Potato babka with bacon: the Podlasie bake, ninety minutes, a crisp crust
Raw potatoes grated on the fine side, mixed with eggs, fried bacon and onion, and baked in a roasting tin or loaf tins to a deep brown crust. Inside, a dense creamy body; outside, a crisp shell. A dish from Podlasie that costs pennies, feeds eight, and is better still fried in slices the next day.
Your own work in that: 35 min.
- Grating 25 min
- Mixture 10 min
- Baking 90 min
Step by step
0 / 6 done
Fry the bacon and onion
Heat the oven to 180 °C. Put the diced bacon into a cold pan and fry 8 minutes, until the fat has rendered. Add the diced onion and fry another 6 minutes, until golden. Set aside; keep the fat, it greases the tin.
Ingredients: 2000 g potatoes · 2 pcs onions · 250 g smoked bacon · 3 pcs eggs · 2 tbsp plain flour · 1 tbsp dried marjoram · 3 tsp salt · 1 tsp black pepper
Cold start, then onion until golden
Grate the potatoes finely
Peel the potatoes and grate on the finest holes (or mince with a fine plate) into a large bowl. A fine grate gives a mixture that bakes into a creamy body; a coarse one would give something closer to a chunky gratin.
Tip<b>Do not squeeze</b> the pulp. In potato babka the potato juice is part of the recipe: the starch it carries binds everything during baking. If a lot of water collects on top after a while, pour some of it off, but keep the white starch that settles at the bottom in the mixture.
Finest holes, keep the juice
Mix
Add the eggs, the fried bacon and onion (with their fat, keeping a spoon back for the tin), the marjoram crushed between your palms, salt and pepper. Mix thoroughly. The mixture should be as thick as thick soured cream; if it is very watery, add the 2 spoons of flour.
Eggs, bacon, marjoram, mixed
Into the tin
Line a roasting tin of about 25 × 30 cm (or two 30 × 11 cm loaf tins — the whole mixture will not fit in one) with paper and brush it with the reserved bacon fat. Pour in the mixture and level it. Fill the tin to three-quarters at most: the babka rises a little, then settles.
Tin greased with bacon fat, filled to three-quarters
Bake for an hour and a half
Bake 90 minutes at 180 °C, until the top is deep brown and cracked and a skewer in the centre comes out clean. A shorter bake leaves raw, gluey starch inside — the long bake is not a step to shorten.
Ninety minutes, a cracked topRest and slice
Leave in the tin 15 minutes, then lift out by the paper and cut thick slices. Serve with sour cream and chives, and a brined pickle. Slice cold babka and fry it in butter 3 minutes a side: crisp on both faces, which many prefer to fresh.
Ingredients: 200 g sour cream, 18 % · ½ bunch chives
Thick slices, sour cream, chives
Before you start
With sausage
150 g diced smoked sausage fried with the bacon: a meatier, more filling Sunday version.
Meat-free
2 spoons of butter instead of the bacon and 300 g mushrooms fried with the onion. Double the marjoram then.
Kiszka ziemniaczana
The same mixture piped into casings and baked in a tray with water is the Podlasie potato sausage. Those without casings bake a babka.
Nutrition
per 100 gStep photos are computer-generated from the recipe.
