A frugal dish, but highlty satisfying in its simplicity. On Sybaritica’s blog, there is a sinful recipe with the name of “Champ”. It is a local dish in his/her area. Basically, mashed potatoes made with scallions and heaped up and hollowed out with a huge amount of melted butter in a sunshine yellow pool in the pool of mashed potatoes. There was no special name for this in our area, just….mashed taters. A recipe that has spanned generations in my family is called Tater Cakes and would use those leftover mashed potatoes. Yes I understand it is amazing there would be leftover “Champ” but trust me, on our family dinner table, there would be such a large bowl of mashed potatoes and in the center would be a lake of butter big enough for a toddler to swim in. So here is the recipe for Tater Cakes. Don’t blink or you will miss it.
RECIPE
Mix leftover potatoes to incorporate all the butter (if any. Some politically incorrect Southerners would have sipped out that butter with a straw). Put in a storage container and store in the fridge. Next morning for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, take the mashed taters out of the fridge. Get a pan nice and hot with a bit of oil. Scoop out a couple of tablespoons or so of mashed taters, form into a ball, and flatten out. Dip lightly into some flour and put in the pan. Repeat. Let cakes brown delicately and flip over on the other side to finish browning. Slip cakes onto a plate and serve as a side dish or entree. You can add a dollop of sour cream, drizzle with ketchup, or just eat as is. That’s it.
If you didn’t make “Champ”, then fix your recipe of mashed taters. Put in fridge to chill. Bring out and mix into the taters some finely minced onion or scallions. Make cakes and fry.
kanzen sakura 