FFwD: Matafan

I was not terribly excited about this week's French Fridays with Dorie recipe. Matafan (pg 356) are "fluffy mashed potato pancakes." Sounds good. I like latkes. My grandmother makes a mean mashed potato pancake as a good way to use up leftovers.

My hesitation about this recipe came into play when I read the instructions. Dorie describes a step, in which you squish dried out baked potatoes through a mesh strainer, as "tedious." I appreciate her honesty, but I'm not interested in tedious when it comes to a fried bit of mashed potato. Grandma's recipe is easy. Unless these blow hers out of the water (and really, how could they? We're talking about Grandma here), who needs tedious?

Being a sport, I stood over my bowl, forcing gummy potato through mesh. Oh, for a food mill! At least I had warning. As promised, it was a pain in the ass, especially when you take into account the additional aggravation of cleaning the strainer afterward. Oy.

Insert the curse word of your choice here.

Was the result different enough from regular mashing to warrant the effort? It was looser and airier. I'll give it that. I'd be curious to try the batter with regularly mashed potatoes and see if it mattered once eggs and whipped whites and milk and flour all got mixed in. I'll give it the benefit of the doubt and assume it would lose its "fluffy" distinction.

Turns out, I needn't have pitted Dorie against Grandma in a potato pancake death match. Their pancakes bear no relation to each other. Grandma's pancakes are, without question, fried mashed potatoes. Dorie's are more like breakfast pancakes. If I didn't know there was potato in there, I never would have guessed. Her comment that her husband puts syrup on his made a lot more sense to me after I tried one.

I planned to serve these as a side to meatloaf, but a particular toddler kept dragging me by the finger from the kitchen to the couch to watch Beauty and the Beast with him, so I was lucky I even got the pancakes made.

On a whim, I bought two duck eggs at the farmer's market last week, just to see what they were like. Dinner became breakfast once I realized the meatloaf wasn't happening. Potato pancakes, fried duck eggs, herbed goat cheese, and slow-roasted tomatoes (I was planning to mix them into the meatloaf). OH BABY, it was sooooo good.

This turned into a great pile, post-picture.

The pancakes were good, but I didn't find them all that special, for the time and energy, compared to regular flour pancakes. However, they worked some miraculous psychological trick on Matt, who normally scoffs at the idea of breakfast for dinner. When he was underway for seven months, I ate a lot of eggs for dinner. Easty, tasty, fast. It's the perfect last-minute meal, in my book. Not so, in Matt's. Regardless, he said last night that having a savory version of pancakes and eggs made a great dinner. If I were on my own, I probably wouldn't bother making matafan again. However, since it's a way to make everyone happy with dinner pancakes, I'll bring out the potatoes next time I have a craving.

Conclusion: Like it, and Charlie Approved! He ate two pancakes. Wahoo!