Potatoes with Quark and Flaxseed Oil – Pellkartoffeln mit Leinöl

Pellkartoffeln mit Quark und Leinöl

Simple, traditional — and seriously delicious

There is a wonderfully simple dish from eastern Germany called Pellkartoffeln mit Quark und Leinöl: potatoes cooked in their skins, served with quark and a generous drizzle of cold-pressed flaxseed oil.

It is especially associated with Lusatia — Lausitz in German — the historic region spanning eastern Germany and into western Poland.

And it isn’t some forgotten peasant dish that people have politely moved on from. It is still loved, served and celebrated.

There’s even an old Lusatian saying:

“Was macht den Lausitzer stark?
Pellkartoffeln, Leineel und Quark.”

Or, roughly:

“What makes the Lusatian strong?
Potatoes, linseed oil and quark.”

That tells you rather a lot about the esteem in which these three very ordinary foods have been held.

In the Spreewald, this combination is so closely associated with the local food culture that you’ll find it celebrated in books about the cuisine of the region.

And the best thing about it?

It is ridiculously easy to make.

You’ll need

• 500g small, preferably waxy potatoes, skins on and scrubbed clean
• 250g quark
  (or thick Greek yoghurt if you can’t get quark)
• 1–2 tbsp milk, if needed
• 2–4 tbsp fresh, cold-pressed flaxseed oil
• Fresh chives, parsley and dill
• Salt and black pepper

Optional: caraway, spring onions, radishes or a simple salad.

To make it

Boil the potatoes in their skins until tender.

When mint is in season, I like adding a sprig or two to the cooking water, along with some salt. I generally avoid using much salt, but here most of it disappears with the cooking water and you are left with just a slight savouriness on the potato skins.

Meanwhile, mix the quark with the chopped herbs, salt, pepper and enough milk to give it a lovely creamy consistency.

Serve the quark with the warm potatoes.

Then finish the whole thing generously with cold-pressed flaxseed oil.

That’s it.

Warm potatoes. Cool herby quark. Golden flaxseed oil.

Simple, traditional and seriously delicious.

The “liquid gold” of Lusatia

Flaxseed oil has long been particularly prized in Lusatia, where you’ll sometimes hear it described as “das flüssige Gold der Lausitz” — the liquid gold of Lusatia.

And when you see really good fresh flaxseed oil, the name makes perfect sense.

It can be a beautiful, intensely golden-yellow oil with a fresh, grassy, slightly nutty flavour.

The important word there is fresh.

Flaxseed oil is delicate. Once it oxidises it can turn unpleasantly bitter surprisingly quickly, which is one reason I am so particular about how flaxseed oil is pressed, stored and handled.

Fresh flaxseed oil is a completely different food.

And nutritionally it is remarkable too.

Flaxseed oil is exceptionally rich in ALA — alpha-linolenic acid — an essential omega-3 fatty acid. Essential means exactly that: our bodies need it, but cannot make it from scratch, so it has to come from our food.

Which brings us back to that old saying:

What makes the Lusatian strong?
Potatoes, flaxseed oil and quark.

Rather wonderfully, this old-fashioned meal also makes a lot of sense for someone training today.

An old meal that looks surprisingly modern

Think about what is actually on the plate.

Potatoes provide satisfying carbohydrate to fuel training and everyday activity. They are extraordinarily filling and also bring potassium, vitamin C, fibre and a surprising amount of useful nutrition for such a humble food.

Quark is rich in protein, particularly casein, which is digested relatively slowly. That makes it a very useful food when you want a substantial, protein-rich meal rather than something that disappears in half an hour.

And flaxseed oil adds energy and a particularly concentrated source of the essential omega-3 fat ALA.

Carbohydrate. Protein. Essential fat.

Not bad for a meal people were eating long before anybody had heard of protein shakes.

Bricks, mortar and building muscle

I sometimes explain nutrition using a building analogy.

If you are building a house, you need bricks.

Protein supplies much of the raw material — the “bricks” — needed for maintaining and building muscle.

But a wall isn’t made from bricks alone.

You also need all the other materials that allow the finished structure to work properly.

That is how I think about good fats such as omega-3s. They aren’t a substitute for protein and they don’t magically manufacture muscle. But fats are structural parts of our cell membranes and are involved in an enormous number of processes throughout the body.

So rather than thinking only:

“How much protein am I eating?”

I think the better question is:

“Am I giving my body all the materials it needs to build and maintain itself properly?”

That means protein, yes — but also essential fats, carbohydrate, vitamins, minerals and enough food overall.

My own experience

This part is personal rather than a laboratory claim.

After menopause, I found developing and maintaining muscle noticeably easier once fresh flaxseed oil became a regular part of my diet.

Then something interesting started happening.

Men buying Flax Farm flaxseed oil from me at markets began coming back and telling me similar things: they felt they were finding it easier to develop muscle after adding flaxseed oil to what they were already eating.

Does this mean flaxseed oil is some magic bodybuilding potion?  Or does it just mundanely give us a good nutrient we usually don’t get enough of and when we stop limiting it the body starts to respond as it should?

But those conversations stayed with me.

Because the more I thought about it, the more I came back to that wonderfully simple Lusatian meal.

Potatoes – to fill you up and give you the fuel you need to fuel your activity

Quark – for protein for the builking blocks that make muscle

Flaxseed oil – to help develop the potential of [roetin into strong muscles

The people from Eastern Germany and Poland understood a great deal about good food before we invented complicated language to explain it.

I’m tempted to call flaxseed oil the ingredient that turns this lovely high-protein comfort food into muscle-building rocket fuel.

The original comfort food for strong people?

For anyone training, trying to stay strong as they get older, or simply wanting a satisfying meal made from proper food, Pellkartoffeln mit Quark und Leinöl deserves rediscovering.

It is inexpensive.

It is naturally vegetarian and gluten-free.

It is filling.

It is packed with useful nutrition.

And most importantly, it tastes wonderful.

Sometimes the best “sports nutrition” doesn’t come in a plastic tub.

Sometimes it has been sitting in a regional cookbook for generations.

Was macht den Lausitzer stark?
Pellkartoffeln, Leineel und Quark.