Cooking 101: Berner rosti (Rosti from Berne)

Daniel Pfyl, hospitality management lecturer at Otago Polytechnic, shares professional techniques to make your cooking easier. In this series, he demonstrates easy, inexpensive meals to cook for your family or flatmates.

Rösti is a large Swiss potato pancake. Often called the national dish, it's cheap and filling and often eaten for breakfast, sometimes with bacon or onion added and an egg on top. It can also be an accompaniment to a main meal and is found in many upmarket restaurants. Americans make a similar, small potato pancake called hash browns.

On May 11, Chef Pfyl demonstrated a plain rösti. This week, a flavour variation.

Berner rösti (Rösti from Berne)
1kg parboiled potatoes in their skins
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
100g diced streaky bacon
60g butter

1. Slice bacon into strips, and place in a hot frying pan (use butter or oil if you wish). Cook until half done.

Prepare the rösti as described in the May 11 Cooking 101 column (go to www.odt.co.nz and search for Cooking 101). Boil potatoes in their skins until almost cooked. Peel the cooked potatoes and grate coarsely on to a board or tray, spreading the grated potato out to keep it as loose as possible. Season with salt and pepper, then grate more potato over. Don't mix the potatoes - keep them as light and fluffy as possible.

2. Add the seasoned grated potato to the pan and allow to brown on the bottom.

3.Toss or turn gently with a slice so the crispy bits go to the middle and the bacon is mixed through.

4.As the potato browns, press it into a pancake shape, keeping the edges relatively thick and adding little pieces of butter around the edge.

5. Cook on medium to low heat about 10 minutes until golden underneath. If the pan is too hot, butter will brown.

To check if it is done, ease a slice under the rösti and have a peek, or carefully slide the rösti a little over the edge of the pan.

Add little pieces of butter around the edges if needed - there will be some fat from the bacon.

6. When browned, slide rösti on to a warm plate, and break two eggs in the fat left in the hot pan.

7. Season with pepper and cook gently, allowing the whites to bubble slightly.

8. When the whites are set, ease the eggs carefully on top of the rösti, being careful not to break the yolks.

 

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Tips
• To turn the pancake you can either flip it - bring it to the side of the pan away from the handle and quickly flip it over - or you can place a plate on top of the pancake, carefully upturn the pan so the pancake falls on to the plate, then slide it back into the pan with the uncooked side down.
• Chef Pfyl sometimes likes to use cookie cutters to make rösti into fancy shapes.

• If you would like to request a particular technique we haven't already shown, please let us know. Write to Tricks of the trade, Editorial Features, Otago Daily Times, PO Box 181, Dunedin or email odt.features@odt.co.nz with cooking in the subject line.

To check earlier Cooking 101 columns visit: www.odt.co.nz and search for "cooking 101".

More information on cooking from the Otago Polytechnic can be found on www.otagocookeryl4.blogspot.com

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