Meh

[madbaker]

This week's Resolution Recipe: Tatty Cakes.

10 oz russet potatoes, peeled, boiled, mashed, and cooled
2 Tbsp veg oil
3 slices bacon, cut in strips
1 clove garlic (Ha! I used... more.)
1 small onion, finely chopped
pinch salt and pepper
1 cup flour, plus more for dusting
cooking oil spray

First make the tatties. Put the cooled mashed potatoes into a bowl and set aside. Heat the oil in a small frying pan. Add the bacon and cook until golden. Add the garlic, onion, salt, and pepper and cook for a few minutes until the onion is soft. Add the mixture to the potatoes and mix well. Now add the flour and mix until you have a stiff dough. Divide into four mounds.

Spray a good-sized skillet generously with oil and place on medium heat. Flour your work surface, then pat each mound of mixture with the palm of your hand to form a rough circle about 1/2" thick. Cut each circle into 4 triangles. Cook each triangle for about 4 minutes on each side over low to medium heat. If doing in batches, keep the done ones on warm in the oven.

I actually made two 1/4 batches over successive weekends - the first as written, with a tomato egg scramble that I have omitted from this rendition. The second we made more Scandahoovian lefse style: with smoked salmon, green garlic, and dill with a poached egg on top.

What worked: Apparently this is a British comfort food that you can buy frozen. It was okay for a weekend brunch.

What didn't: We may be Anglophiles, but this isn't our comfort food. Meh. We liked the Scandahoovian-style version better with a poached egg. Not worth the time and effort though. The tomato eggses were particularly underwhelming (which is why I didn't bother typing them in.)

Will I make it again? No. I have actually made several recipes from this cookbook and only two have made it into the Resolution queue (because there was a backlog at the time). So far none of them, Resolution or not, have been any better than "meh." So I don't think I'll be trying much more from this book.

Comments

[kareina]

I find it odd that if one has just fried bacon that they suggest oiling a different skillet. Wouldn't it make more sense to fry them in the bacon grease that is already in the first pan? (Asked one who wouldn't have fried the bacon in the first place because I never learned to like it, but I do understand that those that do like it also like food fried in it.)

[madbaker]

When you cut bacon into smaller pieces, it tends to render less grease.