Potatoes, potatoes...

[ina]

As promised somewhere else, here are some ideas what to do with all those potatoes that can't be stored! I've not included any of the obvious stuff like soups and salads, and I've spared you the recipe for German potato dumplings, too... Although I quite like them. But they are a good way of using old potatoes that don't taste so nice anymore - we don't have that problem yet! And I'm sure you all know how to use them in pies etc. - I make a vegetarian variety of Shepherd's pie with lentils or beans. But that's more a winter recipe, too.

Here goes!


Many of these recipes ask for a potato ricer, which I find an extremely useful implement. However, you can generally get away with grating the cooked potatoes or mashing them finely with a fork, or pressing them through a sieve.


Cake recipes:

Potato Roll
250 g potatoes
250 g flour (I use wholemeal/white half and half)
4 teaspoons baking powder
50 g sugar
50 g sunflower oil
1 egg

Filling:
½ jar jam

Topping:
50 g icing sugar, a little lemon juice

Boil potatoes in their skins, peel and put through potato ricer. When more or less cold, mix with the other ingredients and knead well - you might have to add more flour to make a non-sticky dough.
Roll out as thin as you can without it going to pieces (maybe aim for ½ cm thickness…), spread with jam, leaving a space around the edges, moisten these with water and roll up. Place on oiled baking tray and bake for about 45 minutes at 175o C. Leave to cool a bit, then mix icing sugar with lemon juice and spread on top.

I have tried an egg-free, vegan version of this – it does work, but it’s a bit more difficult to roll it out.

Very nice cold or just slightly warm. Probably nice as a hot pudding with custard or ice cream, too… (Like jam roly-poly, isn’t it?)



Potato Chocolate Cake
4 eggs
150 g sugar
teaspoon vanilla essence
some orange essence or rind and/or cinnamon and/or cardamom (optional)
250 g potatoes (boiled in their skins, peeled and put through potato ricer the day before - they must be very finely mashed, so maybe put through twice)
125 g self raising flour (or plain + 1 teaspoon baking powder)
1 well heaped tablespoon cocoa
50 g ground almonds and/or chopped chocolate (optional)

Separate eggs; beat egg yolks with sugar until thick and creamy, add spices and potatoes. Then beat egg whites until stiff, spoon onto the yolk/potato mix, stick flour on top and mix gently. Fill into greased loaf tin and bake at about 185 o C for 60 minutes.

Both cakes freeze well. Folk have so far never guessed there is potato in them…


Savoury recipes

Potato Scones (very Scottish!!!)
This recipe is from “Traditional Scottish Cookeryâ€Â

[Millymollymandy]

Wonderful! Thanks very much Ina - I'm going to print this out. I like the sound of potato chocolake cake - and any recipe that uses lots of eggs is a good thing too for me!

[shiney]

Thanks for those great recipes Ina!

I must invest in a potato ricer. Only the other day I was wishing I had one.

[greenbean]

Hi Ina,
Thanks for the recipes, I am going to try and impress my husband with homemade tattie scones at the weekend. One question: do you mix the flour into the spuds whilst spuds are still hot or wait until cool?
Pam.

[ina]

Hi Pam,

This is probably too late - I'm on holiday and try to avoid the office, that's why I've not been online a lot lately. I would wait till the tatties have cooled a bit, but they don't need to be cold altogether.

Hope it went well, which ever way you made them!

I've just had the potato-quark-cakes; as usual, I cooked enough for three portions, so I had them with apple sauce the first time, with a green salad the next day heated up under the grill (lettuce, sugar snap peas and chervil) and the third portion is in the freezer. They go well with green salad, especially if it's sweetish rather than the olive oil type - not with onions and tomatoes, rather with a sweet herb like chervil, maybe with grated carrrots as well.

Ina