Beer Potato Pancakes

St. Patrick's Day is my favorite holiday. Ok- it helps that it's my birthday and that I'm part Irish. Every year I have corned beef and cabbage. This year I decided to blog my dinner, so I thoroughly confused my family by having our St. Patrick's Day dinner several days early. Maybe this year we will go to an Irish pub for my birthday and someone else can cook. I can almost taste the Black Velvet (half Guinness and half hard cider) that I am going to order.
This is the first year that I added potato pancakes to our meal, and I am glad I did. I love potato pancakes and I used the leftovers for corned beef hash the next morning.
The beer you use in this recipe is important because you will taste the beer in the potato pancakes (at least I did). When we cook with beer, we usually have a debate over which beer to use. Strange, we don't have a debate over any of the other ingredients - but the beer you chose makes that much difference and there are so many to chose from. It is a wonderful problem to have.
For this recipe, I recommend a light lager or ale. Specific beers I would use: Harp's Lager (in keeping with the St. Patrick's Day theme),  O'Malley's Cream Ale, Shiner's Dortmunder Style Spring Ale, Leffe's Belgium Blonde (Pale Ale), Boulevard Pale Ale, and  Blue Moon Belgium White Ale. I happen to love all of these beers so it is likely that we will have one or more of them in our house.  I don't cook with a beer that I wouldn't drink - Please note- If I left a beer off that you would recommend, I am in the middle of the country and I am limited to the beers in my region. Please add your recommended beer to the comments section.

Beer Potato Pancakes

1 Onion (170 g)
3 Potatoes (785 g)
1 Large Egg, Beaten
3 Tbsp of Unbleached All Purpose Flour

1 Cup (250 ml) of Ale or Lager
2 Tbsp of Vegetable or Canola Oil

Grate onions and potatoes (either by hand or in a food processor). Beat an egg in a medium size bowl and add the potatoes and rest of the ingredients to the egg (except the oil).


Add the oil to a skillet on medium-high heat. Add potato mixture to the hot skillet and cook on one side until the edges are turning brown. Flip the pancake and cook until crispy. We serve with sour cream. This recipe makes a lot of potato pancakes, which is good because I have uses for the leftovers.