Adventures in Cooking: Sour Cream Chive Potato Cakes

For every holiday that we decide to host at our house I always try to help out by making something simple to be on the menu.  In the past I've made baked mac and cheese for Thanksgiving or I help bake cookies but this time around I wanted to make something that wasn't dessert related (but I also made cookies too!)

Easter food can be a little tricky I think but I wanted to make something that would be a nice addition to the feast!

First I got all the potatoes together, peeled, washed and then chopped up into pieces

While the potatoes were boiling I took the time to chop up the chives. They had the most wonderful smell to them and it was a nice scent to have in the kitchen. Definitely better than chopping up an onion.

and I also shredded out the parmesan cheese as well while the potatoes were cooking.

Soon they were soft enough so I drained them from the water and mashed them by hand. But you could also do this with a mixer if you wanted

after mashing up the potatoes a little, I slowly added the parmesan and then put in the rest of the ingredients, the sour cream and chives.

It should look something like this once it's all mashed together. Took me a good few minutes to make everything blend equally.

After this step its time to get your hands a little messy and roll the potatoes into small cakes.  I didn't bake these the same day that I started.  I was able to make them into the small balls and refrigerate them for the next day.

On Easter, maybe an hour before we were going to eat, I heated up a pan with olive oil to brown the tops of the patties that I had made.  This step was a little tricky and I got frustrated a few times trying to make sure each side had equal time and trying to flip them over!

Once they were browned on each side I stuck them in the oven for about 10 minutes then took them out to be served.  They were a hit! Everyone really liked them and I think that they were a nice addition to our usual menu for Easter.

Here is the recipe that I used from this site.

(I adapted the recipe to make 18-20 cakes)

    Yield: Serves 10-15

ingredients:

6 Russet Potatoes
3 TBL of butter chopped into chunks

1/3 of a cup of finely chopped chives

1/2 of fresh grated parmesan

1/4 cup of sour cream

Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Olive Oil (used for pan-searing cakes)

directions:

1. In a large pot of water, boil the chopped potatoes until they are able to be pierced with a fork and they drop off easily. About 10-15 minutes. Drain potatoes and then move them to a large mixing bowl

2. Mash potatoes by hand or mixer until smooth. Add in butter, parmesan, chives and sour cream gradually until they are well blended together in the bowl.  Once cooled, use hands to make into small patties and place onto baking sheet. (This is where you can also store them in a container for about two days before finishing up with the other steps.

3. Preheat the oven to 375' and also heat up a medium pan with olive oil. You can cook about 4 in the pan at once.  Once olive oil is bubbling, place cakes into pan and let them sit 2-3 minutes/side.

4. Once all cakes have been pan-seared place on a baking sheet. Cover the baking sheet with tin foil for an easy clean up!  Place the baking sheet into the oven and let them bake the cakes for about 5-10 minutes (until they're heated through) let cool for a few minutes and then enjoy! My adapted recipe was able to feed about 16 people!


Enjoy!

-Kristina