Bratkartoffeln – German Fried Potatoes

Bratkartoffeln. Soft and crispy potatoes fried with smoked, salty pancetta and sweet white onions dressed with an utterly good garlic and herb sour cream sauce.

Bratkartoffeln or German Fries are roughly sliced parboiled potatoes that are fried until nice and crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside with smoked pancetta or bacon and white onion. These are good and one of our favourite things to eat at this time of year.

Every winter Edinburgh has a huge Christmas market filled with all sorts of good and wonderful things. Little wooden huts are adorned in twinkling fairy lights and filled with mouth watering delights from hog roasts, German sausages, melting cheese that's scraped onto chunks of fresh bread, all sorts of mulled wine and hot cider and of course Bratkartoffeln. They serve the Bratkartoffeln with a garlic and herb sauce that tastes so good we can't wait for it every year!

Unfortunately since moving to Italy it's not so easy for us to pop over to Edinburgh's Christmas market to get our Bratkartoffeln fix so we've been making our own for the last few years and OH MY GOD they are good. This is such an incredibly easy recipe to make including the good garlic and herb sauce that it would be silly not to.

We start by parboiling the potatoes in chicken stock (this gives the potatoes an extra flavour boost) whilst frying the smoked pancetta and white onion until they are soft and crispy and packed full of flavour. The potatoes are then sliced and added to the pan until they are beautifully crisp on the outside and fluffy on the inside.

To make the garlic and herb sauce we mix sour cream with mayonnaise, capers, gherkins, garlic and oregano and that's it! Yup this sauce takes no more than 2 minutes and tastes SO good it's hard not to eat it by the spoon.

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We love to serve these with mustard pork steaks or juicy sausages as a main course or enjoy them on their own with a hot mug of mulled wine as a yummy, comforting snack. let us know what you thought of the recipe in the comments below, we love hearing from ya!

SAVE FOR LATER:

Ingredients

Makes 4 people

• 4 large potatoes (around 1.5kg)
• 2 litres chicken stock (good quality)
• 160 g sour cream
• 1 tbsp mayonnaise
• 1 clove garlic
• 2 baby gherkins
• 1 tsp capers
• 1/2 tbsp oregano
• 1 white onion
• 1 77 g packet of smoked pancetta
• sunflower oil (for frying)
• salt and pepper (to season)

Method

1. Bring 2 litres of chicken stock to the boil in a large pot. Peel the potatoes them place them whole in the chicken stock and boil for 25 minutes until a knife can be inserted with ease but they are not fully cooked through.

2. Meanwhile fry the pancetta for 1-2 minutes on a medium/low heat in a large frying pan. Finely chop the white onion and add to the pan, add a little oil if needed. Fry until soft then transfer the pancetta and onion to a plate.

3. Add 3-4 tablespoons of sunflower oil to the pan. Slice the parboiled potatoes and cut the bigger slices in half. Fry until crispy on the outside and cooked through, sprinkle with salt then add the pancetta and onions back to the pan and turn of the heat.

4. To make the sauce mix together the sour cream and mayonnaise, Finely chop the capers and gherkins and add to the bowl. Crush the garlic and add that along with the oregano, salt and pepper.

5. Serve the potatoes on plates with dollops of garlic and herb sauce.