Rösti (Swiss Potato Dish)

As you may have gathered I am also from Switzerland. My mom is American and my dad is Swiss. I have dual citizenship which is petty cool to have. (Don't think I'm bragging, I just find my heritage very interesting). So, after living in Switzerland for 12 years I have become very familiar with what many of us consider a national dish. It originated from the Kanton (Similar principle to American states) that I grew up in, Bern. The closest thing you could liken it to in American food would be a type of cake patty made out of hash browns. But I guess the easiest way to show you what it is, is to dive right in. So, shall we?

This is what you'll need:

Potatoes
Butter
Salt & Pepper
Bacon (I've pictured the bacon here because I used it. It is however optional. You can make it with just the potatoes and butter as is the most traditional. Since we're Swiss we will often add cheese. I didn't today, but you totally can and it's delicious!)
I like to use a cast iron pan. I'm sure you can do it with a different pan, but for low and slow cooking you can't beat cast iron, it heats very evenly.

So unlike in American hash browns, you need to precook your potatoes. There are a few that may cook this dish with raw potatoes, but trust me, it's way better if you precook them.

Scrub your potatoes:

Now boil your potatoes. If you want you can just par boil them, but I recommend cooking them all the way through. Buy potatoes you can cook through without them starting to disintegrate. You want them to still be firm enough that you can grate them.

I just scrub them and leave the peel on. Once they're cooked, the peel pretty much just slides off. So often I will just cook the potatoes the day before. You want to make sure they are really cooled off before you try and peel and grate them. If they're still warm it gets messy and they pretty much just smush when you try to grate them.

If a few bits of peel stay stuck on the potato it's really no biggie. This is a rustic dish.

Now grate them with a big holed grater. I'm spoiled with a mother who is a food snob and raised me to be a food snob (according to my husband). The good part of this is, that my mom understands the need for fabulous kitchen appliances and got me a cuisinart. Guys, that's the one to get! My mom has had hers for longer than I've been alive. You might think you're saving money by getting a cheaper brand, but depending on which you get (for example Black&Decker) is not as strong or as durable. Now I'm not a cusinart spokes person, I just know I love my regular sized food processor by them, as well as my mini one, and wouldn't trade them for the world. Also I'm not knocking Black&Decker, they make sweet power tools, just the food processor they make, that I used was a tad pitiful, or I'm just spoiled and expect too much.
Anyway I used my food processor with the corresponding attachments to grate my taters.

Sprinkle with salt & pepper, then mix.

Since I'm using bacon I now cut that up:

Render the bacon:

I like my bacon crispy so I cook it a bit longer. I like to cook slowly to render the fat as we will be using that fat to cook the potatoes in.

Once the bacon is ready, I remove the bacon, but leave the grease in there. If you are making the vegetarian version you just add a lot of butter to the pan and melt it. If you are using bacon, mix the bits into the potatoes. This is where you could also add cheese if you wanted it.

Once it's mixed you add the potato mixture to the preheated thoroughly greased pan and gently compact it with your hands. I pretty much let it fill the frying pan.

Lets get real, this is not diet food. No where close, which is why it's a special treat we don't make very often. So if you do make it, go full hog. I.e. I but three dabs of butter on top of my potatoes:

Here you can see my two beauties cooking away:

So now you will let that cook at medium to medium low heat for about 20 minutes. This gives you a delicious, crispy, crunchy crust.

Now if you're my mom you can do some expert level shit by flipping it up in the air. If you're me you just put a plate over/on the pan and turn the potatoes out on to the plate. If you haven't used quite enough grease some of the crust may stay stuck to the bottom of the pan, gently peel it off and put it on top of the turned out patty.

Now add and extra bunch of butter to your frying pan.

Props to my lovely husband for coming out and helping me.
Gently slide the potato patty crust side up back into the frying pan:

Gently....

Plopp!

So this is where you could put cheese slices on top of the crusty side. They will melt while you are cooking the other side for another 20 minutes, again on medium to medium low heat.

And now look at your beauty:

Crispy crunchy on the outside, ooey goey on the inside.
There you have it. It's not really hard, you may just need a bit practice to get the right temperature and cooking time. It takes longer than other stuff, but doesn't have a lot of active time.




Quickie Summary:

Ingredients:
Potatoes (cooked and cooled)
Butter
*optional: bacon and/or cheese

Grate the potatoes.
Mix potatoes with salt and pepper.
*Add cooked bacon and/or grated cheese if using.
Preheat a cast iron frying pan with copious amounts of butter or bacon grease.
Put potatoes into the frying pan.
Gently form them to the pan and press them down.
Cook for 20 minutes on medium to medium low heat.
Use a plate or your preferred method to flip the potatoes.
Before you put the potatoes back into the pan add a bunch of butter.
If desired, add cheese slices to the top, they will melt.
Cook for another 20 minutes.