Blue Cheese and Bacon Potato Patties
Very tasty fritters. These are also good even without the cheese in them! You may also wish to try other cheeses.
Ingredients
Instructions
- Put a generous pot of unsalted water on to boil for the potatoes.
- Trim the green onion; slice it thinly and set aside. Chop up the bacon; set aside.
- Peel the potatoes and cut into quarters. When the water is boiling, put the potatoes in and cook them until tender, about 20 minutes.
- While they are cooking, put the bacon in a frying pan and cook it for a few minutes, then add the green onion, cook for about 3 more minutes, then with a slotted spoon or flipper remove from frying pan and set aside to drain on a piece of paper towel or brown paper. You want the bacon cooked but not crispy, and the green onion to stay green, not turn brown (or black.) The assumption is that the bacon will give off enough fat for the green onion to cook in; if you use a bacon such as Canadian, or English rashers, you're going to want to add a bit of oil.
- When the potatoes are tender, remove them from the heat and drain them. Leave the stove burner on but reduce it to low. Return the drained potatoes to the pot and return the pot uncovered to the burner for a two or three minutes to let the potatoes dry a bit, then remove from heat (you can turn the burner off now), and mash until smooth. Stir in all the ingredients except the cheese, and set the mixture aside until it is cool enough to touch safely with your hands.
- At this point, crumble the blue cheese into it, and stir it in. (Note: the reason for the wait is so that the cheese doesn't just melt into the mixture right away.)
- (Tip! you can prepare up to this point in advance and refrigerate; if you do, bring out of fridge about ½ hour before continuing to bring to room temperature.)
- Flour your fingers, and form the mixture into patties about 3 inches round and about half an inch thick (7.5 cm x 1 cm.) Don't go a whole lot wider or they'll be a nightmare to handle in the frying pan.
- Heat a few glogs of oil in a frying pan, and fry the patties for about 4 minutes each side, or until nicely browned. Serve hot. If you want, you can pile them as they're done on a plate, then zap them all in the microwave for a minute or two to bring them back to piping hot.
Notes
The idea behind drying the potatoes a bit in the pot is to help evaporate more moisture from them, so that the mixture is firmer. Those familiar with making Roasted Potatoes will know this trick.
You can also do this with leftover mashed, but as leftover mash usually has milk and butter in it, be prepared for a softer, "wetter" mixture that will probably need more flour and more careful handling when made into patties. Or, use instant, just using hot water to reconstitute them and omitting the butter and milk.
Don't stack the uncooked patties on top each other; lay out on a floured tray, board or surface. Or, just form them on the fly as you add to frying pan.
Don't cram too many into frying pan at once; leave yourself room to get the flipper in to flip as they can be a little delicate until the surfaces firm up in the pan.
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