Potato cakes
"Good potato scallops are fluffy on the inside, with super-crunchy exteriors — I don’t care what you call them, just pass ’em to me!"
Jane Lawson
Last night was our local book group's final session for the year at which we choose next year's books and have a delicious dinner made from our various offerings. In the course of the conversation one of our members admitted to snacking on potato cakes at lunchtime whilst invigilating for the Victorian VCE exams. Everyone enthusiastically agreed that they loved them too, so finally I plucked up the courage to ask what they were. Well I did remember seeing them advertised in fish and chip shops here in Australia - which is where you get them - but had never got any because I assumed they were made from mashed potatoes and when getting fish and chips I definitely preferred the chips.
But no they are not mashed potato - though you will find lots of recipes for potato cakes that are made with mashed potatoes which are then usually fried or roasted. They might also include herbs and spices as well. Potato cakes are also not roesti or variations thereof, for which you grate the potato before making into cakes, sometimes with other things, and then frying.
No potato cakes are very Australian and very unhealthy. Even more unhealthy than chips really because this is a potato slice, swathed in batter and then deep fried. Notice I am not saying they are not delicious - just unhealthy. But then, as my grandmother used to say, "a little of what you fancy does you good." It's only when you eat this kind of thing all the time that it's bad.
There are recipes on the net if you care to search, though basically it's just a slice of potato covered in batter and then deep fried. The only variations I saw were what went into the batter, whether you cooked the potato first or not, and I did see one recipe that added garlic and something else to the water the potato was boiled in. There really isn't a lot more you can do. The picture at the top from Taste.com looks as if it's got some herbs in it - but no, I think that's just the sauce tartare that it has been dipped in.
I did find two slightly more 'gourmet' versions. One is a gluten free version from Mat Lindsay in Gourmet Traveller, and the other is also from Taste, but is for Sweet potato scallops with spiced sour cream. Really though this one differentiates itself merely from the sweet potato and the sauce they are dipped in.
But notice the name there - potato scallops. Because it seems that there is a major, quite heated debate as to whether what we are talking about is a cake or a scallop. Here in Victoria they are cakes and in NSW and Queensland they are scallops - which to my mind is a bit confusing, because they are neither talking about the shellfish nor scalloped potatoes, which is a potato gratin. Somebody even did a survey of what they were called throughout Australia - there is also fritters, and they produced a map of the great divides.
What intrigued me though was where this dish originally came from. Surely from England you would think - it's an unhealthy kind of British thing - like battered fish. And yet I swear that we never had potato cakes in our fish and chip shops. So we looked it up on Wikipedia and it seems that it is from what they called Central and Northern England and Scotland. But then I can't remember them when I was at university in the Midlands either. Let's assume though that they are a northern British dish. The Irish don't seem to lay claim to them either.
I suppose it's a logical step for a fish and chip shop. I mean they are battering fish and they are deep frying potatoes, so why not combine the two. Mind you fish and chips as we found some time ago, are actually Jewish not English.
I tried to find recipes from all the usual suspects, but nobody owns up to a recipe. Well they wouldn't would they? It's sooo unhealthy. They all do various things with mashed potato cakes and roesti kind of things, but not these basic potato cakes.
I suspect the secret of success is in the batter and getting the temperature of the oil right. Below are two versions I found. On the left what you are not aiming for, on the right what you are:
Mind you there were a lot more worse looking than the ones on the left. You want light and crisp not heavy and soggy. What you serve them with is up to you. I gather the Americans have recently taken to them and to the horror of various Australians they serve them with ketchup and ranch dressing as well as adding cheese somehow. Once again you get into that old old argument about tradition versus innovation.
I doubt I shall have the opportunity any time soon to taste any, but maybe some time when I am in a seaside café and then I can see what all the fuss is about. After all I am a bit of a potato freak.
