Traditional Swiss rösti recipe

This traditional Swiss rösti recipe has a soft fluffy centre but is golden and crispy on the outside. The only hard parts are lifting and washing the new potatoes.

It's potato season at Our Green Home. This is one of the treats that only those willing to do the "man with a spade" thing are able to enjoy; the traditional Swiss rösti recipe made with new spuds. Actually you are less likely to damage them with a garden fork.

You can enjoy your rösti hot or cold; equally good in my opinion. But if you are insulin-resistant then my strong advice is to allow the potato cake to retrograde overnight in the fridge. The starch molecules curl into spirals, damping the effect of the gut enzymes to turn them into glucose; much of the carb reaches the colon instead to feed the eagerly waiting "friendly flora;" the microbiome.

• Reheating resistant starch
  

Many colours

There is such strong research that eating many coloured foods daily greatly reduces the all-cause of death; even in small quantities. So we sneak a grated zucchini, a red peppadew and freshly-ground turmeric into the dough. Of course some folk would question whether this is now a truly traditional Swiss rösti recipe; omit the extras if you prefer.

Spices

Use a fine planar to grate a teaspoon each of ginger, turmeric and frozen pepper; 1/4 tsp of freshly-roasted cumin. A little cinnamon would also help to keep the blood glucose down^[2].

Turmeric is easy to grow but ginger demands a warmer climate or a hothouse.

• Does turmeric help with inflammation
  

Butter

Butter is back and never should have been sent to Coventry; except for those who shun fruit, salads and whole grains. It adds incredible flavour to your traditional Swiss rösti recipe over the many seed oils often recommended; in excess they are highly inflammatory.

• Linoleic acid in sunflower and soyabean oil promotes inflammation
  

Eat your food in season

Potatoes have gained such bad press since we insisted on having them year round; from cold storage they are extremely glycaemic and will contribute to insulin resistance and diabetes.

But the chefs forgot to mention that new potatoes, freshly-lifted from the ground are so nutritious and healthy with a low GI.

Enjoyed with the skin on they are rich in fibre and many very important minerals like potassium that helps keep blood pressure down amongst other things.

• Salt versus potassium blood pressure debate

Use that liquid that you squeezed out of your grated potato and zucchini in other dishes; often it goes into our bread dough.

Once the season is over turn rather to wholegrain wheat, maize and unpolished rice for your starches; they too have a low glycaemic index but are often difficult to find on typical grocery store shelves. You may have to buy your own mill; then your bread and grits will be a tiny fraction of the retail price. And you will no longer need to fuss with that nasty four-letter word "diet."

That's the real joy of foods like this traditional Swiss rösti recipe made from new potatoes, wholegrain bread and stone-ground grits. The research is unequivocal; you will lose weight. Not all starches should be tarred with the same brush as those that are highly refined; and stored for long periods in cold storage.

The feeling of fullness is stimulated by all the fibre and resistant starch found in new potatoes; that is done via cells in the gut that secrete the "incretin hormones" which message the brain when we have had enough to eat.

• Feeling of fullness after eating
  

You should be able to scrape off the skin of a new potato with your thumbnail; slice a newly-lifted spud and you will immediately appreciate that like a fresh apple it has a crunchiness that is quite different.

Let that same potato get old, peel it and the stimulus to those cells in the gut is lost. These Swiss röstis taste so good; and you will continue to eat far too many of them.

My journey with potatoes

My journey with potatoes has three epic peaks; actually one of them was a dark sombre valley.

• The first was an unforgettable holiday in a tiny lodge nestled right under the Jungfrau and the Eiger. That was where I first experienced a traditional Swiss rösti recipe; I swore I would learn to cook it and did.
• The second, the dark sombre pit was the discovery that I was prediabetic and that grocery store potatoes from cold storage were public enemy number-one.
• And then I soared to the very heights when I discovered that new potatoes, freshly-lifted and unpeeled were the epicure's best friend; they didn't hit my blood glucose levels.
  

Jewish latke recipe

The potato latke is very similar to the traditional Swiss rösti recipe, except that it also has some egg and flour to bind the patty together; the thought of the gluten may bother some.

• Gluten intolerance and whole grains
  

To be honest I think the Swiss rösti is easier to make and perhaps even slightly nicer; fry an egg after lifting the patty from the pan if you want some extra protein.

Research shows that eggs too stimulate the release of the incretin hormones; you are less likely to eat too many latkes and röstis.

Traditional Swiss rösti recipe

Traditional Swiss rösti recipe is a healthy dish when cooked with new potatoes; there is no need to peel them. They are rich in two very important minerals that are desperately short in the average diet.

One unpeeled medium new potato contains 48 mg of magnesium; it is required in over 300 biochemical reactions going on continuously in the body. But people on a typical grocery store food get less than half the recommended dietary allowance^[3]; 400 milligrams.

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