Rhineland Reibekuchen with Applesauce
Finely grated potatoes and onion with egg and a little flour, fried in clarified butter into thin, crisp German potato pancakes, sprinkled with sugar and served with warm homemade applesauce.
Germany has a dozen names for the potato pancake. Kartoffelpuffer is the general name, but in the Rhineland they are Reibekuchen, "grated cakes", and they are sold at street fairs and Christmas markets (Wikipedia:). Polish Wikipedia's list of relatives counts them among the cousins of latkes, rösti and draniki. They are eaten salty as a side dish or sweet with applesauce (Wikipedia:), and LECKER also suggests them on dark bread with sugar beet syrup. The German food magazine LECKER's version, from its September 2010 issue, does the sweet one: thin pancakes fried in clarified butter, each sprinkled with sugar, with lemony homemade applesauce.
Why it works the kitchen science
A fine grate and very little flour
Finely grated potato packs into a thin, even layer, and just 50 g of flour with two eggs holds it together without making it bready.
Clarified butter
With the milk solids gone it can fry batch after batch at a steady heat without burning, and it still tastes of butter.
Step by step
- Step 1
Put the lemon juice, water, 5 tbsp sugar and vanilla sugar in a saucepan. Peel, quarter and core the apples, dice them small and add them to the pan.
- Step 2
Bring to a boil, cover and simmer over low heat 15 to 20 minutes, until the apples fall apart. Mash smoother with a potato masher if you like, sweeten to taste and keep warm.
- Step 3
Heat the oven to 200°F with a wire rack in a rimmed baking sheet. Peel the onion and potatoes, finely grate the potatoes into a bowl and grate the onion in with them. Stir in the eggs, flour and salt.
- Step 4
Heat 1 tbsp clarified butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add 2 to 3 heaping tablespoons of batter per pancake, three at a time, and flatten each with the back of a spoon.
- Step 5
Fry about 3 minutes, until golden underneath, then turn and fry 3 to 4 minutes more. Move them to the rack in the oven.
- Step 6
Repeat with the rest of the batter, adding 1 tbsp clarified butter per batch, to make 12 pancakes. Stir the batter before each batch; the liquid settles.
- Step 7
Sprinkle each pancake with sugar and serve with the warm applesauce.
Rhineland Reibekuchen with Applesauce
Serves 4 · 12 pancakes plus about 3 cups applesauce · 1 hr 30 min total
Applesauce
- Juice of 1 lemon
- 1/2 cup water
- 5 tbsp sugar, plus more to taste
- 1 packet (2 1/2 tsp) vanilla sugar, or 2 tsp sugar plus 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 1/4 lb (1 kg) apples (about 6 medium)
Reibekuchen
- 2 1/4 lb (1 kg) floury potatoes, such as russets
- 1 medium onion
- 2 large eggs
- 6 tbsp (50 g) all-purpose flour
- About 1/2 tsp salt
- 4 tbsp clarified butter (Butterschmalz) or ghee
- About 4 tsp sugar, for sprinkling
Method
- Put the lemon juice, water, 5 tbsp sugar and vanilla sugar in a saucepan. Peel, quarter and core the apples, dice them small and add them to the pan.
- Bring to a boil, cover and simmer over low heat 15 to 20 minutes, until the apples fall apart. Mash smoother with a potato masher if you like, sweeten to taste and keep warm.
- Heat the oven to 200°F with a wire rack in a rimmed baking sheet. Peel the onion and potatoes, finely grate the potatoes into a bowl and grate the onion in with them. Stir in the eggs, flour and salt.
- Heat 1 tbsp clarified butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add 2 to 3 heaping tablespoons of batter per pancake, three at a time, and flatten each with the back of a spoon.
- Fry about 3 minutes, until golden underneath, then turn and fry 3 to 4 minutes more. Move them to the rack in the oven.
- Repeat with the rest of the batter, adding 1 tbsp clarified butter per batch, to make 12 pancakes. Stir the batter before each batch; the liquid settles.
- Sprinkle each pancake with sugar and serve with the warm applesauce.
Adapted from LECKER, "Reibekuchen mit Apfelmus" (LECKER 9/2010), as written. LECKER gives no serving count; we call it 4, which matches LECKER's own figure of about 659 kcal per person. US conversions are ours. LECKER fries 3 pancakes at a time in 1 tbsp Butterschmalz per batch over medium heat; the 200°F holding oven is our US equivalent of LECKER's 50°C. The sugar for sprinkling is LECKER's; the 4 tsp amount is ours. LECKER. Ingredient list follows the source; the method is in our own words.
All sources (4)
Tips
- LECKER's other way: skip the sugar and serve the pancakes on dark bread spread with sugar beet syrup.
- Make the applesauce first; it can sit warm on the back of the stove while you fry.
- Floury potatoes such as russets (LECKER suggests Bintje) give the crispest edges.
The rules people argue about
What the sources agree on, what they don't, and what is just a good story.
- Reibekuchen and Kartoffelpuffer are the same thing. Documented: Wikipedia treats Reibekuchen as the Rhineland name for Kartoffelpuffer; the dialect names differ by region.
- Applesauce, not sour cream. Folklore: German pancakes are eaten salty or sweet with applesauce (Wikipedia), but there is no rule; Texas German cooks serve both (our Texas Potato Pancakes recipe).
- Reibekuchen are a Christmas market food. Documented as common: Wikipedia says they are often sold at Christmas markets in Germany.
- Friday is Reibekuchen day in the Rhineland. Folklore: widely repeated; we found no source for it.
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