Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 27, 1990 TAG: 9006270209
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: BY BETH MACY STAFF WRITER LENGTH: Medium
The epitome of comfort food, it's a combination potato pancake and pancake, and it's straight from the kitchen of Ernie's 94-year-old mama.
The kind of food that tastes so good, it must be bad for you.
But don't go combing Ernie's menu looking for a potato cake. You won't find it.
"If I get busy, I cut them off," Ernie said. "People can't complain because they're not on the menu. And then if they do get one, they think it's something special."
The ever-elusive potato cake - so good and so labor-intensive, you can't even get one on a busy Saturday morning.
We've tried them at home on our own, but came up with a substance suspiciously similar to a Whamm-o Frisbee Flying Disc - and it wouldn't even fly.
We've tried prying the recipe out of Ernie himself, but got answers like: "Well, just mix some taters, eggs and pancake mix, and throw it in the skillet."
Sounded simple, but we ended up with something that looked like compost.
And then finally we tried verbal threats.
It took some time, but finally it worked.
After much prodding and pinning down (getting Ernie to change quantities like "some" to 1 cup, for example), we got the recipe.
For our readers, of course.
Here it is.
Ernie's potato cake
2 fist-sized potatoes, boiled or microwaved until soft, cut in small cubes
1 egg
1/2 cup chopped onion
3 to 5 Tbsps. melted butter
1 to 1 1/2 cups pancake batter (mixed up slightly thinner with milk than the directions on the box instruct)
Salt and pepper to taste
Mix up all the ingredients. Make sure you use enough pre-mixed pancake batter so that the overall mixture is fairly wet ("Don't be stingy with it," Ernie advises).
Fry as you would a regular pancake in butter or oil.
Slather the ketchup and serve.
Yield: 4 potato cakes.
by CNB