I love potatoes; they are so versatile. Besides serving them traditional ways – mashed, baked, fried, or cooked – they can also be turned into tasty dishes like potato gratin, potato dumplings, or potato salad, to name a few. However, my favorite way to have potatoes is as bratkartoffeln, a German-style, pan-fried, potato dish made of leftover potatoes. In fact, if we cook or bake potatoes, I always purposely make more to be able to make this dish.
While the low-carb movement avoids white potatoes, they are a traditional staple in many cultures. Personally, I make sure that every meal is well-balanced with protein, fat, and carbs, and potatoes work well for me – even sometimes added for breakfast. They are rich in starch, which is a complex carbohydrate in an easy-to-digest form. Potatoes are also a good source of vitamins C and B complex, potassium, calcium, and iron.
The other main ingredient for this dish is an aromatic spice widely used in Europe and Middle Eastern cuisine: caraway seeds. In Germany, it can be found in rye bread, sauerkraut, and gulasch (a beef stew). Caraway has a bitter taste and makes meals more digestible. Some people even take it plain to address digestive issues.
Butter, the third ingredient, is a staple in our house. Butter from grass-fed cows is a valuable source of fat-soluble vitamins, such as true vitamin A (retinol), vitamin D and K, and trace minerals like manganese, zinc, chromium, and iodine, especially when the cows feed on green grass. Butter from grass-fed cows has a good amount of CLA which has strong anticancer properties. Other fats in butter are lauric acid, a medium-chain fatty acid known to be antimicrobial and antifungal, otherwise only found in coconut oil, as well as butyric acid (a short-chain fatty acid), which has antifungal properties and antitumor effects.
There are many different recipes for bratkartoffeln, made with different spices or more ingredients, but I like this one best. It’s flavorful and easy to digest. Additionally, according to Ayurveda, combining these ingredients makes the whole dish well-balanced for all doshas, as white potatoes are balancing for kapha and pitta (potatoes are cool, light, and dry); butter balances vata and pitta (butter is oily, cold, and heavy); caraway seeds balance vata and kapha (caraway seeds are hot); and salt pacifies vata (salt is hot and clear).
Recipe
Ingredients
- cooked gold potatoes, cooled down, and peeled (about 1 per person)
- caraway seeds (about ½ tsp per person, or more if you’d like)
- butter (about 1 tbsp per potato)
- salt
Directions
- Heat butter in a wide pan over medium heat and slice potatoes directly into the pan – ideally, they don’t overlap.
- Sprinkle with salt and caraway seeds and let them slightly brown. Turn and let them brown on the other side.
- Serve immediately.
Notes
- This recipe works best when made in small batches. A single, big potato can be enough to lay out one pan. For more, either use two pans or put the first batch aside, keeping it warm while working on the next batch.
- Using the highest-quality ingredients produces a nourishing and tasty dish. Use grass-fed butter, organic potatoes, and unrefined salt. The best tasting caraway seed can be found here. (Mountain Rose Herbs offers organic spices, tea, and more in bulk at a great price.) When it comes to spices, quality is key.
