Spicefreak

Hey folks, it’s recipe time again.

Not that you haven’t already had a couple this month but both of those were little, product specific recipes I came up with on the fly. Today’s is a touch more thought out.

This time, we’ll be making one of the best carriers for sauces – Potato pancakes.

But we won’t just be making the usual sort. Instead, I’m going to take a few pointers from saag aloo curry and add in some spinach and spices:

That’s:

250g potatoes

50g butter

2 teaspoons cumin

2 teaspoons turmeric

1 clove garlic

2 teaspoons fresh ginger

1 tablespoon green jalapeño powder

A few sprigs of fresh coriander leaf

And, not pictured because I was too hungry to take the photo properly:

75g of spinach

½ teaspoon salt

1 egg

Enough plain flour to coat each pancake.

But, of course, they’re not really pancakes. Potato pancakes are more like fritters.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Anyway, we’ll start by skinning those potatoes and chopping them. It doesn’t matter what size, so long as each piece is roughly the same. We just need them to cook at the same rate.

So, boil up a pan of water and toss them in. After a while, they’ll start to mush around any fork you poke into them but we’ve got a little while to prepare the rest first.

The rest being your garlic, ginger and spinach.

Skin and finely dice enough of your ginger to fill two teaspoons. This should be about an inch of root but it will vary a fair bit depending on thickness.

Next, crush your clove of garlic beneath your knife and peel it as well. Chop it nice and fine, too.

Then, finally, make sure your spinach doesn’t contain too much water.

If you’re using frozen, it will but we can fix that. First, thaw it out – I find 2 minutes in a microwave does the trick – then squeeze it between two bowls. This should remove the vast majority of its moisture, allowing our “pancakes” to hold together and fry properly.

If the potatoes aren’t done by now, I’m afraid all you can do is wait but, once they’re nice and soft we can move on and prepare the batter.

Drain the water from your potatoes and mash them into a large bowl, using their lingering warmth to melt in the butter as you do so.

Add the ginger, garlic, spinach and spices, including the green jalapeño powder.

I usually use it to add a bit of green flavour to cheese crisps (“chips” to my american readers) but its particular green chilli flavour seems a perfect fit for an already green dish like this. Especially after we’ve shredded the coriander leaves in. Go ahead and do that now.

Then, beat in the egg and mix thoroughly to ensure that there’s enough in each “pancake” to hold it together. Also to make sure that the flavour’s evenly distributed, but that’s not quite as critical as making sure things actually hold together.

Coming to the end now, form a bunch of pancake shapes no more than about an inch thick and coat both sides of each in your flour so that they won’t stick to your pan.

Just as a heads up, though, do be aware that the flour itself might. If the pan starts smoking a little, that’s the excess flour burning, not the potato pancakes themselves.

So, now that you’ve been warned, we can heat up some oil and actually fry them.

Chuck a few into your pan and, when you see the edges start to brown, give them a flip.

Crisp up both sides and ta dah!

Gorgeous, green, mildly curried potato cakes with a low

2/10

Heat

that creeps in as they hit the throat. A nice low medium.

And yes, there are more than the four I caught on camera.

In fact, there’s only one thing lacking and that’s where the rest of my blog will come in handy. These “pancakes”, like any other potato ones, are a little too dry by themselves.

You could whip up some curried beans, a good con carne or even a simple, cheesy bechamel but why not try them some of the great sauces I’ve featured in my tuesday posts?

Something fruity like Daddy Cool’s brown sauce, a mustard sauce like The Chilli Pepper Company’s Dragons Breath or just about any of the Screaming Chimp’s tomato based ones.

If you want to stay on theme, there’s always the Dragon’s Blood Green Salsa or Marie Sharp’s prickly pear sauce.

Adding the sauce to some sour cream, another Dragon’s Blood, the Hot BBQ, or Daddy Cool’s Fatalii Attraction would be a great fit.

Or, if you’d like to go a little crazy, I think this might be a perfect time to bring out ChimouliS’ Pineapple Ghost sauce and the Reaper Encona.

There are so many options and plenty more to come, I’m sure. So many ways to tailor to your own tastes and make the most of this month’s meal.

Enjoy!