Erdäpfelpuffer mit Dillsauce (vegan) (vegan potato fritters with dill sauce)
Austrian-style grated potato fritters bound with a flax egg instead of a real one, fried until the edges turn properly lacy and crisp, served with a cashew dill sauce. Squeezing the grated potato hard before mixing is what keeps these crisp rather than steaming soft in the pan.
Prep25 min
Cook20 min
Rest20 min
Servings4
Christoph's vegan potato fritters, a flax egg standing in for the real thing, the potato squeezed hard so the fritters stay crisp.
Ingredients
Units
Temperature
Servings
Fritters
- 700 g waxy potatoes, peeled, coarsely grated rounded
- 100 g onion, coarsely grated rounded
- 10 g ground flaxseed, mixed with 30 ml water, rested 5 minutes rounded
- 40 g flour rounded
- 6 g fine salt rounded
- to taste freshly ground black pepper rounded
- 60 g neutral oil, for frying rounded
Dill sauce
- 100 g cashews, soaked in hot water 1 hour, drained rounded
- 100 ml water rounded
- 15 ml lemon juice rounded
- 20 g fresh dill rounded
- 1 garlic clove (optional) rounded
- to taste fine salt rounded
Dietary labels are a guide, not a guarantee. If you have an allergy, read the ingredients yourself.
Method
- Combine the ground flaxseed and water in a small bowl and let sit 5 minutes, until it thickens to a gel; this is your flax egg.
- Squeeze the grated potato and onion firmly in a clean tea towel, in batches, until you can wring out no more liquid.
- Combine the squeezed potato and onion, flax egg, flour, salt and pepper in a bowl, mixing to an even mass.
- Blend the cashews, water, lemon juice, dill, garlic if using and a pinch of salt until completely smooth, at least 2 minutes. Set aside for the dill sauce.
- Heat the oil in a large frying pan over medium heat. Spoon the potato mixture in, flattening each into a thin patty, about 8 cm across. Fry in batches, 4 minutes per side, until deeply golden and crisp at the edges.
- Drain briefly on kitchen paper. Serve hot with the dill sauce.
Method in the Thermomix
Written for a TM5 or TM6, 2.2 litre bowl. This covers grating the potato and blending the sauce; frying is conventional.
- Potato and onion into the dry bowl, in chunks. Grate 8 sec / speed 5. Tip out and squeeze dry in a tea towel as in the hand method.
- Rinse the bowl. Drained cashews, water, lemon juice, dill, garlic and salt into the bowl. Blend 1 min / speed 9, until completely smooth. Set aside.
- Continue by hand from step 3 of the hand method.
Notes
- Squeeze the potato and onion as dry as possible. Excess liquid is the single biggest cause of soggy, greasy fritters that never crisp up properly in the pan.
- Flatten the fritters thin. Thick fritters take longer to cook through and are more likely to burn on the outside before the inside sets.
- Do not crowd the pan. Fritters fried too close together steam each other rather than crisping.
- They are best fresh from the pan; they lose their crispness on standing and reheat only moderately well in a dry pan.
Ingredient substitutions
- Cashews can be sunflower seeds, soaked the same way, for a nut-free sauce.
- Ground flaxseed can be chia seeds, ground the same way, as an equally effective egg substitute here.
- A little grated apple mixed into the fritter batter is a traditional Austrian variation.
From Christoph Mayer