French Fridays with Dorie - Matafan

So we contemplate each other, and we want each other, and I give it life and warmth, and it gives me my reason for living.

~ Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

I returned home from my foot massage session to this. Fluffy. Mashed potatoes. Pancakes. Don't these four words sound really good to you? Put them consecutively together in one sentence and you've got the perfect thing to start off or complement your meal, or simply to patch up those pesky hunger pangs. Matafan, that's what they're called in France and this is our French Fridays with Dorie recipe this week. 

You would make these savory pancakes not by way of a regular pancake batter. The potatoes need to be roasted with salt for just over an hour and passed through a sieve or potato ricer. I admit I did neither, instead I boiled little slices of potatoes and mashed them with my old-fashioned potato masher. In fact, preparing the matafan batter only took me a mere 20 minutes or so to do. The photoshoot session might have taken longer to orchestrate.... :).

As I bit into the first matafan, I was expecting a pancake-y texture but it wasn't like that at all. In fact, it tasted a lot like mashed potatoes contained within a pancake! Or perhaps more accurately, a mashed potato fritter. I made mine as blini-sized appetizers, topped with creme fraiche and basil-roasted chicken strips. According to my food-obsessed brain, they were totally delicious and matafan definitely needs to be on our regular rotation from now on.

I bet the other Doristas had their own revelations about matafan, and if you'd like to be in on what they are, have a look here.

Foot massage was great... but these fluffy potato pancakes were even better!

Have a fab weekend, everyone!