A Potato for Every Man, Woman and Child: Rosti Sliders

All the way home today, as my husband focused on the roads, I contemplated the dinner I was going to prepare. I had been thinking about the potato contest and had already had two tries at it earlier this week. Neither was that satisfying. Tonight was to be my night making my clearest expression of potato ardor.

Of course, potato love had to be subsidiary to Belle’s dietary needs. I have been worried about her fiber intake, but I also wanted to create a dinner that would fill her up. We have had some midnight parties in her room this week, and I was hoping that a full belly would prevent hearing the words “mama” in the middle of the night.

The potato is not one of Belle’s favs. She doesn’t mind hashed browns, but mashed & boiled have not been hits. So, my goal was a meal that included maximized the starchiness of potato and then only used fried potatoes sparingly.

I wanted to make Belle sliders. I love the little, the miniature, the scaled down. But, with this meal, I wanted to have all of the accompaniments to the tiny burgers to be made of potato. Actually, the potato was part of every element in the meal—down to the burger. I combined the fries and buns together by making tiny rosti, the Swiss shredded potato cakes. While I broke out the food processor for part of the shredding, I got my husband to cut them very finely. (He has great knife skills.)

The burger was a blend of recipes from a 1000 Vegetarian Recipes from Around the World cooking book, using potato, and my dear Veganomicon. In the latter, the ladies used black beans, but I wanted to introduce Belle to adzuki beans. The result was a surprisingly filling and “meaty” burger. Last time, I made veggie burgers the result was a little watery and I couldn’t get rid of them. This time the result was so good that I didn’t have any left. None for lunch tomorrow, sadly.

I wanted to have topping options for the burgers. We had the Soy Kaas cheddar but I have been meaning to try the bacon recipe from The Vegetarian Compass by Karen Allison. The only way that I could get inari or yuba at Whole Foods was to buy it at the sushi bar. I trimmed them into strips and marinated them in vegetarian stock, bouillon, tamari, and braggs liquid aminos. If I had any nutritional yeast, I would have sprinkled some on the fried yuba. But, the result was very tasty—not bacon, but wonderful. I would also pair it with avocado on a salad.

Disclaimer: While the picture includes tiny fries, a chocolate shake and a top and bottom rosti bun, Belle’s burger was only one bun, burger and yuba bacon. After she went to sleep, I spoke to M— and made some fries, twice fried mind you. If you want to know why you should twice fry them taters, read How to Read a French Fry. And, then I got crazy and tried to make a homemade Frosty. This evening, after the whole adventure, I found out that Frosties don’t actually have potatoes in them. My milk shake was pretty. The shake itself was vegan, but for the picture I topped it with whipped cream. I didn’t love the recipe, because the potato made it slightly gritty. I was going for a milkshake texture without having to buy vegan ice cream. I will clearly have to revisit this recipe.

Recipes:
Vegan Adzuki Burgers
Saute in olive oil
½ small onion, diced
1 carrot, diced finely
1-2 cloves garlic, diced finely
¼ cup brown rice (cooked)

Mash together in a bowl
½ cup adzuki beans (cooked)
¼ cup tofu
¼ cup baked baking potato

Add to the mashed concoction the following :
1 T Braggs Liquid Aminos
2 T Soy Sauce
1 dash Vegetarian Worcestershire Sauce
1 T Herabamare Original Organic Herb Seasoning Salt

Add the sautéed veg to the bowl, mix and then form in patties.

Bake at 375 until medium well. (Broil on high for the last 5 minutes.) Makes 10 sliders (2 inch wide)

Potato Rosti “Buns”
Shred
3-5 medium cooked yellow potatoes (I do not peel them)

In a very small skillet placed on medium heat, add olive oil to cover the bottom of the pan (this is not a low fat one) and then 1 palm’s worth of shredded potatoes and salt, stir to mix the oil with the potatoes. Cover the pan. Cook until the edges of the cake look brown. Flip and cook covered. (I had to peak to see if the flip-side is browned.)

Makes 6-10 “buns” (if you are serving them open-faced, then use 3 potatoes)

Chocolate/ Banana/Potato Milkshake—BE WARY THIS WASN’T THAT GOOD
Warm
1 cup vanilla soy milk

Dissolve in the warm milk
2 T unsweetened cocoa
1 T raw sugar
1 teaspoons vanilla extract

Blend with
1 banana, cut into bite size pieces and frozen
1 T boiled potato