potato scallion pancakes

These are the days when potatoes are in season and abundant. We’ve been eating pounds of yukons and red potatoes each week, and I’ve been trying to figure out some other ways to eat them besides the standards – mashed, fried and baked.

I consulted one of the many cookbooks on our shelf, Betty Crocker’s New Cookbook, published in 1996. (Betty is a “warm and friendly” name, yes?) This book was a gift from my Mom upon my graduation from college, and it was fairly well worn during its first few years in my possession. I have old stars written next to things like fajitas, spanish rice, banana muffins and cream of broccoli soup. Now it is mostly a reference book, although I still use the soup stock recipes.

I turned to the index, searching for a new idea for potatoes when I saw a previously unused recipe – potato pancakes. Checking the ingredients list for availability in the house was pretty easy – potatoes (45 miles), eggs (7 miles), salt (the stash), flour (some expired gluten free flour from the store). I added some scallions (19 miles) and some garlic (45 miles) to the easy recipe and went to work.

1 – Clean, then boil 4 medium potatoes for about 10 minutes. Cool them off in the freezer while getting the rest of the ingredients ready. If you don’t have a freezer, just set them on the counter until they are cool enough to handle.

2 – Finely chop 4 or 5 scallions and 2 cloves of garlic.

3 – Add the scallions and garlic to a bowl with 1/4 cup of flour, 1 tsp salt, and 4 eggs. Don’t have flour or salt? No problem; skip it. We’re minimalists here anyway.

4 – Shred the cooled off potatoes into the bowl then mix everything well.

5 – Heat some oil, butter, bacon grease, or whatever is handy in a frying pan. If you don’t have anything to grease the pan, just watch the cakes extra carefully as the eggs provide the grease, and be very careful not to burn the bottoms.

6 – Scoop out a bit of the batter and form pancakes. Fry both sides until they are nice and browned. A few minutes on each side seems to work fine.

7 – Pile on a plate and eat!

While the basic recipe is from the Betty Crocker cookbook, I have embellished it with additional ingredients and instructions. Enjoy.

I’m finding that cooking without various ingredients is a liberating experience and not a reason to stress. The new rule is to taste often. And as The Stash begins to dwindle, I have to wonder on the importance of certain ingredients. More on that later…