Deruny (Potato Pancakes)

Potato pancakes, prepared from fresh chopped or grated potatoes, onions, eggs and flour, are commonly associated with various cuisines of Europe. In Ukraine they are called “deruny”, in Russia and Belarus “draniki”; similar recipes can be found in Polish, German, Austrian, Czech cuisines.

Potato pancakes are usually a main no meat dish for lunch or breakfast; it tastes good topped with sour cream or mushroom sauce.

Even though potato pancakes are good enough as a separate dish, they can be also served as a side dish for vegetable or meat main dish course.

Ingredients:

• 4-5 medium size potatoes (about 1.5 lb)
• 2-4 onions (to taste)
• 1 egg
• 2-4 tablespoons of all purpose flour
• Salt to taste
• Vegetable oil

How to prepare, step-by-step:

1. Prepare ingredients: onions are optional in this recipe and may be safely skipped, or reduce amount of them if you wish. Amount of flour is may vary as well if you like pancakes more firm add a bit more flour:
   
   

   Deruny (Potato Pancakes) Recipe: Step 1

2. Skin potatoes and pill onions:
   
   

   Deruny (Potato Pancakes) Recipe: Step 2

3. Take big bowl and grate onions on big slots (that may be challenging, so you may use food processor or mincer for this instead of grater):
   
   

   Deruny (Potato Pancakes) Recipe: Step 3

4. Then grate all potatoes on the grater on big slots as well, salt to taste and add an egg:
   
   

   Deruny (Potato Pancakes) Recipe: Step 4

5. Mix everything and add flour:
   
   

   Deruny (Potato Pancakes) Recipe: Step 5

6. Mix everything; as I said before you may vary amount of flour to obtain the texture of the batter you like, just remember the batter should be still liquid enough so you can easily ladle it:
   
   

   Deruny (Potato Pancakes) Recipe: Step 6

7. Warm up a skillet with 2-3 tbsp of vegetable oil (I usually take a sunflower one) over moderate heat. When skillet is warmed up, ladle a bit of batter with a table spoon and pour it to the skillet, correct the form if needed and fry on one side until browned in color, then flip to other side and fry for the same amount of time. Repeat the same procedure for the rest of the batter:
   
   

   Deruny (Potato Pancakes) Recipe: Step 7

8. Stack prepared potato pancakes on the plate:
   
   

   Deruny (Potato Pancakes) Recipe: Step 8

9. Serve potato pancakes warm with your choice of sauce. They are good with mayonnaise, sour cream, mushroom sauce or ungarnished:
   
   

   Deruny (Potato Pancakes)

Enjoy!

Related Recipes

• Zucchini Pancakes (Summer Squash Pancakes)
• Potato Cakes with Tomato-Mushroom Sauce
• Crepes with Fresh Cheese
• Lazy Varenyky (Fresh Cheese Lazy Dumplings)
• Fried Potato with Mushrooms