“Boxty on the griddle, boxty on the pan if you don’t eat Irish Boxty you will never be a man” (Or so the rhyme went when I was a child)

Irish Boxty is a simple and delicious potato pancake made from raw pureed or finely grated potatoes. Boxty was a food staple in the West of Ireland when I was growing up. Once known as the poor man’s bread it has now come into its own as a gourmet dish and has been adapted by Chef’s as an accompaniment to luxury dishes like smoked salmon.

Traditionally boxty is served with Irish Breakfast as a side or on its own with butter. When I was in the West of Ireland this year with two American friends they arrived at the accommodation before us. They had visited the local grocery store Centra Bangor Erris to pick up supplies. They noticed a lot of people buying boxty and decided they wanted some too. They loved it. Nothing says home to me like a warm cake of boxty with butter. My Mother with limited resources and fifteen children to feed used to make us boxty all the time. She did not have any modern gadgets to use, just a grater and a frying pan. The poor woman would peel and scrape for hours and make a huge supply which would last for days as boxty is also delicious reheated. I tried many times using a grater and grated more knuckles than potatoes, but my mother had some magic method where she never scraped her fingers.

Authentic Recipe

I have developed my Irish boxty skills over the years using modern kitchen appliances which makes it so much easier to make this delicious potato pancake. I have stuck to the authentic ingredients and method. There are four ingredients. Potatoes, Flour, an egg, and salt. You will also need a little oil for frying. You will see recipes for Boxty all over the Internet which tell you to use mashed and raw potatoes. Potato cakes made with mash are a completely different cake and are made differently so just ignore them. I will post that recipe another day. Irish Boxty even has its own Wikipedia page.

The recipe I am going to give you can be adapted for small or large batches, so I am going to focus more on the method rather than the ingredient measurements. My Mother never owned a scale, and she always managed to make enough to feed a small army which my family of fifteen plus two parents could be classified as. 😊

Equipment Needed:

• A blender which has a puree setting ( I have a ninja which is quite powerful)
• Fine metal sieve
• Lage bowl
• SpatulaElectric Griddle I have an Oster which costs about $80 there are cheaper griddles on Amazon (or you can use a frying pan, I find the grill easier as I make batches you won’t get a nice, rounded edge like you do in a frying pan, but those crispy edges just make this boxty even better)
• Palette Knife

Ingredients:

• 3 lbs. of potatoes (this very much depends on how many people you are feeding, I make large batches and freeze them, so I use up to 8-10 lbs.)
• All Purpose flour
• 1 egg
• Salt
• Lemon juice

To serve: Kerry Gold Butter and Barry’s Tea

Method:

Peel the potatoes and cut into small chunks. The smaller the better. Place your potatoes in cold salted water while you peel all of them.

Pour a dash of lemon into the blender, this will stop your potatoes from going dark and grey when pureed. Your boxty would still taste okay but doesn’t look quite appetizing. You will not taste the lemon juice in the boxty.

Place a metal sieve over a large bowl (Tip: a large sieve works better)

Add enough potatoes to fill about one-third of the ninja and switch to puree. When finely pureed, pour into the sieve and allow drain while you continue to puree the rest of the potatoes. Add a dash of lemon with each batch added to the blender.

Transfer the potato in the sieve to another bowl and throw away the liquid in the original bowl. Healthy Tip: You do not have to strain but if you do you will remove the starch from the potatoes and reduce the amount of flour you will need to bind the mixture together. Disposing of the starch and cutting down the amount of flour you will need will make a much lower carb cake. You will want to save those extra calories for the butter when you serve.

Cooking

Heat the griddle to the maximum temperature. I use 400F.

Add a dash of salt. I like a lot of salt (bad me) If you are not a big salt fan or cannot use it for health reasons go easy on the salt and your boxty eaters can season their own cakes when they eat them. Add the egg. Fold in enough flour to bind and thicken the mixture. The mixture should not be runny, but it should also be soft and easy to spread.

Spray the griddle with vegetable oil. Do not overdo it. Spoon the mixture onto the griddle with a large spoon and smooth out into a pancake with a palette knife. You can make your cakes as big or small as you like I can usually fit three 4″ in diameter cakes on the griddle at a time. (Note: if you do not have a griddle a frying pan works fine) Fry the cakes until the top starts to dry out very much like when you make pancakes. Flip to cook the other side. The bottom should be golden brown and crispy when you turn it over. Remember you are cooking raw potatoes, so they are going to take longer than a regular pancake. The beauty of the griddle is that I do not ever burn the cakes.

The bottom of the cake won’t go as brown all over because of the rougher surface from spreading the raw mixture. When your cakes are cooked transfer them to a warm plate and serve with Kerry Gold butter or any butter, but Kerry Gold is the gold standard of butter for me, it is organic and has a beautiful yellow color. Of course, it is Irish, so I am a little biased.

Batch Cooking for the freezer

I usually make a large batch at a time and freeze them. I seperate each cake with parchment paper to ensure they do not stick together and I can thaw and use one piece at a time. Allow to thaw at room temperate then heat on the pan or griddle until heated through.