Potato floddies

[igenlode]

Potato floddies ("1940s junk food" -- but I gather they go back to the days of the navvies building canals):

I grated up a couple of potatoes (skin and all) and added some grated swede and finely chopped leek leaves, plus a pinch of mustard, mixed herbs and pepper and salt for flavour. Then mixed in some mouldy dry ends of cheese and a handful of flour, and water to bind to a stiff dropping consistency.

Cooked like Scotch pancakes in a very little very hot dripping on a cast-iron frying-pan; like pancakes, the later batch were much less inclined to stick, so you probably do need to get the pan really well heated through.

A tasty lunch for a cold day. https://www.copymethat.com/r/eqPrYLEhl/potato-floddies/

Comments

[sallymn]

I've heard of them! - they're in at least one of the historical cookbooks around here, but I've never tried them.

[igenlode]

The European say snootily 'oh, those are just rösti or latkes' and the Americans say 'Hey, they're hash browns' :-p

I'd suspect an Irish origin myself, given that they are made of potatoes and cooked on a cast-iron plate (over a turf fire?)

[watervole]

WE might call it rosti, but more often 'potato pancake'.

Oh, is that what a 'hash brown' is supposed to be?

They normally come as horrible triangles of unidentified stuff in hotel breakfasts...

[igenlode]

I looked up 'hash browns' after seeing the Internet comments on floddies, and they do seem pretty similar.

https://www.melaniecooks.com/how-to-make-hashbrowns/15185/

(The requirement for 'a truly non-stick pan' is presumably a substitute for the heavy cast-iron pan recommended in the 1940s recipe -- and her 'Amish baked oatmeal' appears to be the humble flapjack, which I would certainly not expect to be dished up for breakfast :-p)