Potato Hot Cakes

If you guys and gals do not care too much about my super duper fun stories then you can skip right to the recipes which is right under the picture =].

I hope everyone is not too bored with me just posting on nothing but family dishes or just food pictures with no recipes. If it was anything special and I want to share it with the world then I would gladly share some recipes. But please level with me as it is the first time I’ve tried these dishes with my own recipe. On another note, I do not even know how people keep taking pictures as they cook. I can understand v-blogging but not e-blogging where people just take like a million pictures explaining every procedure. A picture does explain a thousand words and I must admit, it is rather fun looking at those pictures than to hear people blabber on. But I do not have “that” much time to razzle-dazzle my pictures. However, I do have plenty of time to type these amazing essays =].

So for this week, I wanted to do something a little more hip and refreshing by making hot cakes. I tried to follow directions by not adding anything that can make the batter unstable. While I was making the hotcakes I realized that by adding even more starch to the potatoes you give it this stringy texture if you tried to fry it. This is similar to taro dumplings (芋頭角).This is very useful information as I plan to make croquettes as soon as I can figure out what I can stuff inside the croquettes to make it as delicious as possible. Without further digressing, here is the recipe I used.

 

Potato Fish Cakes

·         5 medium to large potatoes

·         3-4 flat tablespoon corn starch

·         2 tsp salt

·         ½ cup spinach

·         1 can Trader Joe’s wild Alaskan pink salmon(this is just what I used, you can try something else but this salmon has salt in it already just to let you know)

·         1 tsp cumin (optional)

·         1 tablespoon green curry powder (optional)

·         1 tablespoon rosemary

·         4 tables spoons of butter sliced (half a stick)

1)      Boil potatoes in a pot for 30 minutes switch from high to low heat once boiling starts

2)      Peel the skin off and pre-mash potatoes for homogenous mixing. Add in butter, cornstarch, cumin, curry, rosemary, and mix again until it starts to come together from initial stage.

3)      Add spinach and pink Alaskan salmon, and then mix again.

4)      Preheat pan coated with oil to med-high until the oil is practically running on the pan. (if it looks less like a cascade and more like a wave, then you added too much oil J) Before cooking, lower heat to a spot between Medium and High to insure no burning.

5)      Make the potato mix into 3 inch diameter patties and pan fry them on for 3 minutes on each side (I used a spoon to round it like making meatballs and squash it down on a plate before putting it on the frying pan) Because there is no liquid to stick the potato together it will fracture if you tried to make your patties while it is on the pan.

6)      Serve while hot!

 

Even though you probably don’t want to hear me ramble on, if you are afraid of oil splashing on you, don’t add too much oil. It makes flipping the patties that much more scary. I used canola oil for this dish.

Enjoy till next week ! Also also also, I throw the rest that I do not plan to eat in the fridge until I want to cook it again, because it wont be good if it's not super crispy fresh. 

Bye!

  

Sweets for Lunch

          I know this is a bit late but I said I would do something with the butternut squash I had. Tadaa! Raisin + Butternut Squash fried rice.I like Butternut Squash I like raisins in rice; so why not mix it all together? I find butternut squash to be as sweet if not sweeter than candy and it happens to be one of my favorite root vegetables of all time. (purple sweet potatoes might be next on the list.
           There are a lot of ways to use the Butternut squash in cooking but just plain baking is good enough. Although the next time I bake it I should flip them squash over on it's flat side to bake because the sweet syrup or whatever could be inside was splashing around in my oven. 30 mins baking in a 350 degrees oven is good enough for a regular size squash. It is better to over-cook the squash than to under-cook it because once you refrigerate it the squash will stiffen up giving it just the perfect texture as a snack, in a meal, or even dessert. (or you can just cook it perfectly at 30 mins or just when juice starts flowing out of the squash, you know the insides are edible.
          For this fried rice recipe I also used brown rice instead of white rice. Cooking with brown rice is actually not bad, brown rice has this texture on it that might not feel so pleasant to eat by itself. However, when brown rice is mixed with a sauced based dish, the sauce gives it that right texture to be scarfed down. I have made brown rice with a chicken curry topped on it and it just taste so delicious that I could not stop eating. The point is, brown rice has this grey taste that can be colorized by having dishes that can compliment it. It does not necessarily have to be a sauce. Also brown rice does not have this starch present in white rice which makes me waste a a few grains as they are stuck on the wok. (Those farmers worked hard to harvest my rice) Actually I will tell you few followers something interesting next time I write about stir-frying with starch.

Peace