Grinds: Kim Chee Potato Pancakes

First up - If anyone on blogspot knows the html codes for arranging archives, please let me know! I want to organize mine by topic rather than date ... but I'm stuck on how to move forward.

This one will be filed under grinds. I've been experimenting with two recipes this week, both of which are keepers. One I have down, the other needs a bit of work.

I'll start with the runner-up. Jen on Tribe posted a recipe for Kim Chee Potato Pancakes in the Asian Homestyle Cooking forum. The name alone had me drooling. I'm a junkie for the kim chee fried rice at Big City Diner, and I love [and miss] good potato pancakes. This sounded like the perfect combination of haole and Asia.

First, the recipe:

Kim Chee Potato Pancakes
makes 4 pancakes

• 1 lb. potatoes, peeled and shredded
• 1 cup coarsely chopped kim chee (i'll use even more next time)
• 5 green onions, chopped
• 1 egg
• 1 Tb flour
• 1 Tb kosher salt
• olive oil for frying
• 2 small red chile peppers, sliced into thin circles for garnish (i used a red jalepeno)

In a large bowl, add the potatoes, kim chee, green onions, egg, flour and salt. mix well until potatoes are well coated. In a large skillet, add just enough oil to thinly cover the surface, about 1 tb at a time. turn heat to med high, take 1/4 of the batter and form a ball, gently squeeze out excess liquid, form into a ball & flatten into a pancake about 1/2 inch thick - carefully place in pan. cook on one side til it turns golden brown & the potatoes are crispy on the edges - flip and cook on the other side - adjusting the heat as necessary. i flipped mine twice to make them extra crispy on the outside.

And my results?They start off looking fine, and ended up falling apart like my potato pancakes always do!!! A later batch came out better, but were greasy as all hell. I'm missing something basic about making potato pancakes - I can get the flavor right, but I always end up with hash browns rather than a nice coherent pancake.

But the flavor was nice - and much more mild than I was expecting. If you didn't know you wouldn't even guess how much kim chee is in there. Next time I'll increase how much I use, and there will definitely be a next time.