Slovak Potato Lokse
It’s been a while since I’ve enjoyed some of the beloved dishes from my youth when growing up in Slovakia. The current COVID-19 situation often gives me a hankering for something comforting, which is why I decided to make homemade potato “lokse” or as we’d call them here, tortillas. Unlike Mexican tortillas, these are made entirely of potatoes (no corn), flour, egg, salt, and butter. It’s important to be generous with the latter ingredient and to use good quality butter. You’ll need lots of it after the lokse are cooked, so you can roll them right up and enjoy them fresh.
Overall, I think this dish is a huge win for kids, as it’s fun to make and you can involve them in the process. In terms of devouring this simple treat, you can eat it as-is or dress it up with other things such as cheese, cold cuts, veggies, or what have you. If you’re not rolling it up, I’d suggest you cut it into bite sized pieces for those little hands - they’ll appreciate it.
Slovak Potato Lokse (serves 4 or makes about 10-12 lokse)
Prep time 20 minutes. Cook time 30 minutes.
Ingredients:
2 cups of all purpose flour. I used Bob’s Red Mill 1 to 1 Gluten Free flour and it worked great.
4 medium russet potatoes
1 egg
Butter. I used unsalted but feel free to use salted butter.
Directions:
Cook the potatoes with the skin on and boil them for about 10 minutes or until soft. Let cool and then peel the skin with a paring knife. Let cool for about 10 minutes so they’re not so hot to the touch and either rice them or finely mash them with a masher.
Add flour, egg and salt and knead with your hands til you get a nice smooth dough. Shape the dough into a long log or oval and then cut into 1 inch circles. Use a rolling pin to form into tortilla-shaped circles that are approximately 1/4 inch thick or even slightly thinner.
Heat a non-stick skillet or a pancake griddle if you have it (no oil needed). Cook lokse on each side for about 2 minutes or until you begin to see golden-brown spots appear. Take off the heat and coat with butter that should melt immediately. I use a light coating (about a 1/2 tablespoon) but you can use more or less if you like. The point is to get the lokse to glisten and to absorb that decadent butter flavor.
Roll it up and enjoy fresh. No filling needed, but if you think it needs something like protein, go ahead and improvise!
Kid wins:
Getting involved - I loved helping momma roll out the dough for the lokse and putting my whole body “into it!”
Learning about momma’s food - Momma used to eat lokse as a kid and it was fun to learn about them and making them.
Rolling, rolling, rolling - Once the lokse were ready, we rolled them up like a log and just chomped on them.
Grown-up wins:
Simple ingredients - Requiring only 4 simple ingredients that you probably already have on-hand, this dish is super accessible and easy to put together.
Inexpensive - If you’re looking to stretch the dollar, these do the trick, as you can get a lot of lokse out of just a few ingredients.
Little goes a long way - Since these are made of potatoes and eggs, just a few lokse fill the belly up, so again, you get a lot bank for your buck.
