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Boxty Pancake Recipe: Leitrim-Style Thin Boxty Rolled with Sautéed Mushrooms
There is an old rhyme that has been repeated in Irish kitchens for generations: “Boxty on the griddle, boxty in the pan; if you can’t make boxty, you’ll never get a man.” Cheeky as it is, that little verse tells you everything about how seriously the people of counties Leitrim, Cavan, and Roscommon once took their boxty. In the poorer, hillier parishes of Ulster and north Connacht, the potato was not merely a staple — it was survival itself — and boxty was the ingenious way of stretching every last scrap of it into something nourishing and genuinely delicious.
The Leitrim style of boxty is the thinnest and most delicate of all the regional variations. Rather than being formed into thick cakes or boiled dumplings, the batter is made by combining raw grated potato with buttermilk, a little flour, and egg, then cooked on a hot griddle into a pale, lacy pancake with a slightly chewy, starchy centre. The raw potato is the defining character here — it gives the finished pancake a quality quite unlike anything made from floury mash, with a gentle earthiness and a texture that sits somewhere between a French crêpe and a potato cake. Historically, these were eaten with nothing more than a scraping of butter, but the tradition of rolling them around a savoury filling is well established in the region, and wild or cultivated mushrooms — sautéed simply in butter — make a filling that feels entirely at home.
What makes boxty so rewarding to cook is that it asks very little of you in terms of equipment or expense, yet the result is something genuinely special. These are a wonderful breakfast, a satisfying lunch, or a starter that will quietly impress anyone who sits down at your table. If you have never made them before, do not be deterred by the grating — the whole process is straightforward and unhurried, which is precisely in the spirit of Leitrim cooking. If you would rather try the classic version made from a mix of raw and mashed potato, see our traditional Irish boxty recipe.
Ingredients
- For the boxty batter
- 450g (1 lb) floury potatoes, such as Roosters or Kerr’s Pinks, peeled
- 120g (4 oz / scant 1 cup) plain flour
- 1 tsp fine salt
- ½ tsp baking powder
- 1 large egg, lightly beaten
- 200–250ml (7–9 fl oz) buttermilk, plus extra if needed
- A little sunflower oil or butter, for greasing the pan
- For the mushroom filling
- 400g (14 oz) chestnut or button mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
- 30g (1 oz / 2 tbsp) unsalted butter
- 1 small garlic clove, finely chopped
- A small handful of fresh thyme leaves, or ½ tsp dried thyme
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper
- A small squeeze of lemon juice
- 2 tbsp crème fraîche or soured cream (optional, but lovely)
Method
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- Begin with the mushroom filling, as it can sit and stay warm while you cook the boxty. Melt the butter in a wide frying pan over a medium-high heat. Add the mushrooms in a single layer — do this in two batches if necessary, as crowding the pan will cause them to steam rather than colour. Cook for 4–5 minutes, stirring only occasionally, until golden at the edges.
- Add the garlic and thyme to the mushrooms and cook for a further minute. Season well with salt and pepper, add the lemon juice, and stir through the crème fraîche if using. Remove from the heat and set aside.
- Now make the batter. Grate the raw peeled potatoes on the coarse side of a box grater directly into a clean tea towel or a piece of muslin. Gather the cloth and squeeze firmly over the sink to remove as much liquid as possible — this step is important, as excess moisture will make the pancakes heavy and difficult to turn.
- Tip the squeezed grated potato into a large mixing bowl. Add the flour, salt, and baking powder and stir to combine. Add the beaten egg and 200ml of the buttermilk and mix to a smooth, pourable batter roughly the consistency of double cream. If it feels too thick, add a splash more buttermilk.
- Heat a large flat griddle or non-stick frying pan over a medium heat and grease it lightly with a little oil or butter on a folded piece of kitchen paper. When the pan is hot, pour in roughly 80ml (about 3 fl oz) of batter and quickly tilt the pan to spread it thinly — aim for a circle of about 20cm (8 inches) in diameter.
- Cook for 2–3 minutes until the edges look set and dry and the underside is pale golden. Flip carefully with a wide spatula and cook for a further 1–2 minutes. Stack the finished boxty on a warm plate covered loosely with foil while you cook the remaining batter. This quantity makes approximately 6–8 pancakes.
- To serve, reheat the mushroom filling gently if needed. Lay a boxty flat, spoon a generous line of mushrooms across the centre, and roll it up snugly. Serve two per person, immediately.
Tips
- Squeeze the grated potato as thoroughly as you can — it makes an enormous difference to the texture of the finished pancake.
- Floury potato varieties work best here; waxy salad potatoes will not give you the right starchy batter.
- The batter will discolour slightly as it sits, turning a pale grey — this is perfectly normal and will not affect the taste or the finished colour once cooked.
- A cast-iron griddle, if you have one, gives the most even heat and the most authentic result.
- Leftover boxty pancakes can be kept in the fridge between sheets of baking parchment for up to a day and reheated in a dry pan over a low heat.
There is something deeply grounding about making boxty for the first time — the simplicity of the ingredients, the satisfying weight of the grated potato in your hands, the wonderful smell as the batter hits a hot pan. It is the kind of cooking that connects you to a particular place and a particular people, to the kitchens of north Leitrim where nothing was ever wasted and everything, with a little care and cleverness, was made into something worth eating. We hope these bring a little of that warmth to your own table. For more Irish kitchen classics, browse our collection of real Irish recipes.
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