Food blogger Tori Avey writes that latkes were invented by Ashkenazi Jews in Eastern Europe in the mid 1800s. As Jorge Garcia from Amigofoods explains, llapingachos (made from mashed potatoes) were eaten in present-day Ecuador before Spain colonized the area in the 1500s. Latvians call them kartupeļu pankūkas. In Estonia, they're called kartulipannkoogid.
To add this historic food to your cooking repertoire, consider the following ühepajatoit (“one-pot meal”) recipe, perfect for inflation times.
This particular potato pancake, made with sweet potato, is tasty on the side of a main meal for many people, but can also stand alone as a filling snack for three people. You get the benefits of sweet potato (a plentiful source of vitamin B6 and vitamin C) and onion (which is filled with antioxidants), but also a small amount of the salty, melty goodness of bacon.
Let's begin!
Ingredients:
-one sweet potato
-half of an onion
-two strips of bacon
-paprika
-garlic powder
-salt and pepper
-1/8 cup of bread crumbs
-two large eggs
-olive oil
optional toppings:
-one head of broccoli
-sour cream
-spicy mayonnaise (mix a hot sauce, such as sriracha, with a few tablespoons of mayonnaise in a small bowl)
Preparation:
First, wash and peel one whole sweet potato. Boil some water in a pot of adequate size and parboil the sweet potato for about five minutes. Afterwards, let the sweet potato cool until you can hold it comfortably.
Grate the whole sweet potato into a large mixing bowl. This is the basis for the super pancake.
Peel and chop half of an onion and sauté it in a pan (one that's equivalent to the size of one of your dinner plates). When the onions are ready, put it in the same mixing bowl as the grated sweet potato.
Cut two strips of bacon into small pieces and cook these thoroughly in the same pan that you cooked the onions in. When the bacon pieces are cooked, throw them into the mixing bowl, along with generous sprinklings of paprika, garlic powder, and a few grinds of pepper and salt.
Add 1/8 cup of bread crumbs. Crack two large eggs into the bowl and mix it all up well.
Place the pan from before over medium heat on your stovetop, with some additional olive oil poured in. Then spread the pancake mixture evenly across the pan and cover the top with a lid or an equivalent sized metal baking sheet.
Watch closely as sweet potato tends to get crispy fast and you don't want to burn it. On a gas stove, the pancake can be ready in as quick as eight minutes.
After this, let the pancake cool for a few minutes with the lid removed. Get a large plate, bigger than the diameter of the pan, and place it over the pan. Flip the pan upside down so that the sweet potato pancake transfers to the plate.
To add to the pancake further, serve it with roasted broccoli on top and either a dollop of sour cream or some spicy mayonnaise.
Head isu!
