A potato pancake under your salad?
Who woulda thunk it?
This recipe is adapted from one that appears in Brooklyn-based Hetty McKinnon’s wonderful new book Tenderheart, A Cookbook about Vegetables and Unbreakable Family Bonds. (Tenderheart is available at your local bookstore or on Amazon here. )
McKinnon is a James Beard Foundation finalist and the author of four other cookbooks–To Asia, With Love; Family: New Vegetarian Comfort Food to Nourish Every Day; Neighborhood: Hearty Salads and Plant-Based Recipe From Home and Abroad; Community: Salad Recipes from Arthur Street Kitchen.
Tenderheart is a collection of vegetable-forward recipes woven with a tender reminiscence of her father, Wai Keung Lui. “Ken” (his adopted first name after immigration from Guangdong, China, to Sydney, Australia, in the mid-1950s), worked in Flemington Markets, Sydney’s largest wholesale fruit and vegetable market. In Tenderheart, McKinnon celebrates his short life, his career, and the foods that he taught his family to enjoy. (He died when she was 15.).
As McKinnon puts it in Tenderheart, ” Food has always been emotional to me. It is tied to my identity, my heritage, my family and my community. It represents the experiences of the generations before me, and it is a legacy for my children. In food, I find my home, and in this vegetable life I have found a way to stay connected to my dad.”
This recipe for a Potato Pancake With Apple Salad was inspired by McKinnon’s enjoyment of German Potato Pancakes With Applesauce, a culinary delight that she enjoyed while visiting Nuremberg’s Christkindelsmarkt. The recipe presents an interesting juxtaposition of a perfectly prepared crispy potato pancake against the tart tanginess of apple slices marinated in a vinaigrette.
I think you’ll enjoy this recipe. It presents beautifully and the combination of sweet apples and savory potatoes will surprise your taste buds.
Crispy Potato Pancake With Apple Salad
Ingredients
- For the Potato Pancake
- 2 1/4 pound of potatoes (I used russet)
- 1 t. sea salt
- 6 T. ghee or 3 T. butter
- For the Apple Salad
- 1 garlic clove (grated)
- 2 1/2 T. apple cider vinegar
- Sea salt and black pepper
- 1/2 t. sugar
- 1 apple (sliced)
- 1 stalk of celery (sliced)
- Baby arugula
- 3 T. extra virgin olive oil
- 1/4 C. sour cream
- 1/4 C. sliced almonds (toasted)
Directions
- Step 1 Peel potatoes and grate them. Wrap them in a tea towel and squeeze out as much of the potato water as you can. Put the grated potatoes into a bowl and toss with salt.
- Step 2 Melt the ghee (or butter) in a frying pan. I divided the grated potatoes in half to make two potato pancakes. I used a non-stick 9-inch frying pan. Once the pan was hot and the ghee was melted, I put the grated potatoes into the pan and pressed them into a compact round shape. Fry the potatoes over medium heat for about 10-12 minutes on each side.
- Step 3 To make the apple salad, slice the apples. Combine the apples in a bowl with the grated garlic, vinegar, 1/2 t. salt, and sugar and stir to combine. Toss the apple slices into the vinegar dressing. Let the apples sit in the vinegar dressing for at least 10 minutes to marinate.
- Step 4 When you are ready to serve the pancake, stir celery, olive oil, and sour cream into the vinegar dressing. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Add the arugula to the mixture and toss to mix.
- Step 5 Serve the warm potato pancake topped with the vinegary salad mixture. Sprinkle with almonds when you serve the dish.
- Step 6 Cook’s Note: I think this potato pancake would be delicious topped with salads dressed in any number of different ways–from a milder white wine or white balsamic vinaigrette to a Ranch.
