Potato Pancakes or Draniki

To be completely honest, this is not typically Russian dish, the honor of inventing it belongs to Belorussia, the country with the highest level of potatoes consumption in the world. As you can easily guess, they know million ways to prepare this vegetable, and draniki is my favorite – to be honest, I am totally crazy about French Fries, with all their oily, salty and fat glory. But it maybe a good idea to replace it with something healthier – at least for my belly – draniki are pancakes from raw potatoes, crispy on top and soft inside, which is not that bad alternative. And they are a way healthier than french fries.

Time of preparation: 50 minutes Difficulty: Easy

Ingredients:

 

Potatoes____1 kg

Eggs_______2

Onion______2

Flour_______2 tablespoons

Sour cream__1 tablespoon

Garlic______2 cloves

Oil, Salt, Pepper

1.  To prevent potatoes from becoming black, first prepare all the remaining ingredients. Whisk eggs with salt and pepper; add finely chopped garlic. Chop onion very finely, or better grate it. In our cuisine we use a lot of onion, which can be quite shocking for other people – I think in this dish it is still very ok to take 2 small onions.

2. Peel potatoes and grate them. Press out the water and very fast mix with onion. Add sour cream (or milk if you prefer so), and after mix well. Remember, it’s better to press liquid from potatoes thoroughly rather than add more flour. 2 tablespoons are maximum.

3.     Now heat the pan very well, put the dough on the pan with a spoon – the tablespoon should be full! Otherwise draniki will be raw inside – remember, we did not precook potatoes. Fry from both sides, serve with sour cream. 

Note: on Ukraine it is quite typical to fry huge pancake on the whole frying pan (but you have to cover it with a lit). After they spread stuffing over it (cheese, feta, meat, or mushroom) and make a ‘net’ from sour cream 🙂