Table Trotter

Dinner night · Belarus

Draniki with Mushroom Sour-Cream Sauce

Belarusian crisp-edged potato pancakes with a creamy mushroom and dill sauce: a vegetarian, gluten-free dinner from a grater and one skillet.

Belarus · back to the map
On our list — not yet cooked
Draniki with Mushroom Sour-Cream Sauce: Belarusian crisp-edged potato pancakes with a creamy mushroom and dill sauce: a vegetarian, gluten-free dinner from a grater and one skillet
AI-generated illustration
Prep
20 min
Cook
30 min
Total
50 min
Serves
2 adults + 1 child, about 15 pancakes
Budget
$12–$20

Draniki are Belarus's potato pancakes: finely grated raw potato and onion, bound with egg, fried in a thin layer of oil until the edges go lacy and brown while the middle stays tender. The name comes from the verb for grating or tearing. In Belarus they arrive at the table in a stack or a clay pot with a bowl of sour cream, and often with a mushroom sauce or a pork stew alongside. Our version pairs them with a sauce of browned mushrooms, onion, sour cream and dill, plus a simple tomato-and-cucumber salad, for a meat-free dinner that still feels substantial.

Why it's on our list

We needed more vegetarian dinner nights, and this is one where no one will ask where the meat went. Potato pancakes already get a yes at our table in their Hanukkah form, so the lesson here is the Belarusian details: grating the potato very fine rather than in shreds, squeezing it hard, and skipping the flour so the pancake is almost pure potato. The mushroom sauce is the part I am most curious about, since forest mushrooms are a defining flavor of Belarusian cooking and I want to see how close supermarket creminis get. It is cheap, it is gluten-free as written, and the only real work is standing at the stove for two batches.

Field notes · Origin & culture

Potatoes arrived in the lands of present-day Belarus in the eighteenth century and became so central to the diet that Belarusians have long joked about themselves as a potato nation; the country still ranks among the world's highest in potato consumption per person. Draniki are widely described as the national dish, though very similar pancakes exist across the region as Ukrainian deruny, Polish placki and German Kartoffelpuffer, and food writers trace printed references to the early 1800s. Belarusian cooking also leans heavily on mushrooms gathered from the forests that cover much of the country, on sour cream, and on dill, all of which show up in the sauce here. Machanka, a pork-and-sour-cream stew, is the other classic partner for draniki.

Noteworthy ingredients

  • Starchy potatoes: Russets grate well and hold together without flour. Grate them on the fine side of a box grater (or the fine disc of a food processor), which makes a wetter, smoother batter than the shreds you would use for latkes. Work quickly; grated potato browns within minutes.
  • Onion: Grated into the batter, it seasons the pancakes and slows the browning of the potato.
  • Full-fat sour cream: For the sauce and for the table. Low-fat versions split when heated.
  • Cremini or white mushrooms: Brown them hard before anything else goes in. A small handful of dried porcini, soaked and chopped, adds a woodsier flavor that is closer to the forest mushrooms Belarusian cooks would use; it is optional.
  • Fresh dill: Finish both the sauce and the salad with it.

Prep — 20 min

  1. If using dried porcini, cover them with 1/2 cup hot water and set aside 15 minutes; chop them and save the soaking liquid in place of the broth.
  2. Make the salad: cut the tomatoes and cucumber into chunks, toss with 1 tablespoon vinegar, a pinch of salt and a tablespoon of chopped dill. Set aside.
  3. Slice the mushrooms. Finely dice one onion and mince the garlic. Chop 3 tablespoons dill.
  4. Peel the potatoes and the second onion. Grate both on the fine side of a box grater into a bowl, alternating potato and onion so the onion juice keeps the potato from browning.
  5. Scoop the grated mixture into a clean kitchen towel over the sink and wring it out hard; you want it as dry as you can manage. Return it to the bowl, beat in the eggs, 1 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper. The batter should be thick enough to hold a mound on a spoon.

Cook — 30 min

  1. Start the sauce. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium-high heat, add the mushrooms and cook 6–8 minutes, stirring rarely, until they are browned and squeaky. Add the diced onion and a pinch of salt; cook 4 minutes until soft. Add the garlic and chopped porcini, if using, for 30 seconds.
  2. Pour in the broth or porcini liquid and simmer 2 minutes. Turn the heat to low and stir in 3/4 cup sour cream and 2 tablespoons dill. Keep it warm but never boiling; season with salt and pepper.
  3. Heat 1/4 inch of oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat until a drop of batter sizzles at once. Drop heaping tablespoons of batter into the pan and flatten each into a 3-inch pancake. Fry 3–4 minutes per side until deep golden with crisp, lacy edges.
  4. Move the finished draniki to a rack or paper towels and sprinkle with salt. Repeat, adding oil as needed. If the batter weeps liquid between batches, pour the liquid off rather than stirring it back in.
  5. Keep finished pancakes warm in a 200°F oven if you are working in one skillet.

Serving

Stack four or five draniki per plate, spoon the mushroom sauce over or beside them, and put the remaining sour cream and the tomato-cucumber salad on the table. Everything here is mild, so my son gets the same plate as the adults, and the only variable is how much sauce goes on. Black pepper and extra dill are the adult upgrades. Draniki are best straight from the pan; leftovers keep a day and re-crisp in a dry skillet or a hot oven. The sauce reheats gently on low with a spoon of water.

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