Pickert

Pickert is a flat potato dish from Westphalia in Germany, either fried in a pan or baked, and sits somewhere between a flattened dumpling and a very filling pancake. It takes several shapes: a pan-sized Pfannenpickert, a rectangular Kastenpickert, or the ordinary palm-sized pickert. The batter is made from grated potatoes, flour, milk and eggs, usually with raisins and a little yeast, salt and sugar, and it is cooked in oil. It is a specialty of the Lippe district, where it grew out of a cheap, nourishing meal for poorer farmers, who ate it for breakfast or lunch before a day's work in the fields. Today it is served spread with sugar beet syrup, butter, plum jam or liver sausage. The related Lappenpickert of the regions west of Lippe is baked thinner and usually has no raisins or yeast. The name comes from the Low German picken, to stick something onto something else.