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Doyenne of Irish cooking Darina Allen shows how to cook the perfect Potato and Caraway Seed Cakes.

Potato and Caraway Seed Cakes

This recipe, a favourite at Darina's Ballymaloe Cookery School, was inspired by the character Flurry Knox's mouthwatering description of potato cakes in the book 'Some Experiences of an Irish R.M.': 'While I live I shall not forget her potato cakes. They came in hot from a pot-oven, they were speckled with caraway seeds, they swam in salt butter, and we ate them shamelessly and greasily, and washed them down with hot whiskey and water.'

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Tips and techniques

1. Take care not to burn the butter. Try using half butter and half olive oil
2. The potato cakes mustn't be too thick, or the inside will still be cold when the outside has cooked
3. If you don't have a rolling pin, follow tradition and use a whisky bottle!
4. Traditionally potato cakes would be served with hot whisky and water.

Recipe

• 700g (1 1/2lb) old potatoes eg Golden Wonders or Kerr's Pinks (about 4-5 large potatoes), scrubbed
• 45g (1 1/2oz) butter
• 55g (2oz) onion finely chopped
• 1-2 teaspoons caraway seeds
• 1 tablespoon chopped parsley
• salt and freshly ground pepper
• 55g (2oz) flour
• butter, for frying

Recipe serves approximatley 6

Preparation method

Cook the potatoes in their jackets in boiling salted water

Meanwhile, melt the butter and sweat the onion in it over a gentle heat until soft but not coloured

Peel and mash the potatoes while still hot

Add the onion and butter with the caraway seeds and chopped parsley

Season with salt and freshly ground pepper, add the flour and mix well

Knead a little until smooth, roll out and stamp into potato cakes with the top of a glass or a cutter. Alternatively, divide the dough into 2 rounds and cut into farls. Fry in melted butter on a hot pan until golden on both sides.

Serve hot.

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