REPORTAGE: A dish with the status of historical and cultural value: learning to cook potato pancakes in the Grodno style

Draniki, potato pancakes, potato pancakes, bonds, pancakes, babka, shingles. Potato dishes are always popular in the Grodno region. At the same time, each locality has its own peculiarities of preparation and tricks to make them especially tasty. For example, in the agro-town of Yubileiny, Volkovysk district, gangs are fried on oak leaves, and in the agro-town of Nacha, Voronovsky district, national potato pancakes are prepared, their peculiarity lies in the fact that mushrooms are added to the potato dough. So, the recipes differ both in the way of frying, preparing the dough, and in the composition. BelTA correspondents went to the Shchuchinsky region and learned about the peculiarities of preparing one of the recipes for a popular local potato dish, which, along with others, has become a historical and cultural value of Belarus.

Elena Lysenya prepares the ingredients for a dish that her family has been preparing for centuries. The woman took over the family recipe from her mother, she, in turn, from her mother. So, through the generations, the recipe for custard potato pancakes or pancakes, as they are often called in the Shchuchinsky district, has come down to our days.

“The recipe for our potato pancakes is very simple, anyone, even the most inexperienced cook, can handle them. But for this you need to know one tricky secret. This is the peculiarity of family potato pancakes,” says Elena Lysenya. Grate potatoes on a fine grater, SALT. "Now - the most important thing. Potato mass should be doused with boiling water - brewed. For 6 potatoes - 1 liter of boiling water. After that, add sour MILK or kefir about half a liter and after - FLOUR. So that the dough is like thick sour cream, "- the hostess shares a secret.

Separately, in another bowl, you need to extinguish the soda in kefir or sour milk and add a little boiling water there. Then mix everything well. After kneading such a sourdough, add flour if necessary. And then the matter is small - one by one, potato pancakes are sent to the pan.

“Now, of course, we fry potato pancakes on a gas stove. Previously, they used an oven for this. To be honest, they turn out to be especially tasty on the oven,” says Elena Lysenya. But the most ruddy and crispy pancakes, says the hostess, are obtained from my mother - Evgenia Mikhailovna Danilevich. She is 73 years old and lives in the village of Boyary in the Shchuchinsky district. And they served potato pancakes with sour cream. “We used to add salt and cottage cheese to it at home,” says Elena Lysenya.

Just as Elena once adopted an original recipe from her mother, she passed it on to her children as a legacy. The woman admits that when they were little, she cooked such potato pancakes much more often.

And this dish has always been a daily meal. "Eat a couple of hot pancakes with sour cream and you'll be full for almost the whole day," says the hostess. But for the holidays, her mother used to bake MEAT in rye flour. But this recipe also has its own family secrets.

Katerina BENADYSYUK

Leonid SHCHEGLOV

BELTA.