Recipe - Irish Potato Corned Beef Cakes

Once again, dear readers, much deliberation went into this recipe. I started brainstorming yesterday, you see, which was Pi Day. Of course, my natural inclination was to offer you a wonderful recipe for savory mini-pies, because who doesn’t love a tailor-made, individually sized pie? But then, upon revisiting yesterday’s notes, I realized today’s the Ides of March. So, perhaps something Roman?
 
And then, of course, I remembered that St. Patrick’s Day is coming up. Thus, I abandoned all my previous follies to bring you one of my favorites—a modified Irish Boxty—which works equally well on the actual day, or as a solution to too many corned beef leftovers. (But, let’s face it, can you really have too many corned beef leftovers? PS. For my vegetarian visitors, this is just as yummy without the corned beef, but I’d recommend subbing in something extra for a touch of salt and tanginess, such as a nice bleu cheese.)
 

Recipe adapted from Food & Wine
 
Potato and Corned Beef Cakes
 
Ingredients

• 2 lbs potatoes
• Kosher salt
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 1/3 c all-purpose flour
• 1/4 c buttermilk
• 1 large egg
• 1 c shredded, cooked corned beef
• 3 tbsp unsalted butter (do your taste buds a favor and go straight for the Kerrygold. Trust me.)
• Herbed sour cream or crème fraîche

The Nitty Gritty
 

1. Peel half the potatoes and cut them into 1-inch pieces.
2. In a medium saucepan, cover half the potatoes with salted water, bring to a simmer, and cook until tender (about 15 minutes.)
3. Drain the cooked potatoes and force through a ricer into a bowl. If you don’t have a ricer, it’s not what I’d call essential. You can just mash the potatoes thoroughly, though I will say I find a ricer makes for better texture.
4. Peel the remaining potatoes and grate coarsely with a box grater. Wrap the grated potatoes in a kitchen towel and squeeze as much liquid from them as you can.
5. Transfer the grated potatoes to the bowl with your riced/mashed potatoes. Stir in the flour, buttermilk, egg, 1 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon pepper, and corned beef. (This is where you would add your bleu cheese crumbles, if you chose that route. Although I haven’t tried it yet, I bet the bleu cheese would be fantastic mixed into the corned beef version as well.)
6. Form the batter into 1/3-cup sized patties.
7. In a large heavy skillet, heat half the butter over medium heat until hot, then cook the patties in batches, turning occasionally, until golden (about 8 minutes per batch.)
8. Cook the remaining patties in the remaining butter.
9. Serve with a dollop of sour cream or crème fraiche.

Brought to you by our resident copywriter and culinarian, Justine Kurtz