Today our lovely volunteer Linda has been busy in the kitchen, cooking up something special for our Pantry members — Mexican-inspired potato cakes.
These were inspired by the Tex-Mex dips available in the Pantry this week, showing just how creative you can get with the ingredients provided.
A few members had a taste and absolutely loved them, and some even took the recipe home to try themselves using this week’s Pantry bags!
It’s a great example of how simple ingredients can be turned into something delicious and different.
This recipe uses mashed potato (you could use sweet potatoes) to which fried onion, pepper and Mexican inspired species are added. Once assembled (as rounds, logs spheres or triangles) they are cooked and served with a chilled salsa dip selection. In this recipe they are oven baked until golden but could equally be air fried or shallow fried.
Experiment with the seasoning. You could leave out the beans (but they do give some protein, colour and texture) and add peas or sweetcorn instead, for example.
Ingredients
- 3 large potatoes (suitable for mashing)
- 1 onion
- 1 pepper
- ½ teaspoon chilli or cayenne powder
- ½ teaspoon smoked paprika
- ½ teaspoon ground cumin
- ¼ teaspoon garlic granules
- ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ½ can black or red kidney beans
- Oil
Method
Peel the potatoes. Cut into even pieces. Place in pan of water. Bring to boil. Once boiling, turn down heat and simmer until soft. Drain. Mash with a fork or potato masher.
Peel and finely dice the onion. Wash, halve and deseed the pepper. Cut into 5mm dice. Fry in a little oil until soft (10 to 15 minutes). Once softened, add the chilli powder, smoked paprika and cumin. Stir and fry for 1 to minutes to cook out the spices.
Add onion mix to the mashed potato with the garlic granules, salt and pepper. Mix to combine.
Drain the beans, Place in a sieve and wash. Dry thoroughly. Stir carefully through the spicy potato.
Once cool enough to handle, shape. Brush with oil and bake on a lined tray in a preheated oven gas 7/190°Cfor 30 minutes, carefully turning halfway through.
Serve with a dip selection alongside other Mexican dishes of your choice.
