Cooking with Tabbynera - Rösti and Kalbsbratwürst with chicory

Yesterday morning I was on my own. My Mr. Swiss had gone shopping in town and I was cooking lunch. I then had the "brilliant" idea to photograph what I was doing and here is the result. Rösti is basically a Swiss fried potato dish. The genuine recipe is made with potatoes that have been cooked in their skins 24 hours before frying. Somehow the texture of the potato develops better for frying. The potato sticks together better. There is the variation of frying raw potato, which I often do and which is being cooked here. "Kalbsbratwurst" is a Swiss veal sausage, but basically any sausage would do - I could imagine a good old Irish pork sausage would do the trick. Anyhow her I go.

First of all I grate the potato. Either by hand or in the machine. I prefer the machine - goes quicker and I don't end up with grated hands.

I fry most everything in cooking butter, so I get the butter ready

I then take a large frying pan and melt the butter. A teflon pan is the best, so that the potato does not stick to the base of the pan.

When the butter is sizzling I put the grated potato into the frying pan and put some salt on it

I then mix it around from time to time to get it evenly brown

Then form the potato into a flat cake in the pan and cook further on a low to medium heat so that it gets a nice brown crust on one side.

I have a big flat plate on the photo. I now have to turn the potato "cake" in the pan so that the other side will also form a brown crust and here are the illustrations to show how I do it.

And now you can slide the turned potato back into the pan to let it fry, again low to medium heat, on the other side.

And now for the sausages. I cut them diagonally to make sure they don't burst when cooking. You can also prod them with a fork, but the Swiss way is diagonal cuts.

I then heat butter in a pan and put the sausages in the pan to fry.

Take two onions and slice them finely in rings.

Then fry with the sausages, still on a low to medium heat.

And now for the chicory. The washed chicory should be halved.

I then take a small frying pan, melt butter and put the chicory in. A small pan, because I had already used the big frying pans. This doesn't matter as the chicory gets softer as it cooks.

I now put a lid on the frying pan for about five minutes to let is cook in its own juice. Temperature again low to medium.

After five minutes with the lid on, remove the lid and just turn it from time to time. Takes about 20 minutes to cook through. The sausages also need about 20 minutes and the potato cake - rösti - should also now be ready.

And now you can serve the meal. En guete as we say before each meal in Switzerland.