Hot Potato!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This morning I did another little experiment. This time I made breakfast, and it was a spin on a staple of my Polish heritage: potato pancakes. This recipe: originally from ReadyMade magazine, is a potato pancake with Cheddar cheese, Chilies, corn and onion. To make it a more official “breakfast” I added a fried egg on the top of each one. Served with French press coffee it was overall a pretty complete breakfast (eat my shit Frosted Flakes).

Recipe:
2 eggs, beaten
¼ cup all-purpose flour (I used about ½ a cup in total after I mixed it up and it was too wet)
4 oz white cheddar (I used Cabots sharp)
4 oz. diced green chilies
two russet potatoes
½ onion
oil for pan

mix eggs, and flour with some salt and pepper. Add cheese and chillies. Then add potato and onion, after shredding them (I did this in my new food processor) and squeezing out some of the water with a paper towel.

Heat oil (about 2-3 tbsp) in a skillet over med-high heat. Put a small amount of mixture (about 3 tbsp or a “tong sized” amount) in the skillet and press flat. Cook for about 2-3 mins per side or until they are lightly browned and chrispy.

If you want to keep them warm while you are cooking then pre-heat your oven to 250 degrees and put a aluminum floil covered baking sheet inside. Place the pancakes, as they are coming out of the pan, in the oven until you are ready to serve.

Then to get the full experience fry an egg and serve on top of the pancakes.

Delicious

Some notes about my meal:
1. The picture in the magazine depicted our little breakfast treats with corn. So I ran out and bought some farm fresh corn (it is currently in season). This trip also lead to me buying a nice, sweet though small watermelon and the strangest looking fruit I have ever seen (see note on bitter melon). HOWEVER, there isn’t actually any corn in the recipe. Clearly I make it a point to read these before I cook. Lesson learned. So in frustration I added the corn anyway and it was delicious. So feel free to do the same.
2. The cheddar, although promising to be prominent due to it’s taste, was surprisingly muted in the final pancake. I may try using either a hair more next time or a sharper cheese. This way I get the cheesy taste I want and Chris will still eat it (he’s not a big fan of Cheddar)


My final note will be a little story about the weirdest fruit I have ever seen ever. It is called a bitter melon. It cost $.50 so I bought it to at least give it a try. Apparently, although it has hairy insides and looks like an alien penis, it has a great medicinal quality, especially for diabetics as it apparently helps to regulate blood sugar. However, it lives up to it’s name: it’s really bitter. In fact eating it gives me a Rene Zellwiger face. But I promise to do as much research as I can so that I can cook something with it.