Kimchi potato fritters with scallion cream cheese and maple syrup

A few weeks ago I started an Instagram account for this project, with the idea that I'll also share some restaurants I love, and maybe make some recipe reels. It never crossed my mind that making these videos would be hard. I had absolutely no ground for such enthusiastic confidence as I'd never actually made one before and BOY did I disappoint. I kicked off cooking like normal and ended up with shaky grainy videos of maybe a quarter of the essential steps. Felt very old indeed. The reel is up for your entertainment on Instagram. It's currently been viewed by about 1300 people and has a whopping 8 likes! Stoked!

The food however was absolutely amazing, so crispy, kinda spicy, the maple syrup makes for a nice surprise, all together a success. Give her a go!!

Ingredients #

For 2 (we made this for lunch, if you wanna eat it for dinner I'd recommend making like a salad or something along side it to make it a full meal):

• 5 large potatoes
• 250g kimchi
• 1 egg
• Vegetable oil for frying
• 2 scallions
• Cream cheese
• Maple syrup
• Salt
• Black pepper

Method #

1. Grate the potatoes and finely chop the kimchi. Put them in a clean kitchen towel and squeeze as much water out of the mix as possible. Really have a go at this, cause water ruins crispiness!

2. Once you've squeezed like you've never squeezed before, add the potato and kimchi to a large bowl together with a generous amount of salt, pepper and one egg. Mix to combine, and divide the mixture into six evenly sized balls.

3. Heat up enough vegetable oil in a cast iron skillet to comfortably coat the bottom of the pan, think a 1cm layer throughout.

4. When the oil is hot (test this by adding a tiny bit of potato in the oil, if it starts to sizzle immediately you're good to go) add three balls at the time, to avoid overcrowding the skillet, and smash them flat with a spatula. The flatter the fritters are the more crispy they get!

5. Bake the fritters until deeply golden brown and crispy on both sides. Once done, transfer to a wire rack, sprinkle with salt immediately, and repeat with the remaining half of the potato kimchi mix.

6. In the meantime, chop the scallions and mix them through two heaping tablespoons of cream cheese with a pinch of salt and freshly ground black pepper.

7. When the fritters are all crispy and golden brown, plate them up, add a dollop op cream cheese on both servings and drizzle with maple syrup. Finish things off with some flaky salt and black pep and enjoy!

Maybe a contender for boozy brunch this weekend?