and the hot sauce of your choice.
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| Ketchup can also be good, if that's your thing. I don't judge here. |
Layer 2: SAUSAGES!
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| I know your eyes missed the sights of sausage. |
Layer 3: Cheese! Any kind that melts well will do; Swiss just happened to be what I have on-hand at the moment.
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| Because everything needs cheese. |
While we wait for the cheese to melt, and for the second pancake to get done (in about the time it took to stack the fixings, it should be ready to flip), we might as well make ourselves a nice delicious Irish coffee!
Conveniently, I just happen to have a guide right here!
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| Because weekends. |
Complete!
Now THAT'S a sandwich! By the time I'm writing this sentence, it's been about 6 hours since I ate this; still pleasantly full from it! Going to be need to hit the gym in a bit, I'm thinking. WORTH IT THOUGH! :D
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| Possibly the only meal you'll need all day! |
The similar and also delicious:
If you wish to try your potato pancakes in a more "conventional" manner, they go great with pretty much any Polish or other Eastern-European cuisine. Here's some as a side to
cabbage rolls I made a while back.
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| Teraz jest to właściwy obiad! |
Another recipe that's related, though it doesn't use potato, is Korean pancakes. For these, just make a standard pancake batter, but with a bit of salt or soy sauce added. Then chop up some cabbage (or better yet,
kimchi!), onion, mushrooms, and crab and mix those into the batter. Drop these into some oil and cook until they're done; top with
Sarayo or if the local stores don't carry it, mayo and
Sriracha as seen here:
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| 또한 좋은 맛. |
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