RECIPE: Cheesy Bacon Potato Cakes

This is a dish of my own creation that I made especially for my children. They love potato rostis and they also love dishes containing cheese and bacon. Therefore, I decided to combine the two. It has taken me several attempts at making this to get it just right so that I could post the recipe on thefruitytart.org. The final result is delicious. Here is how to make my cheesy bacon potato cakes for six. 

Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 40 minutes
Servings: 6
Vegetarian/ vegan: NO
Dairy-free: NO
Gluten-free: YES

Ingredients for Cheesy Bacon Potato Cakes

• 6 large potatoes
• 6 slices of bacon
• 100g cheddar, grated
• Salt
• Vegetable oil

How to Make Cheesy Bacon Potato Cakes– Preparation

1. Heat a little oil in a large frying pan over medium heat on the hob.
2. Add the bacon rashers and cook for five minutes on each side until the fat is crispy and browned.
3. Remove bacon from the pan and put on a side plate to cool before shredding into small pieces.
4. While the bacon is cooking, peel your potatoes. 
5. Grate the potatoes.
6. Then, spread the grated potatoes out over a chopping board and sprinkle with salt as this releases the water from the potatoes.
7. Press the moisture out of the grated potatoes using kitchen paper.
8. Preheat the oven to 180C/ gas mark 4.

Cooking the Cheesy Bacon Potato Cakes

1. Add vegetable oil to a frying pan (approximately 3mm deep for shallow frying) and put over medium heat on the hob.
2. Take a small strand of the grated potato and put in the pan. If it sizzles straight away, the pan is hot enough.
3. Take two handfuls of the grated potato and drop into the oil
4. Using a flatfish lift, or another similar flat implement, press the heaps of grated potato down to create two flat discs.
5. Add a little of the grated cheese to the centre of each potato disc and some of the shredded bacon.
6. Next, add another layer of potato over top of the cheese and bacon and press again with the flatfish lift. This will compress the ingredients together and help to melt the cheese and cook the potato through. 
7. Cook for a few minutes until the underside is golden brown.
8. Using the flatfish lift, flip the potato cakes over.
9. Cook for a further five minutes or until the potato has turned golden brown and crunchy. Transfer the potato cakes onto a baking tray. 
10. Repeat steps 9-17 twice more until you have six potato cakes sitting in your tray.
11. Put the potato cakes on the baking tray into the oven for ten minutes. This will cook the potato through and keep them crispy. 

Serving Suggestion

Serve the potato cakes with salad and coleslaw. You might also like to try making our recipes for pan haggerty and potato gratin.