Cajun French: la patate (la pa-tat) – potato
Ms. Francis’ store was across the street from the local school. Since this was before the time of school lunches, she would sell hamburgers to the school children for lunch. On Friday’s, since this was a predominantly Cajun Catholic community, she would make potato patties instead of meat patties. Both of her burgers are still talked about and remembered by people today. Francis was John’s grandmother and while this is not her exact recipe, we wanted to honor her memory and the memories she left with us. Frances would use fish flakes and boiled potatoes to make her patties. We stepped it up a notch and used salmon and potato flakes.
Frances has been the inspiration for many of our dishes. In fact, we posted a potato croquette recipe a couple of years ago based on her recipe. At that time we used sweet potatoes. This one is closer to her original recipe.
Mais C’est Bon!
Enjoy!!
Ingredients:
14.75 oz. can Salmon
¾ cup chopped salad onion
¼ cup chopped red bell pepper
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp paprika
1 Tbl mayonnaise
1 cup potato flakes
1 cup bread crumbs
2 eggs
10 oz. beer
Place salmon in large bowl
Break up salmon into pieces
Add chopped onion and red bell pepper
Add potato flakes and bread crumbs
Combine above ingredients
Form well in center of bowl and add eggs
Mix eggs and combine with other ingredients
Add seasonings and combine
Form mixture into 6 patties about ½” thick
Refrigerate patties for about 30 minutes
Coat cast iron skillet, or other heavy skillet, with olive oil
Heat to medium
Place patties in skillet and cook until brown, turn and cook other side until brown
Remove from skillet and place patties on paper towel
