This is the Swiss national dish without a doubt. It originated in the German-speaking part of the country, which includes northern and eastern Switzerland, as a typical peasant breakfast. Although it is currently consumed throughout the country, the truth is that it has not been so until relatively recently. In fact, there was talk of a "röstigraben" border between the German and French cantons, located the latests in the west of the country. It is not a physical border, but rather a mental one. "Rösti" is the name of the dish, while "Graben" could be translated as ditch or even trench. In french side they did not eat rösti, so the border had sense. Imagine how different they looked from each other.
The French-speaking part of Switzerland resembles France and the German-speaking part resembles the south of Germany states (Baden-Wurttemberg and Bavaria) . The Franco-Swiss are usually liberal while the German-Swiss are rather conservative, so each one votes in the innumerable electoral processes that are convened in the country accordingly.
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| Source : Marco Zanoli, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons |
Then there are the third parties in contention, which are the Italians who live in the south of the country and who also have an imaginary and fictitious line that separates them from the rest of the Swiss but less so from the Italians of Lombardy. Some call what separates Italian-Swiss from the rest of their compatriots as "polentagraben" (the border line where main food becomes polenta). The Italians ignore a lot Germans and French compatriots.
In Swiss schools, children learn the dominant language of their canton, another national language (Germans usually choose French, french ones choose german) and a foreign language, usually English. In cosmopolitan areas like Zurich or Geneva you find many trilingual people, more for professional promotion, but those who stay in their area soon forget the language of their compatriots on the "other side of the ditch" and tend more towards other countries where they talk like them. The Swiss in Geneva look to France and those in Zurich to Germany.
I remember once in a Geneva restaurant that two German-speaking Swiss had to switch to English because the waitress, a French-speaking Swiss, did not speak any German. Still, despite the ditches, Switzerland functions quite well as a country.
The Rösti is a kind of eggless potato omelette that curdles by the action of frying. Despite its simplicity, there is some dispute over whether it should be made with raw or previously cooked potatoes. The general consensus is that if eaten alone, the potato should be raw, but if it is accompanied by meat or other food, it should be boiled before.
INGREDIENTS (4 people) :
- 1 kg (2.2 lbs) of potatoes
- 1 onion
- Diced bacon (2 tbsp)
- Clarified butter
- Salt
The potato to use is the one that the Germans - and Swiss, of course - call "waxy", that is, after cooking it remains quite firm, as opposed to floury.
The potatoes are cooked in the skin the day before until they are soft. Let them cool and then put them in the fridge until the next day.
Now we are going to make clarified butter. To do this, melt about 100 grams (3.5 oz) of unsalted butter in a saucepan over medium heat. When it has melted, let it rest so that it stratifies. The upper layer, a kind of foam, is removed with a spoon.
The next layer, the thickest, is the clarified butter, which we separate by simple decantation. The layer at the bottom of the saucepan, opaque, we discard.
Peel the potatoes and grate them (caution: grated, not crushed or mashed). We mix the result with a teaspoon of salt.
Brush the bottom of a large skillet with clarified butter. Fry the diced bacon and the julienned onion over medium heat. We are not going to add it to the Rösti, it is only to give flavor, so when the onion is transparent we remove it all.
Add the grated potato and cook over medium-high heat for 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Now we lower the heat and with a spatula we press the grated potato against the bottom. Let do for 15 minutes. Once the time has elapsed, we place a plate, turn the Rösti over and do the same on the other side for another 15 minutes, squeezing from time to time so that it forms a compact whole.
It is served very hot. You will notice the taste of the potato but also of the bacon and onion, as well as the butter. A real delight.