Rösti Recipe

You know, this whole "working for a living" thing sucks.  There is never enough time now to juggle work and kids and recipes.  I know most people have/are going through it, but I haven't since I have been married with kids up until a couple of weeks ago, so it is fairly new.  Anyway, to continue on with my Swiss fair recipes, I am going to share my version of rösti.  So what is rösti anyway, you ask?  Well, it is like a potato pancake or hash brown kicked up a notch.  You could have it for breakfast I suppose, but we typically make it for dinner, as it is really filling and takes some time to make.  Here is what you need and how to make it:

4-5 white potatoes (you could probably use any, but that is what I usually use) coarsely shredded
2 shallots or one medium onion, finely shredded
2 cloves of garlic, minced
4 eggs, divided
4 slices of ham
Raclette cheese (if you can find it) or cheese curd
generous amount of salt
pepper

Shred the potatoes and put into a sieve.  Try to squeeze out as much of of the moisture in the spuds as possible.  Sprinkle some salt on the potatoes to help prevent them from getting brown.  Put the shredded potatoes in a bowl, add in one egg, the onion, pepper and garlic.

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit.  In an oven safe frying pan (non-stick if possible), heat to medium heat, and put in a generous amount of olive oil.  Toss in the potato mixture into the pan and constantly stir for about 10 minutes to start cooking the potatoes. After the 10 minutes, form the potatoes into a patty and cook, for about another 10 minutes, until golden brown on the bottom.  Flip the patty over, (which may seem difficult, but you can either flip it in the pan, or slide it onto a plate and flip it back onto the frying pan), and cook for another few minutes.  Put the ham onto the rösti and then the cheese and toss into the oven for about 10 minutes, or until the cheese is nice and gooey.  Fry up the remainder of the eggs (traditionally, served sunny side up, but we like them over easy) and put on the rösti when out of the oven.  Cut into sections and serve.

Alternatives:

-You could make the rösti smaller without the toppings and serve as a side with a steak.

-To kick it up a notch, toss some raw bacon or pancetta into the potato mixture.

-You could also toss in some finely chopped broccoli and/or cauliflower to hide some veggies (we've done it before, and turned out well)

Hopefully, I will be able to post again before another two weeks, but really, it is all chore dependent.  This post took around 12 hours to get through.

-d