Placki ziemniaczane are made from grated raw potatoes and are popular in all regions of Poland with small variations. They are known in many European cuisines (German: Reibekuchen, Ukrainian: деруни, Irish: boxty, as well as Jewish latke.)
The Polish version should not be mistaken with Polish kotlety ziemniaczane (potato cutlets) which are prepared using cooked potatoes.
Recipe
Placki ziemniaczane are prepared from grated raw potatoes usually with addition of all purpose flour, some salt, and egg. Some people add finely chopped onions and some spices (black pepper, marjoram) but I prefer my placki served sweet, just sprinkled with granulated sugar (not confectioners sugar – i like the crunchiness).
Makes 14-16 pancakes.
Ingredients
| 0.75 kg 1.5 lb | Potatoes, peeled and grated. Approximately 600g after peeling. |
| 1 | Egg |
| 1.5 tbsp | All purpose flour |
| 1/2 tsp | salt (to taste) |
| oil for frying |
Directions
- Peel and grate potatoes using a fine side of a box grater or other utensil with holes looking like they were made using a nail (see Fig. 3 for the shape of these holes). Do not use a coarser shredder1.
- Add one egg, 1.5 tbsp all purpose flour, and salt then mix everything with a spoon until uniform. Fry the pancakes as soon as you prepare the mixture as it starts to turn dark relatively quickly.
- Heat oil (about 2 mm or 1/10 inch) in a frying pan, until a drop of water added to it immediately sizzles. Set the heat to medium (6-6.5 out of 10 on my stove).
- Form round pancakes about 8-10 cm/3.5-4 inches diameter using about 35 g (about 1-1/2 heaping tbsp) of the mixture2 directly on the pan.
- Fry for about 2 minutes per side or until golden.
- Transfer fried pancakes onto a plate covered with paper towels to drain most of the oil.
- Serve them as soon as they are ready3.
- You can keep the pancakes warm in a 200°F/95°C oven while frying the rest of them.
Frying Potato Pancakes
The yellow sunny-side-up ring is removed as soon as the pancake is formed
Footnotes
- Grating potatoes on a hand grater is somewhat tiring. I have a vintage manual hand-crank potato grater (see Fig. 1), which does a perfect job. Some people use a food processor, but I find it makes the mixture too smooth and lacking texture, but it may be a personal preference. In my opinion the grated potatoes should have somewhat stringy texture, but no chunks. Shredding potatoes will produce something similar to hash browns.
I also have a grating disc attachment for my Braun food processor (see Fig.2 and 3), which also does a decent job, but leaves quite a few pieces of un-grated potato ends. ↩︎ - To keep the pancakes round and even I use a gadget for frying sunny-side-up eggs (Fig. 4). I fill it on the pan, and almost immediately remove it to be used with the next pancake. I usually fit 4 pancakes on my frying pan at once. ↩︎
- I like my pancakes plain and simple with just sprinkling of sugar, but you can serve them with sour cream, honey, maple syrup, or even jam. Some people like them savoury with chives, green onions, and even Hungarian style with meat and tomato sauce. ↩︎
(Made in GDR circa 1980-1985)
note the shape of the grating “teeth”
