Peel 3 large potatoes and lay in salted water half an hour; then grate the potatoes; add pepper, salt, 3 eggs and a large spoonful of flour. Beat well together and fry in hot lard by the tablespoonful until light brown. Serve hot with a pot roast.
A workable batter as written, though it assumes a cook who knows what grated potato does when it sits. A few notes on quantities, drainage and fat.
- The hinge: drain the grated potatoGrated raw potato sheds a great deal of water within minutes, and wet batter steams rather than browns. Squeeze the gratings hard in a towel and let the starch settle out of the drained liquid, then stir that starch back in.
- Work fastGrated potato greys within ten minutes or so; mix and fry immediately rather than letting the bowl stand.
- "3 large potatoes"Roughly 1 1/2 to 2 lb. A floury baking potato gives a crisper, lacier pancake than a waxy one.
- Three eggs is generousWith two pounds of potato, three eggs plus a spoonful of flour makes a soft, almost custardy interior. For a crisper, more shard-like pancake, two eggs is closer to modern practice.
- "A large spoonful"Read this as a rounded tablespoon. It is a binder, not a body; more flour makes the pancakes heavy and pasty.
- Hot lardLard suits this well and can be found in many supermarkets. Use about 1/4 inch in a heavy skillet at 350-365F, hot enough that a drop of batter sizzles at once. Any neutral oil with a high smoke point substitutes.
- Salted soakThe half hour in salted water draws out some surface starch and is commonly said to firm the potatoes. Dry them thoroughly before grating or the batter starts out waterlogged.
- YieldFried at a tablespoonful each, as the recipe directs, this gives a large number of small pancakes, enough to serve four as a side. Hold finished ones in a single layer on a rack in a 250F oven; stacking them makes them limp.
Kartoffelpuffer — also Reibekuchen or Reiberdatschi depending on the region — belongs to the long German career of the potato, which spread from famine crop to daily staple over the eighteenth century under royal encouragement in Prussia and elsewhere. The dish is street food and home food at once, sold hot from stalls at markets and fairs, and eaten variously with applesauce, with sour cream, or, as here, alongside meat. The pairing with pot roast and its gravy is a reasonable match: the pancakes are built to soak. Round-the-world recipe collections like this one offered one dish per day as a way for a home cook to work through the nations without leaving the kitchen.