Mayo Boxty

This, then, is my interpretation of Mayo boxty à la Martina McGuire, using just raw potatoes, flour and salt. It’s a dense, chewy pancake that’s almost pure potato. For the record, Martina’s preferred potato for boxty is Maris Piper.

You’ll need:

approx. 500g potatoes (2 largish potatoes), preferably a floury variety
0.75tsp fine salt
2-3 tblsp plain flour
butter for frying

You’ll also need:

A grater, a clean tea towel and a large frying pan

The Steps:

Peel the potatoes, grate them very finely and, wrapping the grated potato in a clean tea towel, squeeze out as much liquid as you can into a bowl and set the bowl aside. At this point (and partly because I did not have as fine a grater as I would have liked) I chopped the squeezed, grated potato finely.
In a medium-sized bowl, toss the grated potatoes with the salt and about 2 tblsp of flour. You want the mixture to come together enough so that you can shape it into little patties. If the mixture is very wet, add a little more flour. If it’s a bit dry, add some of the starch that will have collected at the bottom of the bowl of squeezed potato liquid.
Place your frying pan over a medium heat and add about 1 tblsp of butter. Shape the potato mixture into small patties, around 7-8cm across and 5mm thick, and add to the pan once it’s hot and the butter has melted. Depending on the size of your pan, you may need to fry the boxty in batches. Fry for around 6-8 minutes before turning the pancakes over and adding a bit more butter to the pan. Fry for another 5-7 minutes or until golden on both sides.
Serve hot with additional butter, on their own, as part of a fry-up, as a base for any number of savoury toppings or have them sweet with honey.

The Variations:

There are any number of things that you could add to the basic boxty mixture: garlic, chives, spring onions, parsley, coriander, dill and much more besides.

The Results:

Makes around 8 small boxty pancakes, enough for 2-3 people