Swiss · side

Rösti

Rösti reads richness 8.7, umami 6.5 and salinity 6.1 on Palate's 0–10 flavor X-ray — a Swiss side, about 13 hr 3 min. Measured from the recipe itself: ingredients and technique.

The flavor X-ray — six axes, 0–10

The measured notes (of 18)

Richness 8.7 · Umami 6.5 · Salinity 6.1 · Smoke 4.3 · Allium 3.4 · Warm Spice 1.5 · Sweetness 1.5 · Earthy 1.3 · Bitterness 1.3 · Heat 0.9 · Nutty 0.9

What's in it (8)

Time & effort: about 13 hr 3 min (1 hr 3 min active) · effort: involved

Nutrition (per 100 g, engine-estimated): 123.1 kcal, 4 g protein, 7.2 g fat, 11.3 g carbs

Dietary: Contains meat · Contains dairy — engine-derived; double-check anything allergy-critical.

How it's cooked (9 steps)

  1. Boil the potatoes whole in their skins in salted water for 20 minutes — they should be about three-quarters cooked, with a firm core a knife still meets.
  2. Drain them and leave them uncovered in a cool place for at least 12 hours, and preferably overnight. These are Gschwellti, potatoes boiled in the skin the day before, and this rest is the single thing that makes rösti work: as they cool the starch retrogrades and the flesh firms, so the grated shreds stay separate instead of turning to paste. A rösti made from raw potato and one made from hot potato both fail, in opposite directions.
  3. Peel the cold potatoes with your thumb — the skins slip off — and grate them on the coarse holes of a rösti grater or a box grater. Handle the shreds lightly and do not squeeze or rinse them.
  4. Fry the bacon and onion in a little of the clarified butter over medium heat for 8 minutes, until the bacon has crisped and the onion is gold. This makes it a Berner Rösti; the plain version leaves both out and is no less correct.
  5. Add the rest of the clarified butter and half the butter to a 24 cm heavy pan over medium heat. Tip in the grated potato with the salt, pepper, bacon and onion, and press it into an even cake without compacting it hard.
  6. Fry 10 minutes without touching it, until the underside is a deep even gold. Slide the knife around the edge and lift a corner to check.
  7. Sprinkle the milk over the top, cover the pan and cook 5 minutes more so the inside steams through.
  8. Cover the pan with a plate, invert the whole thing, add the remaining butter to the pan and slide the rösti back in to brown the second side for 10 minutes. Serve it cut in wedges, crisp outside and creamy within — in Bern it is breakfast, and everywhere else in German-speaking Switzerland it is what goes under the meat.
  9. Substitutions: lard can stand in for the clarified butter.

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Every number above is Palate's engine-measured estimate, computed from this recipe's ingredients and techniques — not human-tasted ratings or reviews.