Boxty recipe

An Irish potato cake that takes half its potato raw and finely grated, half cooked and mashed, plus the starch wrung out of the gratings.

45 minuteseasy8 ingredients

Ingredients

• 450 g raw grated potato
• 450 g mashed potato
• 225 g plain flour
• 150 ml buttermilk
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 30 g butter

How to make Boxty

1. Peel 225 g floury potatoes and grate them finely into a bowl: fine grating is what gives boxty its smooth grain.
2. Wrap the gratings in a clean cloth and wring them hard over a second bowl, and keep the liquid.
3. Let that liquid stand 10 minutes, pour off the water and scrape the white starch from the bottom back into the grated potato: that starch is what binds the cakes.
4. Stir in 450 g cold mashed potato, 225 g plain flour, 1 tsp baking soda and 1 tsp salt; half raw and half cooked is what separates boxty from an ordinary potato pancake.
5. Beat in 1 egg and enough buttermilk, about 150 ml, to make a thick batter that drops from the spoon.
6. Melt butter in a heavy pan over medium heat and drop in spoonfuls, spreading them 1 cm thick.
7. Fry 4 to 5 minutes a side until deep golden and cooked through; lower the heat if they colour before the raw potato has cooked.
8. Serve hot with butter, or fold them around bacon as they do in Leitrim.

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