Potato frikadel or perkedel kentang is our answer to mashed potatoes. Mashed potatoes is mixed with spices such as shallots, garlic, candlenuts and white pepper. Add in chopped Chinese celery and spring onions, then shaped into patties. Little round patties are then dipped in eggs and deep-fried till golden. The perkedel patties are usual condiment to a special coconut-based chicken soup.
Funnily this is a great way to use up leftover potatoes in other dishes. KFC in Indonesia has this in their fixed menu. The culprit should be leftover french fries. Potatoes have always been deep-fried till golden before mashed. I tried boiling, the patties are soggy uncontrollably when shaped. Roasting might work, but I have never tried it.
Spices to be ground are shallots, garlic, candlenut and a bit of pepper.
I used assortment of potatoes – a couple of big giant ones and some reddish smaller ones. I am sure they have a couple of names to go with them but I have no idea what they are.
Deep-fry potato pieces in hot oil till golden.
Try poking one of them with a fork. If it goes through without much resistance, it is cooked and remove from the oil.
Again, I am sure there’s other easier way, but we always make the mashed potatoes in a mortar and pestle. It is a great workout. Set aside after all potatoes are mashed finely.
Combine spices in a mortar, add sugar and salt. Grind till fine.
Combine mashed potatoes, celery and spring onions, spice paste in a bowl.
Mix everything well together.
Shape the potatoes into small patties, about 15 patties. Make sure you press the patties hard against your palm when shaping. The patties should not have any air gap otherwise they would fall apart when fried.
Dip patties into egg, a couple at a time.
Deep-fry in hot oil.
Drain on paper towel (ignore the fact that we are still using yesterday’s newspaper in place of paper towel) and serve warm with fried rice and other dishes!