Placki

[sunflower]

Hi everyone,

Today I noticed the post about recipes for pierogi, which reminded me of another traditional Polish dish which also tastes very good and is much easier to make. This is often my choice when I'm abroad and I'm asked to prepare something Polish - ingredients are very easy to buy and you can make versions that people with different tastes can enjoy.

The dish is called "placki ziemniaczane" (which means "potato placki", where "placki", pronounced "platzki" means flat round fried things that look like small pancakes - so on one frying pan you can fry one pancake at a time, but about 4-5 placki at a time).

Basic ingredients:

1 kilo of potatoes

2 eggs

2-3 spoons of flour (can be easily replaced with potato starch, or any gluten-free flour)

1 teaspoon of salt

oil for frying

Peel the potatoes, and grate them (when they are still raw!) (using a blender for this purpose helps a lot).

Put the grated potatoes into a sieve and drain them (some kinds of potatoes will give quite a lot of juice when grated, and if you don't get rid of the juice, the dough will be to watery).

Put the grated potatoes into a bowl, add eggs, flour and salt, mix.

Warm small amount of oil in a frying pan, put the dough into the pan with a spoon, spreading it to create "small pancake-like" shapes ( I prefer them about 2 mm thin, as it makes them more crispy, but I have seen ones up to 5 mm thick). Fry on both sides until light brown and crispy.

This is basically it, though there are regional serving variations:

1. Where I come from, we make placki as above, and serve them sprinkled with sugar (I know, potatoes with sugar doesn't sound good to most people at first, but it IS really good, you just have to try it )

2. In other version, a raw onion (grated or cut up small) and some black pepper is added to the dough, and the result is served with sour cream.

3. You can also make a spicy version with onion and any spices you like.

4. I have even heard of a version with onion, spices and grated yellow cheese mixed into the dough (though for someone used to version 1, as me, this version is quite far from the original thing).

When I make it for people who have never tried it, I usually make the basic dough above, then divide it into 2 bowls and make version 1 and version 2 or 3 to let people try both the sweet and the spicy version to decide which they like more. Whichever version, they are best when they are fresh and hot.

I hope the recipe above is understandable, as I'm not used to giving recipes in English If you have any questions, let me know.

Anna

[catfish]

This sounds really good. Forgive my ignorance, but do you usually serve this as a breakfast or snack or side dish or ???

[sunflower]

I'm glad you liked the recipe. I hope you will like the dish itself, too

We serve it as a main dinner dish (all versions). For the non-sweet versions, you can make some vegetable salad as a side-dish and you will have a gluten-free (and also vegetarian) meal.

The sweet ones can be also treated as a snack, I guess. My grandmother used to make it for me when I was a kid, and I loved it, and I still make it sometimes even though I am not a kid anymore It is not the most healthy dish I can imagine, but you need something like that from time to time.

I guess you can serve placki as you like. Maybe you could even put some in a lunchbox, if you had a microwave to warm it up (though they would not stay crispy anymore).

One Japanese friend of mine liked the sweet version, and was going to make it for her kids as a snack. One Indian friend, on the other hand, liked the spicy version and said that she is going to make it for her family as a main dish (I wonder what she put in, and how was the result, as Indian cuisine is about 10 times more spicy than Polish , but well, as long as she liked it, it's fine for me).

Anna

[Guest Florida Jean]

WOW!

I've been eating these for years and making them quite a long time.

I learned it from my grandmother born in Lithuania and mother who

taught me to make them.

We call them "Bleenies" or the more modern folks call them potato

pancakes.

Always grate a nice sized onion into the

grated potatoes.

Way back in the "old" days, we used the hand grater

and it took so long and always grated some knuckle into it, too....heehee

but now I use the processor and it does a great job!

We eat it as a main dish with loads of sour cream and even warm up

some canned baked beans.

My daughter uses catsup on them, [yuk] and some use Karo syrup...

aslo [yuk] to me.

Back home in Pennsylvania when there were "block parties" or "street

fairs" or "church carnivals" in the summer, they would sell these for

about $.50 a piece!

Enjoy! Enjoy! I know what I am having for dinner tomorrow night!!!!.....Bleenies!

Jean

[Guest Florida Jean]

Here is a similar variation of the above recipe.

This is also a Lithuanian dish and is good if you want to

eliminate the extra calories by not using the oil for frying.

This is also eaten with sour cream,as a main dish, with beans...... [catsup or

syrup is not my choice or recommendation....but.....?!?!?! ]

We know it as KUGELIS or Kugely

8 Large Potatoes, Peeled

1 Large Onion, Peeled

3 Eggs, beaten

1 Cup Hot Milk

1/4 lb. Butter

2 tsp. Salt

1/4 tsp. Pepper

Grate Potatoes and Onion. I use the processor for this and make it fairly fine.

Put butter into milk and heat until butter is melted.

Drain the potatoes and onion before adding eggs, milk, and all the

remaining ingredients.

Mix well.

Pour into 10X8X2 pan that was sprayed with Pam.

Bake in preheated 425 oven.

After about 40 min, I begin checking it by inserting a knife into

the center. When it comes out clean, the Kugely is done.

It should have a nice color to it.

Serve with sour cream and beans!

AND.....it is gluten free! How about that!!!!

Jean