Rievkooche mit Rübenkraut

Rievkooche are Rhineland food, strongest around Köln, and they belong wherever people are hungry now: weeknight pan, market stall, church fair, Christmas market. In standard German they're Reibekuchen, in Bavaria Reiberdatschi, elsewhere Kartoffelpuffer. Im Norden anders, im Süden anders. Some eat them with apple sauce, some with sour cream, some with smoked fish. In Köln I put Rübenkraut beside them, the dark sugar-beet syrup, because the sweet bitterness against salty fried potato is the whole point.

The technique is not mysterious. Grate floury potatoes, wring them hard, and let the juice sit so the starch falls to the bottom. Pour off the brown water and put that white starch back into the batter. Leave the water in and the pancake steams soft; throw the starch away and it won't hold. Weggeworfen wird nichts, especially not the part doing the work.

Fry in enough hot fat that the edges start talking as soon as the batter hits the pan. Too little fat and you get leathery potato. Too cool and you get grease. Keep the pancakes thin, salt them when they come out, and eat them while the edges still crack under your teeth. Nicht aus dem Glas does not apply to Rübenkraut here; that jar is the made larder, boiled beet juice reduced until dark. The packet mix can stay on the shelf.