Monday 30 September 2013

Potato pancakes

potato pancake Sept 13

I did not get round to making bread yesterday. The result was that there was no bread for breakfast this morning. Riding to my rescue was the humble potato. I have been planning for some time to make potato pancakes. The batter consists of finely grated potatoes, egg, a pinch of salt and a small amount of flour. This morning was an ideal opporunity to make one. It worked rather well.

I now need to experiment with recipes that include no flour as the main aim of using potatoes is to free us from having to buy flour. We are not in a position to grow our own wheat or mill it so this is something of a hole in our self-sufficient diet. With my historians hat on, I have done quite a bit of research on the British wartime diet when people were widely encouraged to use potatoes instead of bread and flour. If it worked then, it can work for us now.

3 comments:

elfriide tramm said...

as yhere is a gluten problem in my family, i mix boiled potatoes with a little steamed squash/pumpkin and eggs for pancakes. sometimes i add a bit of buckwheat flour, but not very often. sometimes i smash some banana also in the batter, but it's definetely not self-sufficient :)

Jonathan Wallace said...

Thanks for that. I like the idea of adding pumpkin. I have four huge pumpkins and am needed pumpkin recipes for our next cafe on 27th October. So I'll have a go at pumpkin pancakes.

elfriide tramm said...

btw, pumpkin soup is one of our favourites!

add some butter (oil can do, too) to pot
add some onions, chopped, a bit of garlic and ginger (last 2 are optional. also curcum etc are optional)
then add several grated carrots
and heat a little - maybe 10 minutes
then add pieces of pumpkin/squash - a lot.
(1-2 apples can be added also, depending on taste)
and some water and salt (+ spices you like)

and heat/steam until soft.

then just blender it.
you can serve just like that or add some fried bacon or olives or fried onion etc

easy, satisfying and warming in cold autumn/winter.