The most mistaken step with potato pancakes is the one nobody counts as a step: you grate the potato, throw it in the pan and wonder why it falls apart. A potato is over 70 percent water. If that water stays inside, the mixture will not bind - it will steam instead of frying.

So the first and most important move is squeezing. Grated raw potato gets wrung out in a clean cloth or kitchen paper, all the way, until it stops releasing liquid. That is the difference between a golden crust and a wet mush, and it requires no extra ingredient.

Why a potato works as a pancake at all

Not because of the egg and flour - they only help. The starch in the potato is the natural binder: when the potato is grated or mashed, the starch is released and holds the shape. Egg, flour or breadcrumbs only stabilise the mixture to make it easier to work with. That is why the choice of variety is no triviality - you want a floury or all-purpose potato, with more starch. A waxy salad potato will let you down here.

Four rules that settle the job

Thickness - about one centimetre, so it cooks evenly; thinner burns, thicker stays raw in the middle. Temperature - medium, not high; on a high flame the outside races ahead before the inside is done. Flipping - wait until the base turns golden and only then turn; impatience is what tears them. And vegetables - courgette, onion or spinach going into the mixture must be squeezed first, otherwise they reintroduce the exact problem we solved at the start.

You do not even need a pan. The oven and the air fryer give perfectly decent results with far less oil, which is a real option when making a larger batch.

From Swiss rösti to dessert

From here on it is all a variation of the same base. The classic rösti is the purest form - just potato, nothing else. The German Kartoffelpuffer is served as a sandwich, with salmon, cream cheese, cucumber and dill. There is a version with courgette, with kale, with smoked salmon, with beef tataki and horseradish sauce. Purple potatoes are turned into bites baked in the oven and served with a cheese and dill sauce.

And one that changes the whole logic: a potato pancake with brown sugar and sour cream, as breakfast or dessert. Here the potato stops being a side dish and becomes a batter - which it always was anyway.

This is one of those lists worth reading not for the recipes but because all nine attach to a single item in the kitchen that everyone has and that usually ends up as mash. The potato is cheap, filling and keeps for a long time. In September, when the bills come back along with the school year, that means more than any trend.