Potato Pancakes

A simple dish to celebrate a milestone.

Today is my 100^th edition of Food, Finds and Forays!! Cue champagne corks, poppers and fireworks. I perhaps should have written a recipe for a celebratory cocktail with froth and bubbles or a layered cake, cream oozing from the sides crowned with lavish florals atop lashings of flavoured Swiss meringue butter cream but alas the last two weeks had other plans for me.

Winter arrived like a dame on the stage, arms out swept, cape draping from her arms in grandeur singing her aria. Not an arrival like a loud rock band crashing through the stage curtain with its thunderous arrival, rather a resounding entrance that gets your attention and respect in one fell swoop making you sit up and take notice. The mornings are frosty, the nights chilled and the air icy from foggy starts. With the cold blanket that’s swept over us so too did the season’s ills.

With a winter bug nipping at my heels like a pesky puppy I was grounded last week. A bit of a phantom bug of sorts, one day laid low with an overwhelming malaise the next seemingly fine, finally I was felled with whatever it was. Thankfully not the dreaded winter bug we all dread these days. Hot on the heels of that, a quick winter camping trip on a friend’s farm. Mad perhaps but a lovely getaway none the less. Days of winter sunshine and frosty nights around the campfire was strangely just the ticket.

And now here we are, number 100! So I thought we could have a quick wander down memory lane. Two and a half years ago we started with this humble chai cake. A lovely melt and mix her golden crumb with a hint of gentle spice was both enticing and a firm favourite. Her reliable comfort makes her one of the most cooked recipes on the blog. Following on with easy theme has been some delicious easy to throw together dinners that have been popular with my boys, always simple to put together and usually provided loads of leftovers. This one pot meat, veg and pasta dish from my childhood is one of my faves, but I also love this hacked paella to stave off the craving without the faff.

There’s been a strong curry theme too with another one pot number of chicken and rice or a slow cooked lamb and carrot dish for when there’s a little more time and a wintry noodle soup.

But bakes have always had a big run. Both an easy and heirloom chocolate cake and chocky cookies of course. And because we must keep our fruit up, strawberry sheet cake and raspberry and mandarin olive oil cake.

Sooooo many delish recipes that I still love and am super proud of. It’s actually made it hard to decide how to celebrate reaching 100!!! For a person not known for necessarily lasting for 100 of anything it feels like quite the achievement, one worthy of some grand feast. Perhaps a luxurious fillet of beef with a red wine jus or dinner of Lobster with a rich butter sauce of sorts. Or maybe we should toast 100 with a fine champers and luscious cake of fine crumb, clouds of cream and sugar and fairy floss. Yeah all sounds wonderful but it wouldn’t really be in keeping with its 99 predecessors. You see I like to keep things simple fast and tasty here. So simple it is.

My mum loved potatoes. I mean really loved them. Her love of hot chippies and every other iteration of the humble spud is the stuff of legend. As a career woman who was one of the hardest working women I knew and someone who didn’t like cooking potatoes and meals based around them were often her go to. Comfort food for her after perhaps a hard day’s work and indeed an ingredient she could wield into a plethora of meals. 

A frequent recipe on our tables, one taught to her by her great grandmother was what Mum called Potato Pancakes. Somewhere between a rosti, hash brown and pancake and an homage to her German/Jewish heritage of a few generations prior, they were a family favourite. We had them as the star of the plate, but I prefer to cook them with a salad and oozy poached egg. We’ve also had them with leftover corned beef and smoked salmon amongst other things. A little more substantial than a breakfast rosti, perhaps almost a fritter, they make a delicious base for an easy light meal after a busy day.

So my hundred newsletters are bookended with simple humble recipes full of flavour and easy to put together.

Ingredients:

50 gm (1/4 c & 1Tb) of plain flour

1 tsp salt flakes

¼ tsp grated nutmeg

¼ tsp garlic powder

2 pinches ground white pepper

2 eggs

2 Tb crème fraiche or sour cream

500 gm grated peeled potato lightly squeezed of excess liquid

Oil to fry with

Method:

In a large bowl combine dry ingredients. In a medium bowl beat together eggs and crème fraiche and add to dry ingredients combining well with a whisk. Set aside.

Peel and grate potatoes and gently squeeze excess liquid from the flesh. Discard liquid and tip potato into dry ingredients. Mix well with a large spoon until completely amalgamated. It’s important to only prepare the potatoes just before you’re ready as they will discolour if left too long and more liquid will leach out making it too wet.

Heat a large pan over medium low heat covering the base with the oil. We’re not deep frying but we want the base covered with oil coming up 1-2 mm when the mixture is in the pan.

When ready, using a ¼ cup measure drop mounds of mixture into the hot oil and flatten out. Cook gently until golden brown then flip and cook the other side. It’s important to use a gentle heat  so the potato has time to cook through as well as the out side go crispy and delicious. Cook in batches so as not to over crowd the pan.

Drain on paper towel until they’re all done and serve with your favourite accompaniment.

Makes 8 fritters.

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Finds and Forays

Perhaps madly we went winter camping over the King’s Birthday Long Weekend. A few days on our friend’s farm thankfully bathed in sunshine actually made for a lovely break but needed lots of warm drinks and snacks to stay warm. I cooked this delicious loaf cake by Helen Goh with carrot, apple and raisins. It was super moist, in fact becoming more so over a few days and lasted well across the whole weekend, obviously served with lashings of butter. As lovely as that was no weekend away is complete with a cookie for dunking and these chewy gems were perfect with a cuppa round the fire.

Last year when I went to see Nigella live I met a friend for dinner first. We enjoyed a wonderful meal cared for by a charming waiter who convinced us to try his new favourite wine. An unusual (to me) blend of shiraz and pinot it stuck in my mind as one of those wines I must remember. Our weekend in North East Victoria afforded us the opportunity to visit the winery and enjoy a tasting with the winemaker herself and of course stock up. Visiting VSandB Wines was quite possibly one of the best cellar door experiences we’ve ever enjoyed and the wines exceptionally good. A definite hard recommend from me, and they do mail order.

Finally, this delicious salad popped up on Insta this week via @babymacbeth. It looks like a perfect dish to serve with a hearty slow roast like lamb shoulder or a juicy salty roast chook and looks after vegetarian diners and omnivores alike.

As you usual lovelies thank you so much for following along, your forgiveness when I’m late or missing and your loyalty. You are so appreciated. Lets see where the next 100 takes us, maybe we will celebrate the next 100 with a fancy dish and champers.

Best

S x