Reibkuchen - German Potato Pancakes / Hash Browns

Mmmm, there used to be a little stand in front of the train station in Cologne that was famous for the best Reibkuchen (literally : rubbed/grated cakes) in the city. I remember them well! This recipe is directly from Dr Oetker's "Schulkochbuch" (School Cook Book) which is what they use in cooking schools in Germany.

I wanted to try something a little different, and since I already had the deep fryer on the counter from making french fries for supper last night, and still had some potatoes left from it, I figured "why not?". We don't eat deep fried food often, but when we do, we do it right :-)

#2 son loved them. Unfortunately I made the mistake of telling #1 they were made with potatoes. It took a lot of convincing to get him to even try it, and when he finally did he turned up his nose and said "tastes too much like potatoes". I pointed out to him how this makes no sense at all given that last night he cleaned off his plate of fries and asked twice for more. And they were nothing but potatoes. The same potatoes cooked essentially the same way. Logic and kids don't mix so I made him something else for breakfast.

The cookbook called for pan frying these in a fair bit of oil, but I deep fried instead.

• 2 kg potatoes. 1 kg is about 3 very large ones.
• 1 medium onion
• 60g (1/4 cup) flour
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 tsp salt

I made a half-sized batch which made about 10 good sized Reibkuchen. 2 or 3 feed an average adult. #2 only had room for 1.

Wash your potatoes and peel them if you want. I washed mine but did not peel. Then grate them on coarse. You can either grate your onion, or do what I did and put it into a mini-chopper with the eggs and salt. In hindsight I should have added a bit of pepper, too.

I mixed everything together in a mixing bowl, and right away I recognized that they were way too wet. I tried putting one into the deep fryer like this and it was a near disaster. So what I did was take a colander made of fairly fine screen, and hung it into another pot. I dumped the whole mess inside and moved it around to encourage it to drain. It drained off a good 1/2 cup of liquid or more.

The recipe called for taking about a golf-ball sized lump of the batter and flattening it in the pan. I made mine a fair bit bigger than that - maybe 2 or 3 times the volume. I had to figure out a way to get them flat and then into the deep fryer, and I found a way that worked really well. I got out a dinner plate and put a piece of cotton cloth onto it folded over several times. It was an old bed sheet in our bag of rags. I scooped out a ball of batter and flattened it in my hands, then put it down onto the plate and formed a perfect pancake, shaping it with my hands and "tucking in" all the edges sticking out. Then I lifted the cloth with one hand while I put my other palm over top of the pancake, and flipped it out into my hand. Then I put the other face down onto the cloth and did the same thing. And finally I lifted the cloth again and flipped it out onto a stainless steel pancake flipper. I was then able to lower the flipper into the deep fryer. The pancake came off by itself after a few seconds. After every 2nd pancake I'd re-fold the cloth to expose a surface that had not yet had any pancakes pressed directly onto it.

The pancakes get fried for 3 or 4 minutes until they are as brown as you like. You can flip them a few times with the flipper, and remove them with it as well. I put them onto another plate with another thick piece of cotton cloth on it to soak up the fat. I guess you could use paper towel but I prefer not to, for the sake of the waste. The cotton cloth can just go into the washing machine afterwards. The one I used on this plate was an old cloth diaper. Yes, you heard that right. Not to worry as it's been washed many times over since the last time it was on someone's bum.

#2 ate his with syrup, but I of course ate mine with ketchup! Yum!