I realise my last three recipes have been leftover potato-based, but in my defence, Monet spent 30 years painting the same fucking pond. Am I comparing my potato period to Monet's 300 or so paintings of water lilies? I wouldn't dream of it. Besides, you can tell the difference between my potato recipes.
Globally, we dump around 1.5 billion kilos of potatoes a year, making them the world's most wasted food stuff. As soon as they get a little soft, sprouty or green we bin them, which is silly because even green spuds can be saved with some judicious peeling. The green tinge is chlorophyll which in itself is harmless, but those bits are more likely to contain a naturally occuring pesticide called solanine. Poisoning cases are extremely rare and the internet reckons you're good to go if you peel off the green bits, so give those aging potatoes a chance to contribute to society, and whip up a batch of rösti.
What's a rösti? And what are those little dots above the ö? To answer your second imaginary question first, the dots are called umlauts - which is German for dots. Probably.
They look very cosmopolitain and I will definitely be using them more öften.
What's a rösti? It's a laa-dee-dah Swiss hashbrown made with just three ingredients: Potatoes, salt and butter.
Potato Rösti
~ Makes 4-6 cakes ~
2 0r 3 medium potatoes
1 tbsp butter for each potato
1 tsp salt
Butter for frying
Method
Peel the potatoes. If you're using old spuds, make sure you peel deep enough to remove all the green bits.
Grate the potatoes with a coarse grater and toss with a teaspoon of salt. Let the salted grated potato sit in a bowl for 10 minutes.
Make a ball of grated potato in a clean teatowel. Twist and squeeze out all the excess water.
Put the squeezed potato in a mixing bowl, add the melted butter and stir well.
Make burger-size cakes from the mixture and fry in butter until golden, on a medium heat - about 6 minutes per side.
I served this batch with a slither of smöked salmon and a pöached egg. Përfect.
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