Potato Rösti

Ingredients

• 900 g floury potatoes
• 1 tsp salt
• 60 g butter
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 small onion, grated (optional)
• black pepper

Method

1. Par-boil, then cool

   Boil the potatoes whole in their skins for 8 minutes only, then cool them completely — ideally in the fridge for an hour. Part-cooked and cold, they grate into firm strands instead of collapsing into mush.

   1 h

2. Grate and wring out

   Peel and grate coarsely, toss with the salt and onion, then wring the whole lot out hard in a tea towel. The water you remove is exactly the water that would otherwise steam the rösti soft from the inside.

3. Do not rinse away the starch

   Let the squeezed-out liquid settle for a minute, pour off the water and scrape the white starch from the bottom back into the potato. That starch is the only thing binding this together — there is no egg or flour in a real rösti.

4. Press and cook low

   Heat half the butter and oil in a heavy pan, add the potato and press into an even cake, but do not compact it too hard. Cook over a medium-low heat for 10 minutes without touching it.

   10 min

5. Flip and finish

   Slide it onto a plate, invert it back into the pan with the rest of the butter and oil, and cook the second side until equally deep gold. Serve at once, cut into wedges.

   10 min