Creamy fried Swiss potatoes: Rösti Potatoes with Gruyere

Parboiling potatoes before grating and frying them makes Swiss rösti potatoes creamy inside and crispy outside. Recipe and variations below.

MY SISTER RECENTLY REMINDED ME OF A TRIP WE TOOK TO TORONTO back in the 90s, which included brunch at one of those restaurants that have a bunch of food stations scattered through a pleasant, bustling hall. Places like that seem to have become the province of hospital and museum cafeterias, but at the time it was a fairly new concept, and, man, I loved it. The place was charming and inviting, everything we had was enjoyable, and everyone was having a lovely time. And the dish my sister particularly remembers was their Rösti potatoes.

Rösti potatoes are a homey comforting dish that originates in Switzerland, where it is still a favorite everyday home-cooked meal and a staple of the mountain huts catering to Alpine hikers. Here’s the central thing to know about this dish: it’s not a latke. To make latkes, you grate raw potatoes, then squeeze out the water, then fry them immediately. Rösti potatoes take two additional steps up front: first, you parboil the potatoes, then you cool them, and only after that are they grated and fried. Once I boiled the potatoes, I put them in the fridge overnight. If you are concerned about the glycemic index of the foods you eat, know that this step is beneficial, increasing the potatoes’ resistant starch content and contributing to a lower glycemic response. When you fry them up the next day, the result is a potato pancake with a crisp outside and a silky, creamy center—very different from latkes and hash browns.

In Switzerland, this dish is often topped with a fried egg or a lot of chopped bacon or even Züri-Gschnätzlet, a stew of veal and mushrooms. Some cooks like to directly mix in bacon or even tuna or smoked salmon before forming the pancake. That is, anything that goes with potatoes will work well here. Try this with more cheese on top, or a different cheese like a very sharp cheddar or a raclette, or fresh chopped herbs, or roasted asparagus, or a pile of sautéed wild mushrooms like chanterelles, or sour cream, or creme fraiche. Our recipe calls for making one huge pancake, because we liked the idea of cutting it into wedges, but you may make individual cakes instead if you prefer (which would be easier to flip).

By the way, for home cooks in North America, we strongly recommend using Yukon Gold potatoes for this dish. They are the closest to the varieties used in Switzerland for this dish (which are Lady Christa, Ostara, Sirtema, Urgenta and Victoria). Don’t use Russets (which tend to be very dry) or very waxy potatoes (which can lose their structure).

Print Pin

Rösti Potatoes with Gruyere

Parboiling potatoes before grating and frying them makes Swiss rösti potatoes creamy inside and crispy outside.

Course Light Meal, Side Dish

Cuisine Swiss

Servings 4

Ingredients

• 3 pounds of potatoes (see Kitchen Notes)
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter plus more
• 1 cup grated Gruyere

Instructions

• Don't peel the potatoes, just trim out the eyes. Put them in a pot and cover with water. Salt the water, bring it to a boil, and simmer the potatoes for 15 minutes. Scoop them out of the water and let them cool.
• When the potatoes are cool, grate them. I did this by hand using the coarsest teeth on the grater and stood the grater in a cake pan for stability. If the peel starts slipping around and resists being grated, set it aside; once you've finished grating the potatoes, chop the peel and add it to the grated potatoes. Put all of that into a medium bowl. Season generously with salt and pepper, and stir together with your hands.
• Add the olive oil and butter to a large nonstick skillet and heat it over a medium flame. Put in half the potatoes. Using a wide spatula, press them flat and round the edges. Scatter the gruyere on top and level it evenly with the spatula. Dot with a little butter here and there. Then put on the rest of the grated potato on top, even it out and press down all around with the spatula. Reduce the heat to medium-low, and sauté for about 6 to 8 minutes - lift up the pancake to make sure it isn't burning on the bottom.
• When the bottom is nicely golden brown, it's time to flip the rösti. Everyone has their preferred way of handing this. I slid the whole thing from the skillet onto a cutting board, then inverted the skillet over the pancake and quickly flipped the whole operation—easy!  Sauté that side too, about 6 to 8 minutes. Transfer to a platter and slice into wedges to serve.

Kitchen Notes

Pick your potatoes. In North America, we strongly recommend using Yukon Gold potatoes for this dish. They are the closest to the varieties used in Switzerland for this dish (which are Lady Christa, Ostara, Sirtema, Urgenta and Victoria). Don't use Russets (which tend to be very dry) or very waxy potatoes (which can lose their structure).

Variations, Swiss and otherwise. In Switzerland, this dish is often topped with a fried egg or a lot of chopped bacon or even Züri-Gschnätzlet, a stew of veal and mushrooms. Some cooks like to directly mix in bacon or even tuna or smoked salmon before forming the pancake. That is, anything that goes with potatoes will work well here. Try this with more cheese on top, or a different cheese like a very sharp cheddar or a raclette, or fresh chopped herbs, or roasted asparagus, or a pile of sautéed wild mushrooms like chanterelles, or sour cream, or creme fraiche.