Camping and comfort food go hand in hand, and for breakfast, can you get anything more comforting than a fry-up with a boxty or two?
These potato pancakes are thought to originate in the North West of Ireland, but as always, with traditional recipes, you’ll find loads of variations all over Ireland and beyond.
This camping version of the boxty uses half and half mash and grated potato, but you can adapt to your taste. If you want a more hash brown texture, use more grated potato or, for a pancake texture, use more mashed potato.
The more traditional Irish recipes use buttermilk as the liquid, and If you can get hold of this, it’s always the best option because buttermilk is an acidic, fermented ‘milk’ that will react with the baking powder to produce a nice rise to your pancake. If buttermilk isn’t available to use equal parts milk with natural, unsweetened yogurt instead. You could even use just milk and maybe an egg to bind the potato and flour together. As I said, there are so many versions that whatever tweaks you make, as long as you have a mixture that sticks together, it should turn out just fine.
You can add scallions and/or flaked fish to the recipe if you like and cheese sprinkled on top is a great way to vary the flavor, but to start with, why not try the plain, simply delicious version?
A little tip is when frying in a skillet on a campfire, it isn’t always easy to avoid burning the butter, and it isn’t very nice to get that burnt butter flavor on your food. If you add a touch of cooking oil to the pan along with the butter, you will stop it from burning.
The boxty is great served with bacon, eggs, and beans for a traditional Irish breakfast.
When you finish with this recipe, be sure to check out these recipes.
Greek Pita Breakfast Wrap Cast Iron Skillet Camping Recipe
Spanish Omelet- Tortilla Española Camping Recipe
Instructions
Ingredients
- 1 cup mashed potato
- 1 cup grated potato
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- Salt
- Black pepper
- 1 tsp baking powder
- Approximately 1 cup buttermilk (or half & half milk/natural yogurt)
- Butter/oil to fry
Instructions
- Peel and cube half the potatoes and boil until just soft.
- Mash them up, making sure there are no lumps.
- Grate the same amount of raw potato. Squeeze out the excess water thoroughly in a clean teacloth.
- Add the two types of potatoes together.
- Add the flour, baking powder and enough buttermilk to form a thick batter which just falls off your spoon when dropped.
- Season to taste.
- Heat a skillet with a touch of butter and oil until it is sizzling hot.
- Spoon heaped tablespoons of the mixture into the skillet and cook for about 8 minutes on either side or until golden brown on the outside and the raw potato is cooked on the inside.
- Place on kitchen paper and wrap in aluminum foil to keep warm while the rest are cooking.