Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Box grater
• •Clean tea towel for wringing the onion
• •Heavy frying pan, 28cm
• •Fish slice or wide spatula

Instructions

1. 1

   Grate the potatoes

   Take your cold boiled potatoes and grate them on the coarse side of a box grater into a large bowl. Cold potatoes are essential here. Warm or fresh-boiled potatoes turn to glue when you grate them, and the fritters go heavy. Cold potatoes hold their shape and give you the lacy, ragged edges that crisp up in the butter. This is why kartoffelfrikadeller exist in the first place: they are what you make on Tuesday with Monday's leftover potatoes.

   If you don't have leftover potatoes, boil floury potatoes in their skins the night before and leave them in the fridge overnight. Same result, just a little more planning.
2. 2

   Drain the onion

   Grate the onion on the same coarse holes, then tip it into a clean tea towel and wring out the liquid over the sink. Onion holds a surprising amount of water, and that water will turn your fritter mixture into a slurry if you let it. You want the onion's flavor, not its juice. Add the wrung-out onion to the bowl with the potatoes.

3. 3

   Bring the mixture together

   Crack in the eggs, add the flour, chives, salt, a good grind of black pepper, and a grating of nutmeg. Mix everything together with a fork until it just holds. Don't overwork it. The texture you want is loose and shaggy, not smooth. If the mixture feels too wet to hold a shape, add another tablespoon of flour. If it feels too dry, add a splash of milk. You'll know when it's right because a heaped spoonful will hold itself together when you scoop it.

   The nutmeg is a small thing that does a lot. It's what makes these taste Danish rather than just like a potato pancake. Don't skip it.
4. 4

   Heat the pan

   Put your heaviest frying pan over medium heat. Add half the butter and all the oil. The oil keeps the butter from burning before the fritters cook through, and the butter gives you the nutty, browned flavor that makes these worth eating. Wait until the butter foams and the foam starts to subside. That's the moment. Earlier and the fritters will sit in pale fat. Later and the butter is already past its best.

5. 5

   Fry the fritters

   Drop heaped tablespoons of the mixture into the hot butter, then press each one gently with the back of the spoon to flatten it into a rough oval about a centimetre thick. Don't crowd the pan. Four or five at a time is plenty. Cook for three to four minutes on the first side without moving them. You'll hear the butter sizzling steadily, not screaming, not whispering. When the edges have gone deep gold and a little lacy, flip them and cook the second side for another three minutes. The outside should be crisp and brown, the inside soft and steaming.

   Resist the urge to flip them early. The crust needs time to form, and if you move them before it does, half the crust stays in the pan.
6. 6

   Finish the batch

   Lift the cooked fritters onto a plate lined with kitchen paper to catch any extra butter. Add the rest of the butter to the pan, let it foam, and fry the second batch the same way. Don't try to keep the first batch warm in the oven. They'll go soft. Kartoffelfrikadeller want to be eaten the moment they come out of the pan, while the edges are still crackling.

7. 7

   Serve

   Pile the hot fritters onto a warm plate and scatter with extra chives. Serve with thick slices of rugbrod, a small bowl of pickled beetroot, and not much else. This is weeknight food at its most honest, the kind of meal that costs almost nothing and feels like a small act of care. Tak for mad.

Chef Tips

• •Floury potatoes give you the best texture: King Edward, Maris Piper, or Russet. Waxy salad potatoes stay too firm and don't bind properly.
• •If you have any leftover smoked mackerel or pickled herring in the fridge, lay a small piece on top of each fritter when you serve them. That's how a Jutland cook would turn this into smorrebrod the next day.
• •These don't reheat well, so make only what you'll eat in one sitting. Cold fried potato is not a thing anyone has ever asked for.

Advance Preparation

• •Boil the potatoes the night before and leave them in the fridge overnight. Cold potatoes are not optional, they are the dish.
• •The mixture itself does not hold well once made. Mix it just before you fry, or the salt will pull water out of the potatoes and the fritters will go slack.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 240g)