January 8th

January 8th

It’s now been one week since the stove broke. I’m tired of playing Pioneer Kitchen. I opted for another fast and easy one today that could be cooked on the electric griddle. I love potato pancakes but never seem to make them much, which is really foolish since they’re actually easy to make (especially with a food processor to shred the potatoes). My potato pancakes are pretty straight forward: shredded potatoes, grated onion, an egg to help bind it, a tiny amount of flour, salt and pepper. The key is too make sure that you have everything ready to go quickly, because once you peel and shred the potatoes, you have very little time before they turn black.

The potatoes also need to be drained of excess water. I normally shred the potatoes and onion, add then sat and then press as much water out as possible. Some people warp them in a clean dish towel to help compress them. I just use my hands and a stainless steel colander. In any event, get as much water out as possible. In my family the traditional accompaniment was apples sauce, but no sour cream. I like the sour cream though so now I serve them with both apples sauce and sour cream. It was quick and easy and made me wonder why I don’t make them more. They were on the table in about 20-25 minutes.

The perfect thing to have with these would be a good pilsner. I cursed myself for not thinking about this and getting some on the way home. Wrongly, I opened a bottle of cheap syrah with it. I knew it wouldn’t go but I kind of felt like drinking wine. A nice white with good acidity would have been better, but cheap red wine it was. The wine was adequate but had all the hallmarks of cheap, industrially made wine. It was round and soft and had an oakiness to it that seemed to come from oak chips. In fact in tasted like a wine I had made at home several years ago which had seen a little too much time in uncharred oak. There was nothing wrong with the wine, but it was the wrong thing with the food. What it needed was some kind of tough cut of beef that had been braised for hours. It still would have tasted like cheap red wine, but it wouldn’t have seemed out of place.

Perhaps the stove will be fixed tomorrow.