Reibekuchen - Potato pancakes ... and don't play with the food

Have you ever heard that someone has an extra kitchen in the cellar for preparing extra smelly dishes? Sounds a bit weird ... but only a bit. I once heard someone saying that, when talking about preparing "Reibekuchen" - potato pancakes. Others as well said they love them, but don't do it so often, because of the smell in the house.

Really? Is that true. I will find out for myself and prepare some. My mom often used to do them and she prepared them "live" - the food came directly from the pan to the plate. About the smelly part there is no memory.

Most of the time they are served with apple compote on them. You can also find them on fairs in Germany.

Well, I could have done them the traditional way, but since I have no apple compote in the house I need to get new ideas. If you like to do the apple compote part, just leave out the optional ingredients.

Ingredients (for 5 (in my case)  to more (depends on the size you choose):

5 large potatoes (or more medium or small sized)

1 small onion (finely chopped)

1 egg

salt and pepper

4 tbs of flour

1 tbs of chopped rosemary (optional)

50 g grated cheese (optional)

Preparation:

Have a bowl ready were all the ingredients go to. Most of it just goes in as it is. 

Obviously the egg goes without shell. The only real work is the chopping of the onion and the grating of the cheese and of the potatoes (yes, of course you peel them first).

As always, try to be careful, while grating the potatoes. It may take a while, but still watch your fingers. You don't want to ruin anything.

Mix it all together nicely.

Then you can fry little cakes in your pan. Best you try to make them crispy. 

You only need to remember that there is a thin line between crispy and burned.

When the frying is finished, go eat them quickly. I wanted to have them as you can see in the picture. However, I got tempted.

Remember what moms always do say to their children: "Don't play with your food!"

When no one is watching you could play with your food, though.

Oops! YOU are watching!

Let us come back to where we started now: the smell. I can report nothing negative. At least when you do just a small batch, things are fine. Well I can imagine a negative smell when you are doing them the whole day at a stall on a fair.

Therefore ... we are safe here ... no worries ... See ya!