Traditional Irish Boxty

Boxty is an Irish potato pancake.  I’ve had them a couple times in Irish pubs and they rock.  Since I failed last year to create an authentically Irish St. Patrick’s Day offering, I wanted to do something delicious this year.  And what’s more Irish than potatoes?

The recipe is fairly straightforward.  The batter is a little sticky and tricky to work with, but I think they are kind of hard to screw up.  And, they were delicious.  

Boxty
Recipe adapted from Epicurious and this blog, The Evening Heralt

Ingredients
1 9-ounce russet potato, peeled, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 1/4 cups grated peeled russet potato (about one 9-ounce potato), squeezed dry in kitchen towel
3/4 cup all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (about) buttermilk
Butter

Directions
Cook cut potato in saucepan of boiling salted water until tender, about 15 minutes.  Drain and mash.  Transfer to a large bowl and mix with grated potato, flour, baking soda, and salt.  Gradually mix in the buttermilk.  The recipe says that it should be like firm mashed potatoes, but mine were sticky and wet.  I added a little extra flour so that I could shape them a little more easily.  If I had paid more attention to the recipe, I would have seen that they say to slowly add the buttermilk until you have a soft dough, so that’s probably the better approach.

Form the dough into four balls, flatten, and cut into quarters. 

Heat heavy large skillet over medium-high heat until hot and melt a couple tablespoons of butter in it.   Place the the boxty quarters in and cook over medium heat until the boxty is golden brown and puffed, about 3 minutes on each side.  I found I needed to flatten mine out a bit with the spatula because they were a little too fat and I didn’t think they’d cook well.   If you have more batches, just keep repeating, keeping the other boxty warm in the oven. 

Despite all my setbacks, the boxty came out great!  I liked  them enough to want to make them again, even when it’s not St. Patrick’s Day. But, since it is, I served them with sausages and a pint of Guinness.  Of course.