Potato cakes. Everyone has their way of making them. To make them Italian-ish, I added mozzarella and sautéed onions to ours. Recently, I have put them into a springform pan and put them on the griddle with a pad of butter underneath. Nothing like the taste of butter. I found that the height of the cake, about a quarter inch high, remains creamy while the bottom and top are crunchy, a different experience from our standard cake. More recently, I have converted to a more traditional potato cake after finding that the addition of cheese and other items adds too much water or moisture and loses the crisp texture. I tried. I did, but in the end, sometimes recipes don’t need changing. Maybe in the future I will take this on again. Maybe the Spanish potato cake that has onion inside and is more tender.
A house classic;The Cleveland Potato Cake; has a long history of my dining in Jewish Delis and reveling in the potato cakes which they made. They were thin and crispy and as big as a plate. What I remember was they came with sour cream and applesauce. That memory stayed with me when we opened Rifugio’s Country Italian Cuisine and choose to have brunch. I thought how do we make it our own? Well combined with corned beef and our house-made mustard sauce and eggs any style, I prefer crispy and sunny side, they become a savory delight. The tangy corn beef, the crispy fried eggs, and potato supporting it all is a favorite I enjoy.The first photo is the Classic Cleveland the second photo is a Crunchy Creamy Potato Cake.