A dish with a thousand names in Hungarian, depending on region, known to bring friendly conversation to a halt where the participants just look at each other try not to smile at the other’s name, establish that they mean the same thing, then carry on chattering. These potato cakes are nice as a snack or as a side dish for meat courses. Just a few simple points to remember to get them right, one is to squeeze the liquid out from the grated potatoes when preparing the mixture to get a nice crispy finish. Nearly every household has their own variation, I like these plain and crispy around the edges, you can try mixing some garlic in the batter, chopped spring onions or parsley. Recently gaining popularity substituting some or all of the potatoes with grated courgettes, I’m yet to try that, sounds good.
Ingredients (makes about 6-7 rostis)
- 450 g (1 lb) potatoes
- 100 g (~ 6 tbsp) flour
- salt, pepper to taste
- sunflower/vegetable oil
Optional sour cream dip:
- 100ml sour cream
- 1 garlic clove finely chopped
- salt
Method
- Peel and great the potatoes on a coarse greater.
- The potato has a high water content, to make a great rosti that is crispy on the outside and soft inside we need to squeeze out as much as the water as possible by hand. Once the water squeezed out combine with one beaten egg a bit of salt and the flour.
- We can straight away get on with frying them up in batches, the raw grated potato would turn into a greyish colour if sat around too long.
- Heat a splash or two of sunflower/vegetable oil in a pan, place spoonful heaps of the potato mixture into the hot oil flatten them out slightly and cook on medium heat until golden, turn and cook the other side.
- Take them out onto a plate lined with paper towel to soak up the excess oil, could serve with sour cream mixed with finely chopped garlic clove.
