Potato Cheese Patties

I used to make these little potato and fresh cheese patties fairly often, but, since I’ve never written about them in these pages, that must mean I haven’t made them since before April 16, 2009 when I started this blog. I’m absolutely certain I would have told you about them if I had.

These potato patties are pleasantly easy to make. Really, they’re just mashed potatoes flavored with fresh cheese, scallions and a few dashes of seasoning (which you could totally customize to your own taste), formed into cakes and browned in a pan. Most of the time required to make them is spent waiting around (or doing something else if you’re one of those people) first while the potatoes cook and cool, then while the patties chill until firm.

I made the queso fresco for these this time, using the recipe for “Fresh Cheese, the Easy Way” in Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. The method is the same as for this homemade cottage cheese (also from that cookbook). The curds are just squeezed together and drained longer to make a firmer cheese. Of course, you could use store-bought queso fresco and I think other shredded cheeses, such as cheddar or Monterey Jack, would work, too.

The original recipe is titled “Ecuadorean Potato-and-Cheese Patties” (or Llapingachos Ecuatorianos), but I definitely took them out of Ecuador by adding Aleppo pepper, which has its roots in Syria and Turkey. You wouldn’t have to use Aleppo pepper (I just happen to love it), and could replace it with crushed red pepper flakes or cayenne, or you could leave it out entirely for a less spicy potato patty. I like to serve these with salsa and sour cream on top, but if you’ve got good fresh tomatoes or a nice fresh pico de gallo in season, that would be fabulous, too.

In fact, you could change a lot of things in this recipe to make it more to your taste. I think the proportions of the main ingredients are just about right for a potato cake that holds together well, so I probably wouldn’t mess too much with that. Other seasonings, such as curry powder might be welcome in taking these in another direction, and, as I suggested above, other cheeses would probably be good as well. I really have to go back to making these deliciously simple little potato cakes more often, although with all the variations I could try, they may never go back to Ecuador again.

Potato Patties with Fresh Cheese and Scallions
Adapted from Cooking Light magazine, April 2001

I really recommend using a starchy baking potato for this recipe. When I’ve tried other types, such as red boiling potatoes, the patties did not hold together well.

1 ¼- 1 ½ pounds Russet or other baking potatoes
1 ¾ teaspoon coarse salt, divided
3 ounces queso fresco, crumbled
1 medium scallion, finely minced (about 2 tablespoons)
¼ teaspoon ground cumin
¼ teaspoon chili powder
¼ teaspoon Aleppo pepper, or crushed red pepper flakes or 1/8 teaspoon cayenne
2-3 tablespoons canola or vegetable oil for frying

1. Peel and coarsely chop the potatoes. Place them in a medium-size pot. Add 1 ½ teaspoons salt and enough water to cover the potatoes by a few inches. Bring to a boil and cook until the potatoes are tender, about 20-25 minutes.

2. Drain the potatoes and place them in a medium-size bowl. Mash with a potato masher until well-smashed. Some small potato chunks are okay. Set aside to cool about 15 minutes or until cool enough to handle.

3. Add the remaining ¼ teaspoon salt, queso fresco, scallion, cumin, chili powder, and Aleppo pepper. Stir until well combined.

4. Form the potato mixture into patties about 2 ½-3 inches in diameter. (You should get about 12 of them.) Place them in a single layer on a pan or tray and chill about 20 minutes or until firm.

5. Film the surface of a large (preferably nonstick) skillet with canola oil (about 1-2 tablespoons). Heat over medium heat until shimmering. Place as many potato patties in the pan as will fit without crowding. Cook 3-5 minutes or until golden brown on the bottom. Carefully flip the patties with a spatula and continue to cook 3-5 minutes more or until browned. Remove from the pan and repeat with the remaining chilled patties, adding more oil to the pan if needed. Serve with salsa or pico de gallo and sour cream.

Makes about 12 patties, or about 4 servings. These are great for any meal, and leftovers are nice at breakfast.

Other recipes like this one: Grilled Potatoes with Lime-Herb Dipping Sauce, Spicy Potato and Tomato Gratin with Caramelized Onions

Two years ago: Celeriac, Potato and Wild Rice Soup

Curds and Whey

I used the first bag of CSA spinach to make this casserole, which I had been hoping to try for a long time. The recipe was from a magazine clipping, so didn’t seem poised to get me anywhere in my self-imposed Cookshelf Challenge. The recipe called for cottage cheese, however, and I knew right where I could acquire the knowledge to make my own: How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman. And so the Cookshelf Challenge is rolling again.

How to Cook Everything Vegetarian is one of those “stranded on a desert island” books. One that I could survive with very well if there was some kind of cookbook apocalypse and it was all that I had left. It really does seem to have the “Everything” it claims and I’ve found it to be a great resource for making my personal diet more creative and more sustainable, and using my CSA subscription to greater advantage. I’ve had success with the recipes for homemade seitan and falafel as well as a safety beet recipe that I adjusted to be even more safe (ie, to hide the taste of beets, which I pretty strongly dislike). I’ve also made homemade ricotta, which is a variation of the Fresh Cheese, the Easy Way recipe in the book as is my most recent experiment: homemade cottage cheese.

Fresh cheese is actually stunningly easy to make. Just bring milk to a boil add something acidic, in this case cultured buttermilk, let it turn into curds and separate the curds from the whey. Separating out the curds is where this recipe gets nice and messy, but a little patience can get you some tasty homemade cheese. I like to use the finer-mesh cheesecloth I got from New England Cheese Making Supply Company, which I highly recommend. The more usual cheesecloth that is easy to find at grocery and hardware stores will also work. I just make sure to use 3 or 4 layers to keep the curds from going down the drain with the whey.

Well, I don’t really wash the whey down the drain anyway. Instead I set the cheese to drain into a large container and save the whey. I then use at least some of it to replace the liquid in bread recipes. (It works well in this bread and this bread and probably would be good in this one as well.) The original recipe calls for draining the cottage cheese for 30 to 60 minutes to reach the desired moistness, but I found that most of the whey had drained from my cheese in less than 10 minutes, so I recommend paying pretty close attention to determine how fast your cheese is draining.

This cottage cheese is wonderful, rich and creamy with a greater taste of fresh milk than I’ve ever found in commercial cottage cheeses. I also put very little salt in my cheese, so the taste of the creamy dairy proteins, sugars and fats were not dominated by over salinization. The recipe makes quite a bit of cheese (I’m betting you could make a half recipe), so it’s a good idea to have a few recipes ready or some other plans for finishing it off. Personally, I like black olives, herbs or tomatoes mixed with my bowl of cottage cheese, but a retro spoonful in a peach half might be just fine as well.

Thanks to How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, it looks like I’ll be adding cottage cheese to my made-from-scratch repertoire. With a refrigerator full of curds and whey, Little Miss Muffet ain’t got nothing on me!

Homemade Cottage Cheese
Adapted from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman

I used half 2% milk and half whole milk, simply because that’s what I had. You could use any milk with at least 1% milk fat depending on how rich you want your cheese.

½ gallon (about 2 liters) milk
1 quart (about 1 liter) cultured buttermilk
salt to taste (I used a large pinch of kosher salt)

1. Line a large colander or sieve with 3 to 4 layers of cheesecloth (or 2 layers of finer-mesh cheesecloth). Place the lined colander in a sink. Place a large bowl or pot under the colander if you wish to save the whey for baking.

2. Heat the milk in a large pot over medium heat just until it begins to boil. The milk should just be gently bubbling under the surface. Try not to let it come to a heavy boil. (Many recipes that involve bringing milk just to a boil will tell you to heat the milk until bubbles form along the edges of the pot. I’ve found that if I stir the milk –ever- there are always bubbles on the edges, and, even if I wait for more obvious boiling bubbles, the milk is already bubbling away nicely in the middle of the pot. So, I’d say just listen to the milk. You may be able to hear it boiling before you see it boiling and if you do see it boiling on the edges or otherwise, move on to the next step.)

3. Pour in the buttermilk. Stir constantly until the mixture separates into white, opaque curds and yellowish whey. Remove from the heat.

4. Carefully pour or spoon the mixture into the cheesecloth-lined colander. Let the whey drain away for 5-15 minutes or as long as it takes to get the consistency you desire. Stir salt into the cheese (to taste - I used a large pinch, which resulted in a very non-salty cheese) while it is still quite loose. Spoon the cheese into a container. Cover and refrigerate.

I clean and reuse cheesecloth many times. Rinse out as much of the clinging cheese as possible. Machine wash, preferably in a mesh bag such as those used for delicate washables. Use a mild detergent and no fabric softener. Line dry.

Other recipes I’ve adapted from this book: Black Beans with Beets and Oranges, Homemade Seitan, Mediterranean Vegetable Salad with White Beans

Two years ago: Hot and Sour Lettuce Wraps with Pork