Lefse

submitted by connyh-anon

Lefse is a potato flatbread. Also, it's technically supposed to come in
squares or rectangles, but
circles taste just as good and are easier for me. So.
You'll need, for 8 lefse rounds:

Ingredients:
3 medium-large potatos
1 tablespoon milk
2 tablespoons butter
2 teaspoon salt
at least 2 cups flour

Hardwa
a large pot
a large frying pan or griddle of some sort (at least 9 inch bottom
diameter)
a mixer or a potato masher
a bowl and plastic wrap or tupperware
a flat surface big enough to knead on
a rolling pin
a spatula

First, peel your potatoes. The fresher they are, the easier this is to do
and the less nasty they will be. If your potato has things growing out of
it and you absolutely can't get a new one, cut them out and don't eat
them for the love of god. Cut out all remaining black spots and cut them
in half or until they're about evenly sized. This is so they all cook at
the same speed. Now put them into a big pot and fill it with water to
cover them. Put some salt in, around a teaspoon or so. Now cover the pot,
and go do something else for a while. When they're done, take them out
and drain the water. We'll be using milk and butter for these potatoes,
not the potato water. You can tell when they're done when the middle isn't
hard and raw-potatoey anymore. Go ahead and cut one in half if you can't
tell by looking. Now, if you're lazy like me, you'll use a stand mixer to
mash the potatoes. If not, you can go at them with a potato masher or a
fork, whatever. Get them nice and mashed, then measure out two cups of
potato and set whatever you have left over aside. You can add garlic and
eat it by itself or make lazy noodles or shepherd's pie or something.
There is no such thing as too much mashed potatoes. Add the tablespoon of
milk, tablespoon of salt, and two tablespoons of butter to it and then
mash them again until it's all blended. Then put it into some sort of
container - I used that mixing bowl with plastic wrap over it (make sure
the plastic wrap is down inside the bowl touching the potatoes if you do
this) but a tupperware would be fine too. Stick it in the fridge until
it's cold. Usually about two hours works, although when I'm lazy I leave
it in there for a day or so. That should have taken about two hours. Now
pull the potatoes out and make sure that they're cold. Not room
temperature, but cold, and slightly stiff. Get your flour out and flour up
your flat surface. This is to keep the lefse dough from sticking to the
counter, which it will probably do anyway a few times. Put the chunk of
mashed potatoes down into the middle of the floured area and spread about
half a cup of flour over the top of it.

Now knead it for about ten minutes, gradually incorporating another half
cup of flour besides the amount of flour you'll have to add to replace
the stuff it picks up from your counter. After it has a whole cup of
flour in it, it will feel much doughier and nothing like mashed potatoes
anymore. Now you need to divide it into eight pieces and ball it up.
But whatever floats your boat, so long as you get eight equally sized
little balls of dough out of it. Spread more flour out onto your surface
- no, more. Lefse loves getting stuck when you roll it out, it's
infuriating. The best way to avoid it is to flip the dough over every
time you take a roll on the rolling pin, flick a little more flour under
it, and then roll the other side. Always keep your rolling pin well
floured, too. You want really thin pieces here, absolutely no thicker
than your average flour tortilla, otherwise they won't cook all the way
through and will taste a little doughy. They should work out to be about
nine inches diameter.

Once you have all eight pieces rolled out, heat up your frying pan or
griddle or whatever and grease it slightly if it isn't non-stick.
Non-stick is great for this purpose, though. Flip one of the uncooked
lefse into the pan and quickly unfold any creases that might have happened
with the spatula. You only turn lefse once, and you do it when you see
air bubbles forming under the lefse. It won't need to cook for as long on
the other side, but it will do the bubble trick again (harder to see this
time, careful not to leave it on too long and burn it!) or you can just
pick it up with the spatula and check underneath. When it's done, put it
on a plate and repeat. When you've done all eight lefse, you will have
the a plate of goodness. You can now do just about anything with it. Use
it as bread in sandwiches, wrap it around meatballs, eat it plain, or my
favorite, dessert lefse - smeared with butter and sprinkled with cinnamon
sugar.

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