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These aren’t the potato pancakes I posted earlier which used left-over mashed potatoes. These are finely grated, raw potatoes and onion. It’s a classic Ukrainian dish called Deruny. Our moms still make these regularly. This is actually Vadim’s post. He combined both our family recipes and it turned out perfect.
Ingredients for deruny:
- 5 medium size potatoes (about 1.5 lb)
- 1 onion
- 1 egg
- 3 Tbsp of all purpose flour
- 1 Tbsp of sour cream
- 1 tsp of salt and pepper to taste
- oil (for frying)
How to Make Deruny:
1. Prep all the ingredients. Peel potatoes and onion.
2 .Take big bowl, grate potatoes and onion (on the star shaped grater), taking turns and mixing grated mixture. Onion juice will keep potatoes from browning:
3. Add flour, egg, sour cream and mix it well, than add 1tsp of salt and some black pepper, batter should be still liquid enough so you can easily ladle it:
4 .Warm up a skillet with 2-3 Tbsp of oil over medium/high heat. Add 1 heaping Tbsp of mixture at a time to the skillet fry on one side until golden brown in color, then flip to other side and fry for the same amount of time. Repeat the same procedure for the rest of the batter:
5. Serve deruny warm, they are best with sour cream, enjoy.
Deruny - Ukrainian Potato Pancakes
Ingredients
- 5 medium size potatoes, about 1.5 lb
- 1 onion
- 1 egg
- 3 Tbsp of all purpose flour
- 1 Tbsp of sour cream
- 1 tsp of salt and pepper to taste
- Cooking oil
Instructions
Prep all the ingredients:
- Peel potatoes and onion:
- Take big bowl, grate potatoes and onion (on the star shaped grater), taking turns and mixing grated mixture. Onion juice will keep potatoes from browning.
- Add flour, egg, sour cream and mix it well, than add 1 tsp of salt and some black pepper, batter should be still liquid enough so you can easily ladle it.
- Warm up a skillet with 2-3 Tbsp of cooking oil over medium/high heat. Add 1 heaping Tbsp of mixture at a time to the skillet fry on one side until golden brown in color, then flip to other side and fry for the same amount of time. Repeat the same procedure for the rest of the batter.
Serve deruny warm, they are best with sour cream, enjoy.
Hi Natasha,
These look great, I am planning to make them this week.
Do you know if you can make the batter in advance- say if I made the batter in the evening and cooked them the next morning?
Thank you!
Katie
Hi Katie, I have always made the pancakes right away and haven’t tried storing the batter overnight. The onion helps it to keep it’s color while your making the batch of pancakes but I think it would brown if left refrigerated overnight.
That’s my Baba’s Onyschuk’s recipe! (Born 1902!) She added dill as well, “fresh”, of course! (She also drained the water from the grated potatoes. Not so soupy then. (More technical Baba info – drain water from grated potatoes into a small bowl – squeeze as much as you can out. Let the water settle, you will see the potato starch settle to the bottom. Pour off water, and add starch back into potatoes. Duje Dobra!
How wonderful that these have been made for centuries! Thank you so much for sharing your story and tips with us! 🙂
What kind of potato do you use, russet potatoes or yukon potatoes?
Thank you!
I’ve done it with both and it works well with both 🙂
May I ask why you add sour cream, my mom never does and they come out delicious!
I think it makes them lighter and adds flavor. I’m not sure why else. Mom has always done it that way 🙂
I was just making these today and wanted to see what your recipe ingredients had. My aunt told me the sour cream keeps the potato mix from turning brown too fast 🙂
Ah! That does make sense! Thanks for sharing that with me 🙂
That’s the way we make them in Germany, too, but instead of sour cream we use Applesauce
I’ve never tried applesauce. Thanks for sharing! 🙂
These are amazing! Made them this morning for kids, and my daughter kept adding more sour cream to eat it with. She said it tastes good. Thank you!
That’s awesome!! It sounds like she’s a fan! 🙂
does it work the same if you use a food processor for the potatoes instead of grating?
You can puree the potatoes in a food processor if you have a strong processor. We’ve used our blendtec blender with good results also 🙂
I was browsing your blog for recipes to make this week, saw this, and thought to myself… I could make this right now. And so I did!
What a tasty treat! I think I may take other commenters suggestions regarding putting the potatoes and onion into a food processor. Although it may cut the prep time, it will definitely add to the ‘wash and dry everything’ time.
Thanks so much for all the recipes you post. Love this blog!
Hi Emily! Thank you so much for your nice comment. I’m so happy you are enjoying the blog and recipes. 🙂
Love your potato pancake recipe. Made it tonight. . Husband is 1/2 Ukrainian. Just like his Baba made. He loved it!! So– is Baba Grandma.and cake?! Kind of confused– your recipes are sooooooo special. Thank you , Natasha. – Carol
Thank you Carol for the great review, I love it when a recipe brings back great memories from the childhood :).
These were amazing! Thank you for posting the recipe. My grandma & mom cook things by eye & I love having actual measurements. I don’t have a kitchen aid grinder but I used the fine shredder attachment & it’s super quick & easy. They’re going to be a bit more corse but they still end up nice & soft. Also I like to add a bit of vegeta & some chopped up parsley 🙂
Thank you for the great review Nataliya and great job on improvising :).
Just made these this morning for my dads birthday. Are they supposed to be soggy when you take them off the pan? It seemed like they weren’t done but they were nice and brown. Should I have drained some of the juices? The batter did seem a bit watery!
They should be soft on the inside but definitely not soggy. You might try cooking them a little longer over lower heat so they don’t brown as quickly. I hope that helps! It’s possible your potatoes were larger and so your mixture may have been juicier. If you had juice pooling at the top (which is unusual), you’d definitely want to drain it off.
Hi Natasha!
I made these as part of a main yesterday and everyone loved them!
I have a small foodie blog and would like to make a post about these pancakes – would that be ok with you? I wouldn’t post the recipe itself, just a paragraph about it and a link to this page.
Let me know! And thanks for sharing 🙂
Kate
That would be great! Thanks so much for sharing 🙂
This recipe transported me to my childhood. Thanks for sharing. They tasted just like my Baba’s, mmmmm!!
That’s music to my ears. Thanks for sharing that with me 🙂
Just made these for New Years Day breakfast! They were heavenly! I’m hooked! I put the potatoes and onions in the food processor, they turned out PERFECT and very fast/easy! Thanks!
Thanks for sharing your method and I’m so glad you loved the recipe 🙂
I use a kitchen aid meat grinder to grind up the potatoes. It works great and is a lot faster than doing it by hand. It ends up looking exactly like in the pictures!
That’s a great idea! Do you dice up the potatoes first? Or are they just big enough to fit through the meat grinder?
That’s a great idea! Do you dice up the potatoes first? Or are they just big enough to fit through the meat grinder?
If the potatoes are big I’ll cut them into quarters. I cut them lengthwise twice. If they’re small enough to fit as is I don’t bother cutting them at all 🙂
Awesome! Thanks! 🙂
Unfortunately, these tasted only so-so and were VERY greasy. My toddler rejected these yelling “Don’t like! Don’t like!”.
I’m sorry to hear your toddler didn’t like them. They aren’t supposed to be greasy. Did you wait until the oil was hot before adding them to the pan? Also, I like to put them on paper towels when they come out of the pan to remove any excess oil.
Thank you so much…Our side is Polish and Ukarian. My father made these only on holidays, especially good Friday, when you could not eat meat.
These are wonderful! IThey “certainly beat the ones they have on the menu of your local “Big Boys Restruarant!~laughing~
I like adding green onion to reciepe for a rerally great flavor! Especially the “green leaves”…Love topping with both sour cream and applesauce…Thank you both!
Applesauce? Hmmm that sounds interesting! That green onion does sound like a really good add-in. Thank you!
Having russian visitors for Christmas and want to make some beloved russian dishes but would rather spend the time visiting so i would like to know what you would suggest that could be made and frozen ahead of time. One of the things i am going to make is stuffed cabbage but need a few other ideas. They will be staying with me for 6 days. Thanks.
Have you tried nalesniki? They are a perfect make-ahead breakfast!
Thanks!!! I have been looking for this recipe since when I came back from Ukraine <3
You are welcome Sara, enjoy :).
Oops Мяса still getting used to my Ukrainian keyboard layout and spelling too for that matter lol 🙂
I guessed that was what you meant 😉