This week, Asta Armalyté from Lithuania shows us how to make zemaiciu blynai (potato pancakes with meat).
Asta Armalyté, her Italian husband Roberto and their children came to New Zealand about a year ago.
They wanted to learn about new countries and the best way is to live there, she says.
They were also looking for somewhere with a slower pace than Europe, to escape the traffic and hectic lifestyle, so they chose Dunedin. Roberto is a software engineer and sports scientist.
Asta says potatoes are the "second bread" for Lithuanians. They grow very well there and are eaten in many ways and at most meals.
Her mother used to say she couldn't go a day without eating potatoes and meat. Potatoes in some form or another are eaten alone or as an accompaniment to a main course of soup, meat, fish, wild mushrooms, eggs or dairy products.
These pancakes were a favourite of her childhood.
They are a specialty of Samogitia, the lowlands of Lithuania where her parents came from.
Ingredients
6 cooked potatoes
2 eggs
1 Tbsp potato starch
200g diced pork
1 onion, finely chopped
100g bacon, finely chopped
3 Tbsp flour
¼ tsp pepper, pinch of salt
Oil for frying.
Method
Cook the potatoes in their skins in salted water, cool until you can handle them, then peel the skin off. Rice, mash or grate the potatoes. Add one egg, potato starch, and salt to taste. Mix with a wooden spoon, then when the egg is absorbed, knead with your hands until the mixture is no longer sticky. You can knead it on a board with a little additional flour, but too much will affect the taste.
Divide the dough into eight pieces, each about 80g.
To prepare the filling:
Simmer the diced pork in a little salted water for about 10 minutes, until cooked. Skim the scum off the water, drain, then process the meat until it is finely minced. Her mother used to grate the cooked meat which, shreds it very finely.
Heat a little oil in a pan and slowly cook half the finely chopped onion until translucent. Mix in the meat and the other egg to bind. Season with salt to taste and a good sprinkling of pepper.
Pat each piece of potato dough into a circle, place a teaspoon of filling in the centre, and fold the pancake over to enclose it, pressing the edges together. They will be an oval shape. Dip in flour and cook in a little hot oil in a frying pan until golden brown on each side.
Cook the bacon and the rest of the onion in a little oil.
Serve the pancakes with the bacon and onion mix and a dollop of sour cream. Accompany them with sliced cucumber or beetroot salad.
Tips
• Choose floury potatoes about the same size (medium) so they cook at the same time. Otherwise, add the smaller ones after the bigger ones have been cooking a few minutes. Asta likes to use agria potatoes, which are floury and have a good flavour. If you use waxy potatoes, you'll need to add more potato starch or flour.
• If the potatoes are too hot to hold, spear on a fork and use a knife to pull the skin off. They are easiest to peel when warm.
• Asta's mother used to make her own potato starch. When raw potatoes were grated, she collected the liquid left, let it settle and evaporate, leaving potato starch behind. It can be found in good supermarkets.
• Poaching the meat before mincing or shredding gives a different flavour from using meat that has been minced before cooking.
