Rec: Frankie's Potato Knish, The Easy Way

Buy one box of the packaged potato pancake mix (that’s LATKE
not KUGEL) in the international food section and the puff-pastry
sheets from the frozen dessert section – both are available
at Publix.

Follow the directions on the puff pastry box and the potato
pancake mix.

There are two sheets of the puff pastry. You can cut the two
sheets in half so that you now have four pieces. Let thaw
while you prepare the potato pancake mix.

Follow the directions on the box to prepare the potato pancake
mix. Then, after it’s mixed, pour it into a large glass baking
container and nuke it at HIGH for 10 minutes, or until the center
holds a toothpick upright. You don’t want to dry out the mix
or burn it, but you do want it done, so you might have to stop
the microwave and stir the mix again before resuming the
nuking to make sure it’s all cooked.

Now that you’re happy that it’s cooked through, it should still be
pliable and crumbly. Put it in four equal measures on the four
pieces of puff pastry sheet. Smoosh it into a rectangular form
on the sheet. I usually make sure it’s toward one side so I can
just fold the other half of the sheet over and have it fairly
evenly distributed but still covered by the pastry. Or you can
put the potato mix in the middle of the sheet and pull up the
four corners and make it look pretty. I prefer the simple
fold-over and pinch the edges together on the open three
sides of the little “bed” of pastry like I do. The theory is,
you don’t want to bite pastry without getting some potato
in it.

Put it in the conventional oven on a cookie sheet and bake at
400 degrees or until the shell is golden brown. Take it out
and let it cool.

Good eating.