Roughly five years ago we tossed some sprouted potatoes into a hole at the corner of our garden. We figured they would either compost in place — or grow. Boy did they grow. We’ve never been able to dig them all up each year, and the tiny spuds we miss pretty much guarantee the next year’s crop.
Usually we steam the potatoes, then mash them with a good old-fashioned potato masher. If we’re feeling decadent, we turn the mashed potatoes into whipped potatoes with generous additions of butter and cream and a vigorous hand with a balloon whip. Even with heavy cream and real Irish butter, they’re still not quite as good as mashed potatoes in Ireland.
The cliché is true. The potato is the bedrock of Irish cooking. Add sliced scallions (spring onions) to the mash and you have ‶champ.″ Shred in some cooked cabbage and it become ‶colcannon.″ Maybe the easiest transformation is the Irish potato pancake called ‶boxty.″ It’s a perfect way to use up leftover mashed potatoes.
Some cooks boil the batter for boxty dumplings. Some bake it into a dense potato bread. But the most common style of boxty is a pancake fried in butter. Good boxty has a fluffy soft interior and slightly crisp edges. We’ve encountered it in Ireland with dollops of crème fraiche and chives, with a tangy sweet relish like Ballymaloe (see recipe ), or as a pancake base for a slice of Irish bacon and a runny poached egg. (Even without Hollandaise sauce, we think of that as ‶eggs Patrick″ instead of Benedict.) The recipe below uses a slice of Canadian bacon in lieu of the Irish back bacon. We’re New Englanders, so we also like boxty with a pat of butter and a generous pour of maple syrup.
Boxty pancakes with poached egg and bacon
Serves 2
This recipe is easily doubled or quadrupled if you have a lot of leftover mashed potatoes or a crowd to feed. Salting and soaking up extra fluid from the grated potato softens the potato so it cooks quickly.
INGREDIENTS
- 1 medium (150g) raw potato, peeled and finely grated
- 1½ teaspoons sea salt, plus more for the grated potato
- 2/3 cup (100g) cold mashed potato
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 3/4 cup all-purpose flour, plus more if needed
- 1 egg, lightly beaten
- scant half cup (100g) milk
- juice and grated peel of 1½ lemons
- butter or vegetable oil
DIRECTIONS
Place the grated potato in a bowl and salt lightly. After a few minutes, blot the gratings with a paper towel to soak up extra moisture.
Add salt, cold mashed potatoes, egg, baking powder, flour, and egg to bowl with grated potatoes. Mix well with your hands, squeezing the dough.
Mix milk, lemon juice, and zest together and beat into the mixture in the bowl. You should have a batter the consistency of Greek yogurt. Add extra milk if too thick, extra flour if too runny. A runny batter will yield a thinner, crisper pancake, which many cooks prefer.
Add butter or oil to large frying pan and heat on medium flame. Depending on size of pan, pour in some batter — about 2 tablespoons per pancake. Reduce heat under pan and cook until pancakes are golden on the bottom and bubbles burst on the top. Flip pancakes over and cook a minute or two to seal the bubbly side. Place on plate in warm oven while cooking the rest of batter.
Serve with desired topping. We favor a poached egg and a hot round of Canadian bacon.
