Bacon and Potato Cakes

I recently acquired a cookbook entitled: The Complete Irish Pub Cookbook. I bought it partly because it was $5, the recipes looked well written and the pictures were alluring. So much so that I wanted to run home immediately and start cooking! It also stated on the back of the cover that the recipes had been tested. I decided it would be cool to start trying the recipes out of the book.

My newest addition to my cookbooks!

This blog is about the Bacon Potato Cakes that ESFSW and I paired with a salad and beer.

Here is what I used:

1 Extra Large Russet Potato
1/2 Leek (the white stalk)
1/4 cup rolled oats
1/4 butter
salt
white pepper
3 Tbsp whole milk
1 egg - beaten
8 Strips of Bacon (high quality thick cut bacon is the best!)

Most of what you need!

ESFSW was a great help and cooked the bacon while I worked on the potato cakes and salad.

He was trying to make a bacon fan

 The bacon will not get crispy if too much oil builds up in the pan pour it off. Be sure to reserve it because it can used as the oil to fry the potato cakes! If you rather not fry the bacon you can always bake it in the oven. You will need a cookie sheet and a grate is oven proof. Arrange the bacon on the grate and set the grate on the cookie sheet. Place in a 400 degree oven and let bake. Depending on the thickness of bacon it can take 15 to 30 minutes. The grate is essential to let the oil drip off the bacon as it cooks instead of having it boil in its own juices (ewwwww!). Some say baking bacon is sightly healthier because you don't get as much of the oil. I am rarely that concerned with the health factor since I believe it is more important to use real ingredients and cook yourself over buying overly processed, overly preserved, overly sugared pre-packaged foods. A little bacon every once in a while won't kill me!

Make sure it gets crispy!

Meanwhile I was working on the potato cakes. Wash and peel the potato (I usually keep the skin on the potato since I love potato skin and it contains a fair amount of vitamins as well, but in this case it had to go!). Cut the potato in to small cubes and put in a medium pot with a pinch of salt and cover with cold water. Bring the potatoes to a boil (about 15 to 20 minutes). Once potatoes are soft take of the heat and drain the water using a colander.

While the potatoes are boiling take the leek and chop it finely. You will also need to take two to three strips of cooked bacon and chop these finely. Set aside.

Potato and Chopped leek waiting with great anticipation to return to the pot!

In the same pot you just had melt 1/4 cup butter over medium/low heat. Be careful not to walk away from the butter it will burn if you leave it unattended too long. Once the butter is melted dump the potatoes and leeks in the pot.

Back to the pot!

 Using a masher start to mash the potatoes. If the mixture gets to thick add a little milk.

All mashed up

Once the potatoes are mashed well add the bacon, egg and 1/4 cup rolled oats. Add the rest of the milk and continue to mash to incorporate all the ingredients.

The Oats join the party!

They are ready to be fried!

The next couple steps unfortunately were not photo documented because my hands were covered with potato and flour and ESFSW was washing up some dishes.

Take the mashed up potato mixture off the heat. In a wide shallow bowl put a cup of flour and have a couple clean empty plates on hand. In the pan that you fried the bacon add a little more oil and heat (medium high) til water sizzles when it hits the pan.

Now with clean hands (any rings removed) - flour hands. Now reach into the pot with the potatoes and take a hand full. Shape the the potato into a palm size disc. Add more flour as necessary. Place the potato cake into the fry pan. Let cook for about 4 minutes each side or until each side is golden. 

Starting to fry the potato cakes

Almost done!

To stream line the process and so that you don't have to continually wash your hands I suggest shaping all of the potato mixture into little cakes staging them on plates til you are ready to fry them. Unless you have a huge fry pan or a really large griddle you'll have to fry them in batches. Add more oil as necessary. My mixture yielded ~12 little potato cakes. 

When they are done arrange the potato cakes on plates with the rest of the bacon.

It looks good!

Now to offset the fried nature of this mean it is best to pair it with a colorful salad! I really think you all can make your own salad, but I include this picture because it turned out so nicely! The salt in the background wasn't actually part of the salad!

All the pretty vegetables!

And here is our final product!

Doesn't it look Good!

The meal was a great success and is definitely worth making again. When looking over the recipe I thought the addition of oats to the potatoes had me a little skeptical. But when enjoying the finished product I couldn't even detect the oats! We had left over potato cakes which we divided between the two of us. They re-heated really well in the toaster oven with a little cheddar cheese on top with tomatoes.

I hope you enjoy them as much as we did!

Recipe:

1 to 2 large potatoes
10 bacon strips
1 Tbs butter
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp white pepper
1/2 leek (diced thinly)
1/4 cup rolled oats
1 egg - beaten
flour
milk

In a large pot, boil cubed potatoes and cook til tender. Drain well. Melt the butter in pot you just cooked the potatoes in. Mash the potatoes with the melted butter, salt and pepper and a little milk until creamy.

Cook the bacon til crispy. Remove from the pan and drain oil on paper towels. Take 2 to 3 strips and chop finely.

Add rolled oats, bacon, leeks and egg to the potatoes. Continue to mash to incorporate. With flour hands shape potato mixture into little cakes and fry - 4 minutes each side.

Serve with remaining bacon and a salad or other greens.

Chicken, Mushroom and Leek Pie

Time to document another recipe from the Irish Pub Cookbook!

If you peruse back earlier in the past month I documented my attempted at Om Ali. This required the purchase of filo dough. I had only used half the filo dough, so when I saw that the Potato, Leek and Chicken Pie was covered with filo dough instead of potatoes that it was a great way to use the rest of the filo. 

Here is what I used:

1 large potato (cubed)

1 medium turnip (cubed)

1 lb chicken breast (cubed)

8 Tbs butter

3 cup sliced mushrooms

2 medium leeks (the two in the picture were a little big so I used 1.5)

4 Tbs flour

1 cup whole milk

1 cup half and half

2 Tbs Dijon mustard

4 tsp sage

8 oz filo pastry (thawed)

Most of the required ingredients.

Here is what I did:

Boil the cubed turnips and potatoes for 5 minutes to cook. You can do this up to a couple days ahead of time if you store the cooked potato in the refrigerator.

In a large shallow pan melt 1/2 the butter and brown the chicken.

Browning Chicken

While the chicken browns, slice the cleaned mushrooms and cut the leek into 1 inch slices.

Slicing cleaned mushrooms

All cut!

Leeks and Mushrooms

Once the chicken has browned add the mushrooms and leeks cook for ~ 3 minutes. (In future iterations of this dish I might wait to add the leeks).

Leeks and mushrooms added to the browned chicken 

Add the 4 Tbs of flour and gently incorporate, cook for 1 minute.

Adding the flour

Gradually stir in milk, stirring continuously, and bring to a boil.

Adding the milk

Add the mustard, sage, potatoes and turnip and season to taste with salt and pepper. Stir and then simmer the whole thing for 10 minutes.

Adding potatoes, mustard and sage - thicken

Melt the rest of the butter (I usually just use the microwave). Using a pastry brush, paint the bottom of the pan with butter. Layer filo dough (4-6 sheets). Paint the top with butter.

Filo dough painted with melted butter

Add the chicken mixture on top the filo dough.

Add chicken mixture on top the filo dough

Layer 2 sheets at a time with most of the remaining dough, reserve several sheets. Paint with butter every other sheet.

With the remaining filo dough crumple sheets on top and gently paint with butter, until the entire surface is covered. If you need more butter use it or else the filo won't turn a beautiful golden brown and the entire dish will look a little sad and under cooked when it is finished.

Put the dish in a pre-heated 350 F oven.

Into the Oven!

Bake for 45 minutes - until the mixture is boiling and the filo is golden brown and crispy!

All done!

It is pretty close to the picture!

We were pretty hungry and it smelled so good we forgot to take pictures of our plates including the lovely salad I threw together to pair with it! We had lots of left overs that re-heated really well in my opinion and I had lunch for a week from it!

I hope you enjoy it as much as we did! Happy Cooking!

Recipe:

1 potato

1 turnip

8 Tbs butter

1 lb chicken

2 leeks

3 cups mushrooms

4 Tbs flour

1 cup whole milk

1 cup half and half

2 Tbs mustard

3 tsp sage (best to use fresh but dried will also work)

8 oz filo pastry

salt and pepper to taste

Pre-heat oven to 350 F. In a pot boil the cubed potatoes and turnips for 5 minutes. Drain water and set aside.

Melt half the butter in a large pan and brown chicken (approximately 5 to 8 minutes)

Add the sliced leek and mushroom and cook for 3 minutes. Add the flour and stir for 1 minute. Gradually stir in milk and half and half. Bring the milk to a boil. Then add mustard, sage, potatoes and turnip. Season with salt and pepper and simmer for 10 minutes.

Melt the remaining butter. Paint the bottom of a large baking dish with butter, layer 6 sheets of the filo dough on the bottom of the pan. Paint the top with butter. Then cover with the chicken mixture. Layer 2 sheets at a time painting every other sheet with butter. Crumble the last of the dough on top and paint with butter. Bake for 45 minutes in the pre-heated oven.

A Valentine's Day In

I am not a huge Valentine's day fan but, it is still nice to take the time to prepare a nice meal. ESFSW and I had gone to Stone Brewery for dinner the Saturday Valentine's Day as our night out. It was a great end to a nice day spent in Fallbrook. The meal as always was delicious (despite ESFSW not being able to get the sausage sampler) and the beer sublime like usual (mostly because they had some of our favorites! Russian Imperial Stouts how we love indulging in your dark malty complex and intense flavors!) But, enough about Stone for now...there will be a separate post on them anyways in the days to come. Valentine's day fell on a Tuesday this year and as I have a standing tutoring appointment that night ESFSW and I decided to postpone our Valentine's day for the following day and we would eat in. I was in charge of everything except the grilling and the table setting. We made cheddar mustard risotto, sauteed mushrooms and leeks and grilled steaks (hmmm...we seem to do those a lot judging by my posts...we don't really! I swear!).

Menu: Cheddar Mustard Risotto, Sauteed Mushrooms and Leeks and Lemon Marinaded Grilled Steaks

Rough Recipe: Cheddar Mustard Risotto (Tweaked slightly from Nigella Express Recipe)

You can access the recipe by clicking the link or picture above. My tweaks were minor and instead of recopying the recipe and potentially forgetting a step I thought I would just outline what I changed. I made sure to get Extra Sharp Tillamook Cheddar to make sure there was a good strong cheddar flavor. I have been tempted however to get some Irish cheddar and try this recipe with that (but I digress). I also used Trader Joe's vegetable stock. What is nice about this stock is it has a deep color and strong flavor which melded well with the cheese and the mustard. I did use slivered green onions although I have skipped that ingredient in the past and never missed it. The two biggest changes is the amount of mustard I added...lets say it was an overly generous squeeze out of the stone ground mustard bottle. Hey ESFSW has two bottles, why not use lots! Although I probably could have used a smidge less than I did use. Now despite being at Trader Joe's just prior to cooking dinner to buy a bottle of Zinfandel to go with dinner I did not buy wine for the risotto. So I whipped up a 1 part water, 1 part apple cider vinegar with a Tbs of sugar to replace the white wine. This does give a more intrusive flavor than a white wine would have given, but it adds to the complexity of the cheddar and mustard. While, risotto can be time consuming this recipe really isn't too bad as long as you have everything prepped and ready before you dive in. 

Rough Recipe:  Sauteed Mushrooms and Leeks

Mushrooms - trimmed and sliced

Leeks - chopped into 1/2 in thick pieces

garlic

butter

Melt butter in a fry pan add garlic and saute gentle. Add mushrooms and saute. When the mushrooms are half way cooked add the leeks and cook til they have softened but the green parts are a deep bright green. If you want a more buttery flavor drain the juice that cooks out of the mushrooms when cooking before adding the leeks. If the pan seems too dry then add more butter as you cook. Serve immediately.

Rough Recipe: Lemon Marinaded for Steaks or Chicken

1 gallon size zip-lock bag
olive oil
Lemon juice
Lemon zest
garlic (3-6 cloves, peeled and crushed)
salt
fresh ground pepper
(any other desired herbs - fresh will yield more flavor)

Combine all the ingredients in the zip-lock bag. Add meat and let marinade in the refrigerator for up to a day. Flip the meat over at least once to get both sides marinading evenly.


~
This was a pretty good joint venture for ESFSW and I. He helped a lot with shredding cheese to cutting up mushrooms and leeks for me and then of course being the Grill Master! The final result was wonderful and a whole lot less stressful compared to going out on Valentine's Day. And we felt all special lovey feelings that couples in love are suppose to experience mid-February. The wine on first sip was a bit of a disappointment but after letting it breath a bit more it opened up nicely! Good suggestion from the Trader Joe's employee - Leonhart Zinfindel.

There was also dessert, but you'll just have to wait for the recipe to hot chocolaty goodness!