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Swiss potato rösti

Rösti is made with onions, Appenzeller cheese, and caraway seeds in German cantons, while you'll see tomatoes, sweet paprika, and Gruyere cheese in French cantons, and you will notice the addition of rosemary in the Italian ones.

Ingredients

2 pounds potato (about 4 large potatoes, boiled)
2 scallion (sliced green onions)
1⁄2 teaspoon caraway (caraway seed)
1⁄2 teaspoon salt (or to taste)
1 pinch pepper (white pepper)
2 tablespoons lard (pork lard)
2 tablespoons broth (vegetable broth)

Instructions

  1. Peel potatoes and grate them coarsely into a large bowl. Add green onions, caraway seeds, salt, and pepper, and mix well.
  2. Heat pork lard over medium-high heat in a large skillet. Add potato mixture and form into a round cake shape with a spatula. Reduce heat to low and continue to cook, pressing to make the cake compact, for 10-15 minutes.
  3. When a nice brown crust forms on the bottom, turn rosti over. Cook the other side for a further 3 to 4 minutes, still pressing to make a compact cake.
  4. Pour the broth over, cover the skillet, and cook until the other side browns nicely, about 7-10 minutes.
  5. Slide the rosti cake onto a plate and serve.
Total time
50 minutes
Cooking time
30
Preparation time
20
Yield
4 servings

Notes

Boil potatoes in their skins until just tender and let them cool.

Substitute lard with butter, margarine or vegetable cooking oil - olive oil - to reduce cholesterol and make this recipe suitable for a vegan diet.

If using butter or margarine, substituting teh broth with the same amount of half and half or light cream will give rosti a sweeter flavor.

A non-stick skillet will help the first time you make rosti.

To turn over, slide rosti onto a large plate. Invert the skillet over the plate. Grip skillet and plate together and flip over in one fluid movement. The rosti will fall into the pan. Leave the plate aside. Don't forget to use pot holders as the skillet and the rosti will be hot. If you use a flat pan lid, the handle on the lid would make the task easier.

Cooking time will depend on the size of your pan and how thick is your rosti. It should cook slowly until done inside and brown on the outside.

Add other ingredients to flavor rosti. For rosti with bacon, saute 3 oz bacon cut into fine strips and 1 chopped onion until onion is translucent before adding the potatoes -skip the green onions and caraway seeds.

Source

Swiss cuisine

Rösti such a favorite in Switzerland they've a special platter to dish out this potato recipe known as rösti-teller. You'll easily find them as rösti-tellers are sold all over Switzerland. They often have decorations and are so colorful to merit hanging on kitchen walls as an ornament. Some will have local proverbs, which are different from one canton to the other, or rösti recipes. So try to serve rösti in a rösti-teller -the serving plate fashioned for the task.

moderate, comfort, gluten free
vegetables, side dish
Swiss food recipes
Food in Europe