Minty Potato and Quinoa Patties with Lemon Tahini Sauce

My mother-in-law, who incidentally is the best cook in the world ( for real!),  makes these absurdly delicious potato cakes. They are light, fluffy, and amazingly delectable. In fact, she recently made some for Fig and I’m pretty sure he consumed at least a pound of potatoes in the process.

When Fig likes something, I tend to over-milk it, making six thousand versions of whatever he originally liked. Adding all kinds of different vegetables and herbs, I try to sell it as the “exact same thing!”. Sometimes he goes for it; most of the time not.

So it’s no surprise that upon discovering his love of abuela’s potato cakes I decided to recreate them with a few more vegetables hoping they’d be a huge hit as well.

But we ran into a few problems. Namely, the recipe was given to me in spanish and I don’t speak spanish. Turns out, understanding 75% of a recipe is kinda a big deal when it comes to cooking ( who knew??). When I had a gooey mess on my hands, I dialed up my husband, completely potatoifying my iphone in the process and explained the situation. Namely that the cakes were going to shit and I now had a two year old on my hands with potatoes so gooey I might as well poured super glue all over him.

But don’t you remember he said, she told you this dish requires a lot of patience. No, no I do not remember that.

So, after realizing I was plum out of patience (or should I say, never had any to begin with), I quickly nixed the original recipe and decided to improvise a bit. The cakes were pretty delicious nonetheless and Fig had a smashing time ( pun intended) mashing the potatoes. For a two year old who pretty much lives for total destruction, mashing the potatoes is as good as it gets.

Minty Potato and Quinoa Patties with Lemon Tahini Sauce

Ingredients for Patties:

• 2 cups of mashed potatoes
• 2 tablespoons of mint, minced
• 1 garlic clove, mashed
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup of cooked quinoa
• 1 cup of garbanzo flour
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• Oil for frying

Ingredients for Lemon Tahini Sauce:

• 1/2 cup of tahini
• 1 clove of garlic, mashed
• 1/2 a lemon’s juice
• 4 tablespoons of water
• salt to taste

Directions for Patties:

• Mix all ingredients together
• Form mixture into patties
• Fry on medium until patties are golden brown on each side
• Serve warm with Tahini Sauce

Directions for Lemon Tahini Sauce

• Mix everything in a food processor and serve on top of patties.