Masher Cakes

What do you do when you have lots of leftover mashed potatoes? Make masher cakes!
First, mix your mash with an egg and your favorite herb like thyme or parsley.

Egg + Mash

After that carefully shape the mixture into flat discs. I cheated by using a biscuit cutter because they fell apart so easily even after refrigerating the mixture for an hour!

Biscuit cutter is awesome and cheap!

As you can see I skipped over the step where I was supposed to divide the mash into evenly sized balls. Next time I'll have to do this so that all of the masher cakes come out to the same thickness. 

#005: Divide mixtures into evenly sized balls to hit target number of patties before pressing.

Next, carefully coat discs in panko breadcrumbs one at a time.

Transferring these babies felt like I was handling those green balls from "The Rock."

Since they were so hard to handle, I had to use a silicone spatula and a fork. After a couple of tries I was able to transfer the patties without the mash breaking apart. Heat up cooking oil with a high smoking point to 350 degrees F. I used grapeseed oil bought from my local Costco.

Electric skillet not so awesome for frying.

To regulate the temperature of the oil automatically, I used an electric skillet, but it didn't seem to be sensitive enough and didn't bring the oil back up to temperature quickly enough, so I ended up having to cook the masher cakes longer resulting in a greasier dish. 

#006: Beware of temperature fluctuation when adding items for frying among other cooking techniques.

I think I'll go with a stove top and thermometer next time. Once the oil is hot enough, carefully place mash in the oil taking care not to splash hot oil on yourself.

#007: Flip items being fried away from you to avoid splashing oil on yourself.

Once they become GBD (Alton Brown's acronym for Golden, Brown, and Delicious), let them rest on a plate with a paper towel or a cooling rack. I prefer the latter since it keeps the bottoms drier than with paper towels.

Parchment paper for easy cleanup!

You'll notice I put some parchment paper underneath in hopes of easy cleanup. Transfer to a plate and sauce the masher cake. Alton suggests sour cream and/or apple sauce much like the potato pancakes at Red Lion or my Ukranian brethren in New York, but I prefer the stronger taste of tonkatsu sauce.

Finished!

Delicious! The crunchy outside with the tender inside combined with the bold flavors of tonkatsu sauce really make this dish a winner.

I'm familiar with it because they serve a variation of masher cakes in Japanese cuisine. Borrowing from the French, they call it potato croquette and usually mix in cooked onions and ground beef before frying. While researching how to make potato croquette I found that shaping the mash without egg mixed in was more manageable, but required dredging the discs in flour and an egg wash to get the panko bread crumbs to stick evenly.

What a wonderful way to end the night! Clean up was a cinch too!