Meat Stuffed Potato Pancakes

Potato pancakes are a strong food tradition among Slavic people and I for one can never get enough of them.  (In part that’s because the healthy part of my psyche refuses to make them too often out of concern for my arteries!)

But arteries or no arteries you can’t deny that fried potato anything is popular pretty much anywhere you go.  So, this idea of combining fried potatoes with meat and serving it in a package caught my attention.

This is not my original recipe but if you’re up for an experiment you might try this — or something similar.

I love playing around with recipes.  If you aren’t afraid of the periodic failure, a little dash of this and a splash of that is a good way to teach yourself how to be a better cook.  You’ll never forget your crash and burn experiences, and you’ll pick up some tricks that no one else in your family would have thought of — how else did everyone’s mom get to be the wonderful cooks they were?

If you live in the U.S. you’ve probably had potatoes fried in some form for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and in-between snacks all your life.  Why not try potato pancakes?

This is my Mom’s recipe and the pancakes are amazing as is but this time we added a tasty meat filling. The filling takes these classic potato pancakes over the top. You can get creative and sub pretty much any ground meat  for the filling; beef, chicken, turkey,..

Prep Time: 20 minutes Cook Time: 25 minutes Total Time: 45 minutes

Servings: 16 stuffed pancakes

Ingredients

• 1 medium onion peeled and divided (use 3/4 for potatoes and 1/4 for meat filling)
• 1 large egg
• 3 Tbsp all-purpose flour
• 1 Tbsp sour cream
• 1 tsp salt or to taste
• 1/8 tsp black pepper or taste
• Cooking oil
• 1/2 lb ground pork
• 1 Tbsp reserved grated onion see above
• 1/4 tsp salt and a pinch of black pepper or to taste

Directions

1. Into a large bowl, grate potatoes on the star grater. It should be the consistency of applesauce. Use a spoon to skim off 1 Tbsp excess potato water that floats to the top.
   
   Note: If grating by hand, protect your fingers and use safety gloves. Grating is the most annoying step so once you get through it, you’re golden! We’ve made these by dicing potatoes and blending in our blender or using a good food processor like this one and they tasted great, but the texture was not as authentic as grating by hand.

2. Grate onion into the same bowl (reserving 1 Tbsp grated onion for meat mixture). Onion keeps potatoes from browning.
3. Add 1 egg, 3 Tbsp flour, 1 Tbsp sour cream, 1 tsp salt and 1/8 tsp black pepper and stir well.
4. Mix together ground pork, 1 Tbsp reserved grated onion, 1/4 tsp salt and black pepper to taste. Form into 16 skinny patties and place them on a clean surface (I put them on a cutting board lined with plastic wrap).
5. Heat a large non-stick skillet over medium heat and add 2-3 Tbsp oil. Once oil is hot, add 1 Tbsp of the mixture at a time into the skillet, flattening it out. Top with a thin meat patty and cover the meat with another Tablespoon of potato batter. Saute until potatoes are golden brown then flip and continue sautéing until golden brown and cooked through (about 4 min per side). Repeat with remaining batter, adding more oil as needed. Remove to a paper-towel lined plate.

Serve warm with sour cream.

Tip: if liquid starts to rise to the top of the potato batter, give it a quick stir – this will prevent excessive splatter when the batter goes into the skillet.

Recipe Notes

*Shortcut: dice potatoes and puree in a blender or food processor – tastes great but the texture is not as authentic as grating by hand.

**If liquid starts to rise to the top of the potato batter between cooking batches, stir it to prevent splatter while cooking.

— derived from  natashaskitchen.com/meat-stuffed-potato-pancakes/  and others.

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