Placki ziemniaczane
Polish cuisine is full of potatoes dishes. It is a cheap vegetable and can be easily stored during winter. In old times it was a poor food, easy to grow, easy to cook and easy to fill the stomach.The old Polish cook book gives a simple recipe for potato pancakes. They are a bit like American hash browns. Try Polish Potato Pancakes and decide which one of them you prefer:)
If you are too lazy to stand in kitchen at the frying pan for several minutes, you may like potato pie, traditional regional meal in Podlasie- a region in north – eastern Poland. Check here for recipe: Polish Potato Pie.
Ingredients
- 1 kg/2,2 lb potatoes (russet potatoes will be good)
- large onion
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 1 tbs all purpose flour (optional)
- 1 egg
- 4 tbs of hot milk (as was called for in my old Polish cookbook, but I would say it is optional)
- salt, pepper
Peel the potatoes. Grate them finely and place in a bowl. If there is potato juice inside, drain it with a spoon. Chop onion and separately garlic. Saute an onion in butter for 4 minutes, add garlic. Combine with potatoes’ mash. Add an egg, some flour, mix all well. Season with salt and pepper. I sometimes add some herbs, like marjoram and nutmeg.
Fry in hot oil for about 3 minutes on each side, depending on the pancake thickness. To get rid of the excess oil, drain pancakes on a paper towel.
The best Polish Potato Pancakes for me are served with sour cream or with goulash- then you would be eating ‘Gypsy’ potato pancake – Placek po cygańsku. They are so good with mushrooms sauce too!
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Enjoy! Smacznego:)
Comment on the post if you have questions, other ideas on the recipe or just enjoyed reading. I would be happy to see your thoughts on my posts!
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My Mom made them for us all the time. We didn’t need meat for supper, she would prepare them for us and we would eat them with apple sauce, YUM! Thanks for the memories.
Sure! They are a complete dish:)
That’s the way we ate them too.
Yum!
My mom made them on Fridays when we couldn’t eat meat. We wanted nothing else with them . Some had them with applesauce and some sprinkled with sugar .We devoured them
Sour cream
My Mother made them. My Father liked them served with sour cream. I always liked them with butter and maple syrup. Yum
My mother served potato pancakes with butter and maple syrup. I loved them!
Does it matter what kind of oil? And why not just put the grated potatoes in a strainer? Sorry I am just trying to learn Polish cooking. Anyone have any ideas what I should tackle early in my learning?
Hi Nancy, I use rape seed oil, you can use neutral in taste oil. You get a raw mash of potatoes, you may lose to much of it on the strainer. Just try:)
You can try Polish soups, dill pickle soup, beetroot soup, they are rather easy to make. Maybe bigos? All recipes are available here, you need to use a search bar to type dishes. All the best to you!
I use solid Crisco Shortening
I remember my dad grating the potatoes on the raspy side of the box grater and squeezing the water out in handfuls of paper towels before adding flour, etc. They were more like pancakes than hash browns that way. Also, sour cream and/or apple sauce for the tops. Yum!
My mother’s potato pancakes were more like pancakes also.
I use Lard. Straining removes too much liquid. A quick strain would probably be ok. Serve mine with tomato soup
me too Lard and tomato soup. now I gotta make some it’s been a while. there were 6 big eaters here.. lol start with 5 pounds of potatoes. those were the days. they would sit around the table fork in hand waiting for next batch out of the pan
What do you do to make the potatoe batter THINNER so you get THIN pancakes??? Thank you.
Spread batter out in frypan with back of spoon to get a thinner pancake. No additional water should necessary.
Spread the patotoe mash after putting in the frying pan.
OOPS! Grate potatoes on the raspy side of the box grater and squeeze out water in dish towels NOT paper towels! Sorry
Do you have a mushroom sauce recipe please? I have becer made it before. Thanks
Mushroom sauce recipe is included in this recipe:
https://cookinpolish.com/egg-patties/
This was supper every Friday during Lent. I just made some last week, thinking of my Mom.
In Sweden we eat them with Lingonberry and sourcream on top.
My Mother used to make the thin potatoe pancakes and all the kids would have grape jelly on the top of them. O my, what memories that brings back. I miss my parents so much.