Münsterländer Pillekauken

Pillekauken belongs to Münsterland, the flat green country around Münster, where stored potatoes, onions, bacon, and a pan can still make a proper supper. This is weeknight food if you've got the potatoes, and Sunday food if you set it beside a roast or a sharp salad. It isn't delicate. It shouldn't be.

The regions split as soon as the grater comes out. In the Rhineland, Reibekuchen are small and thin, often eaten with apple sauce. In Bavaria, Reiberdatschi go the same way, crisp and individual. Münsterland makes a thicker cake in the pan, often with bacon or a little Mettwurst, and lets the middle stay tender. Im Norden anders, im Süden anders.

The technique is simple and it decides the dish: squeeze the grated raw potato hard, then let the starch settle in the bowl and put that starch back into the batter. The water makes the cake wet and heavy; the settled starch binds it without turning it floury. Weggeworfen wird nichts, even the starch at the bottom has work to do.

Cook it slower than your impatience wants. Too hot and the edge burns before the raw potato in the middle cooks through. Runter mit der Temperatur. A good Pillekauken comes out crisp at the rim, golden underneath, and soft enough inside to remind you it began as plain potato.