"Schoooom!"

Yesterday I wrote about the little city of Wells and its bustling market. I should also mention that it has a quantity of great charity shops. In one of these I found a potato ricer. An Austrian lady beside me said "Excellent buy - they make vunderful potato cakes".




When checking out potato ricers elsewhere I came across this fantastic picture of Julia Child and her potato ricer - " the potato goes in and you go schoooom and out she comes!"


I come originally from Northern Ireland, and our potato cakes are called "farls", because they are shaped as quarters of a round when baked on a griddle. ("Farl" comes from the Scots "fardel", which means a fourth of something.) Potato farls are a vital constituent of the famous Ulster Fry, essential if you are about to spend all day cutting peat in a bog...

You don't really need a recipe for potato farls, but it goes something like this

2 lb/ 1 kg/ 2 cups freshly mashed potatoes
4 oz/ 125 g/ 1 cup plain flour
2 tbsp butter
salt
Mix the butter into the potatoes with the salt. Work in the flour quickly but thoroughly and knead lightly. Divide in two and roll out each half on a floured board to form a circle about the size of a large dinner plate. Cut in quarters (farls) and cook for about 3 minutes on each side on a griddle or in a heavy frying pan in a little bacon fat.