Rösti — Swiss potato cake (eight techniques tested)

Rosie is a national dish of Switzerland , particularly German speaking Switzerland .

It's a breakfast .

It's a side dish .

It's just a potato pancake , potatoes , salt fat .

That's it .

But there are so many slight differences in technique people use .

And right now I'm going to try almost all of them .

This is rusty eight , slightly different ways .

Number one parboiled , this method seems to have particular traditional cred in Switzerland .

Boil the potatoes until they've softened a bit on the inside , but they're still gonna be firm enough that you can grate them later .

I can sink my knife in there , but they still resist a fair bit .

I think if I cook them any farther than that , they're just gonna crumble into mash when I grate them .

A lot of recipes , tell you to chill them overnight in the fridge before you grate them .

Which is exactly what I did .

Now , every traditional recipe I've seen tells you to peel the potatoes and I don't care .

People should eat more potato skin .

It's the most nutritious part of the potato .

And if you're using a variety with thin skin , you probably won't even notice it in there .

There is zero point in peeling these Yukon gold potatoes .

I'm using large holes on a box grater .

Now , people commonly squeeze out some of the excess water after they've grated pretty standard like American style hash brown tech .

But when you par boil the potatoes , there really isn't that much to squeeze out , cooking them , dried them out .

Even though we used a wet heat method , I'll Sprinkle some salt on there and toss raw weights on these potatoes was about £1.04 54 g for a small Rosie , that's an eight inch 20 centimeter diameter nonstick .

Real small for fat .

I'm using clarified butter , but you could use anything .

Just be generous with it .

If you want really golden surface on this in go the potatoes , I'll push them into a nice even layer and then a small one like this will probably take 10 minutes on side .

A medium , medium low heat .

You need the whole cake to cook to the point where it kind of melts into itself and it's solid enough to flip .

The danger is usually that you'll overcook the bottom before it's ready to flip .

So be conservative with the heat , I'll flip by just covering it and then turning it out .

Not bad .

Maybe a little more fat in the pan , then slider back into brown side .

B you can kind of set that round shape by just swishing it around in the pan .

Just cook until the other side is golden and the whole thing feels reasonably solid .

I gave it maybe eight minutes on that second side and I'll turn it out to a cooling rack so it can steam out a bit before I cut it .

You'll get cleaner slices .

If you really let it cool .

I should have let this cool a little bit more .

And there it is , let's taste pretty nice .

I like the slightly fluffy texture it has in the center from the par boiling .

It's just on the verge of becoming mashed potatoes .

Nice .

Ok .

Rosie number two , not parboiled totally raw potatoes as I grate them , they feel much wetter .

And now when I go to squeeze out the water , wow , so much is coming out .

I'm not even squeezing that hard big difference from the parboiled potatoes .

I think if you spread them out , it's much easier to eyeball the salt even .

So that was probably a little too much salt there tossed to combine plenty of clarified butter in the pan and I'll cook these as before .

So far .

This is a lot easier than the parboiled method because I didn't have to parboil them and then wait overnight .

It's starting to feel solid enough to flip .

Give a peek on the bottom .

Uh , oh , I think this is going to be too dark .

Yeah , a little too dark .

I think the residue of starchy water on these pieces browns very easily .

I'll be a little more conservative with my heat .

On side .

B tidy up the shape , 15 to 20 minutes of total cook time .

Uh much nicer on that side .

And it feels crispier than the first one again , I think because of that starchy residue as chef John would say fork , don't lie .

Oh , it's cutting easier too .

Very , very crispy .

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So rooty number two , not parboiled is better on the outside , I think .

But I'm not wild about the inside .

It's a little slimy in the center again .

I think from that wet starchy residue , we can try to address that with Rosie number three .

Rinsed , not parboiled again , raw potatoes , grate them up and then I'll grab a bowl of cool tap water .

Hot water might gelatin the starch .

Make it all gummy .

Wow .

You can see how much free starch is washing off off the surface of the shreds .

I'm actually gonna drain that in the sink and then rinse it again in some fresh water .

Much cleaner .

Now , I didn't invent this , by the way , lots of recipes tell you to wash off that free starch .

Squeeze the water out , Sprinkle on some salt .

Toss .

Wow .

These feel so different , almost like coarse hair , very clean and separate shreds .

I'm concerned that they won't bind together as they cook .

That starch glue probably functioned as a binder in our last one .

Indeed .

After about 10 minutes , that's feeling too loose to flip .

I'll give it a few more minutes to kind of melt together .

But now I think I burned it , I guess if you're gonna wash off the starch , you got to be even more conservative with the heat to give it plenty of time .

To cook together before the surface burns .

I'll give it medium low heat on side .

B and much nicer there .

Not as crispy though again .

I think that starch goo we washed away was a big part of why we got such a nice , crispy surface last time though .

This is not bad .

Give it a taste .

Yeah .

I think I prefer the interior texture on this one .

It's not slimy again because we washed these shreds .

I think there's a way we can get the best of both worlds .

But first with rooty number four , I want to try cutting the potatoes into matchsticks rather than grating them .

I've seen Fancy Chef .

People do this .

They say these longer pieces kind of wrap around each other and hold the cake together better .

Plus it probably looks nicer .

I can already tell you I do not have the knife skills to get these as skinny as they need to be because the pieces are bigger .

They have less surface area .

So these are bleeding less water , which is bad .

We need to dry them out a bit and I can't squeeze anything out of them .

So we're gonna need some chemical pressure .

I'll salt these and then let them sit for like a half hour .

Now , the salt has drawn out a fair bit of water and I can squeeze these pretty dry in the pan .

They go , they really feel like noodles .

Now , it's weird and I'm turning the heat down because I can already predict this is gonna need some extra time .

The pieces are bigger .

It's gonna take longer for them to all cook into each other and get this solid enough to flip .

And I still burned it nice .

I'll do a better job on side .

B Yeah , this is not working .

It's like a pile of worms .

Not a cake .

If you've got ninja knife skills or if you've got a mandolin slicer , maybe you can get these into the super fine matchsticks required .

But nah , I'm going back to the grater .

Rosty number five , grated , rinsed and baked .

I'm gonna rinse these in some clean water , but I'm not gonna rinse them as thoroughly as I did before .

There's really no point .

A quick dip gets most of that free starch off and I'm not sure I want to get it all off anyway .

Squeeze it dry season in the pan .

And this time I'm just gonna worry about browning the bottom .

That's all .

After like five minutes , the bottom looks good .

And I'll transfer this to the oven .

3 50 F 1 80 C , maybe 10 minutes .

This gives us plenty of time to cook down the potatoes .

Make them hold together .

Even without that free starch glue we washed away and in the oven there's much less risk of burning the bottom bottom .

Looks perfect .

A little bit more butter in there to brown the flip side again .

I'm just gonna worry about browning the bottom .

The interior is basically cooked .

I could call this done , but for some extra textural contrast , I'll throw that whole rack back into the oven to crisp up the outside and push the inside a little closer to mashed potato territory .

My convection fan is on , by the way , let's give that a shot .

Probably my favorite one so far .

Pretty crispy on the outside and not at all slimy on the inside .

Good rooty .

Number six , rinsed , greased and baked .

This is gonna be the same as the last one .

Except after I get my shreds , rinsed and dried .

I will toss them with a little bit of my clarified butter along with the salt .

Lots of recipes tell you to spread some fat through the pieces .

No doubt this will help the cake hold together and to cook faster .

I will put a little less fat into the pan to compensate .

Don't want this too greasy brown .

The first side transfer to the oven until it feels solid enough to flip brown .

The other side optionally return it to the oven on the rack for extra crisping .

And I don't think I like that very much .

The fat on the inside just makes the whole thing super greasy .

Not a fan .

One more variable .

I wanna test Rosie number seven , mealy potatoes or baking potatoes .

These are and these I will peel these have very thick cardboard skins , the skins crisp up really great .

But the wet bits of skin in the interior would be kind of gross .

Up to this point .

I've been using Yukon Golds , which are an amazing variety that we have here in the United States .

It's halfway between a waxy potato and a mealy potato .

Waxy potatoes hold their shape when cooked mealy potatoes don't .

And I wanna try mealy potatoes .

Rinse , squeeze season brown bake , flip brown bake again .

And if you were to use these more floury potatoes , I think you want to cook them a little bit less .

The interior is straight mashed potatoes .

They've totally fallen apart inside .

There was no point in grading these .

I could have just fried some mashed potato cakes , which is a thing that I do sometimes .

Ok .

I think I'm ready for my final draft .

Rosie number eight .

I'm gonna do a much bigger one now .

£3 of potatoes , 1.4 kg .

I'm using a mixture of russets and Yukon golds because that's all I have left rinse squeeze season .

And this time I'll use my 10 inch 25 centimeter cast iron skillet .

Plenty of clarified butter in there .

Cast iron is not as non stick as teflon is .

Get all that in there cook until things are looking golden on the bottom .

Transfer to the oven probably for 20 minutes .

This time , there's just a lot more mass in there .

Feels plenty solid enough to flip .

I'll shake this really hard to make sure it's going to release when I flip , cast iron is not as non stick as Teflon .

Wow .

Really nice color on that slide her back in brown the bottom .

Another good five minutes at least turn her out and again , that's probably good enough .

But I will put the rack back in the oven for a final crisping .

The oven is already hot so might as well turn it out , let it cool the thicker , the rooty , the harder it is to get really clean slices , the crispy crust kind of caves in on the soft interior .

If you want really clean slices , do a thin one .

Again , people eat these with eggs or as a starch accompaniment to a stew .

I'm just gonna garnish with sour cream and dill and call it a day .

You know , people have asked me if I might show my whole recipe development process and there I just did .

But honestly , every version I just tried right now was pretty good and the differences between them were not enormous .

So , you know , cook your potatoes however you want , it'll probably be fine .