Meals · Skillet & sheet-pan mains
Kartoffelpuffer (German potato pancakes) with apple sauce and herb quark
Crisp, lacy potato pancakes straight from the pan, the smell of every German Christmas market and every Friday kitchen, served the two classic ways at once: with cool apple sauce and with a bowl of herb quark. Squeeze the potatoes well and keep the pan hot.
- Time
- 65 min (25 prep + 40 cook)
- Servings
- 4
- Per serving
- 487 kcal
- Protein
- 17 g
Ingredients
Puffer
- 2 1/4 lb gold potatoes, floury, peeled
- 1 medium onion
- 2 large eggs
- 3 1/2 tbsp all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp nutmeg
- 4 tbsp canola oil, added a spoonful at a time
Herb quark
- 1 1/4 cups quark, low-fat (Magerquark)
- 2 tbsp 2% milk
- 1/4 cup fresh chives, snipped
- 2 tsp lemon juice
To serve
- 1 1/4 cups applesauce, unsweetened, chilled
Steps
- Coarsely grate the potatoes and onion together (the onion keeps the potatoes from turning grey). Tip into a clean tea towel and squeeze out as much liquid as you can over a bowl. Let the liquid stand for 5 minutes, pour off the water and keep the white starch at the bottom.
- Mix the squeezed potatoes with the starch, eggs, flour, salt and nutmeg. Work quickly so the mixture does not discolour.
- Heat a large non-stick skillet over medium-high heat with a thin film of the oil. Drop in heaped tablespoons of the batter, spread them flat and thin, and fry for 3 to 4 minutes per side until deep golden and crisp at the edges. Work in batches, adding a spoonful of oil each time, and keep the finished Puffer on a rack in a 200°F oven. Do not crowd the pan.
- Stir the quark with the milk, chives, lemon juice and a pinch of salt until smooth.
- Serve the Puffer hot with the apple sauce and the herb quark, and let everyone choose.
Good to know
Can they wait?
Not long. They are at their best within minutes. Keep them on a rack rather than a plate, because a plate traps steam and softens the crust.
Which potatoes are best?
Floury potatoes (mehligkochend) bind best and give the crispest edges. Waxy potatoes work if you keep the settled starch and squeeze them hard.
Alternative
Per
- Calories
- 121
- Protein
- (14%)
- 4 g
- Fat
- (35%)
- 5 g
- Carbohydrates
- (50%)
- 16 g
- of which sugar
- 3 g
- Fiber
- 1 g
- Sodium
- 160 mg
More meals
Computed from the ingredients with our published formula, not yet kitchen-tested. How
As written, 1949 kcal goes into the pot and 2002 g of ingredients comes out as about 1615 g of food: 121 kcal per 100 g. Cooking moves water and energy density is the score's biggest lever, so the dish is scored as cooked, not as an average of its parts. Every ingredient links to its food page, with the same data and score. The label's percentages are each macronutrient's share of the calories. The full formula.