Potatoes with Flaxseed Oil and Quark: A Traditional German Recipe

Pellkartoffeln mit Quark und Leinöl

Simple, traditional and seriously delicious

Potatoes with quark and flaxseed oil is a famous dish from Germany, where it’s called Pellkartoffeln mit Quark und Leinöl. The potatoes are cooked in their skins and served with flaxseed oil and quark (German cottage cheese).

It is especially associated with eastern Germany, the Spreewald and Lusatia — Lausitz in German — the historic region spanning eastern Germany and western Poland. It originated as a peasant dish, but it is much more than that: it is still loved, regularly served and celebrated. It’s so iconic that a book about Spreewald cuisine is called Kneedel, Leinöl & Quark — “Kneedel” being the region’s local word for potato.

Easy to make but is it Comfort food or a Bodybuilder’s secret weapon?

This is a wonderfully simple dish. It’s one of the easiest meals you can make — and that’s a comfort to start with. It eats like comfort food, but it is satisfying, nutritious and easy on the digestion. What most people don’t know is that the combination is a clever blend of protein and flaxseed oil for the good fat omega-3, and the potatoes give you the carbohydrate and energy to do the work that builds muscle.

In Lusatia, they have a saying: “Was macht den Lausitzer stark? Pellkartoffeln, Leineel und Quark.” which translates as: “What makes the Lusatian strong? Potatoes, linseed oil and quark.”

It’s an old-fashioned meal, tried and tested food and makes a lot of sense for someone training today. No hype, no artificals, nothing processed it’s just been building muscles for people naturally and for hundreds of years the Lusatians know it works.

Potatoes cooked in their skins, with flaxseed oil and quark: A traditional German Recipe

A traditional eastern German dish of warm potatoes cooked in their skins, served with creamy quark, fresh herbs and generous cold-pressed flaxseed oil.

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Ingredients Equipment Method Notes

Ingredients

  

• 500 g small/medium potatoes, waxy is traditional but any nice potato works well skins on and scrubbed clean
• 250 g fat free quark
• 1 –2 tbsp milk if needed
• 2 –4 tbsp Flax Farm cold-pressed flaxseed oil
• Fresh chives, parsley and /or dill, chopped As desired
• Salt to taste
• Black pepper to taste
• Caraway seeds, Spring onions, Radishes, Fresh mint, for the potato cooking water optional

Equipment

• Servings: 2
• Prep Time: 10 minutes
• Cook Time: 20 minutes
• Total Time: 30 minutes

Method

 

1. Place the potatoes in a saucepan, cover with water and boil in their skins until tender, about 15–20 minutes depending on size. When mint is in season, add a sprig or two to the cooking water. Add a little salt if desired.
2. While the potatoes are cooking, place the quark in a bowl. If it is very firm, stir in a little milk until it reaches a softer, creamy consistency.
3. Season the quark with salt and black pepper. Mix in herbs or spring onion if you like. Place on plate
4. Drain the potatoes and serve them warm and unpeeled alongside the quark.
5. Pour cold-pressed flaxseed oil generously over or into the quark.
6. Finish with fresh chopped herbs and serve immediately.

Notes

Quark is traditional, but thick Greek yoghurt can be used if quark is unavailable.

Use fresh, cold-pressed flaxseed oil and add it after cooking rather than heating it. High-lignan flaxseed oil also works well.

Traditionally, the potatoes are served in their skins and peeled, or partly peeled, at the table but lots of people prefer to keep the skins on.

Potatoes and Quark for the Budwig Diet

Johanna Budwig recommended this as a savoury way to include the flaxseed oil and quark mixture in the Budwig Diet. Mix approximately 2 tablespoons of flaxseed oil into around 100 g quark, until the oil is completely emulsified into the quark. Add seasoning, chopped herbs, spring onions or even pickles to the creamed flaxseed oil and quark. Dollop onto boiled or baked potatoes and serve with salad.

The “liquid gold” of Lusatia

Flaxseed oil has long been particularly prized in Germany, especially in Eastern regions such as Spreewald and Lusatia, where flaxseed oil is described as “das flüssige Gold der Lausitz” — the liquid gold of Lusatia – I couldn’t put it better myself.  Fresh cold-pressed flaxseed oil is golden in colour but being one of Nature’s richest sources of omega-3  what it does for you is what makes it godl.

Flaxseed oil has a delicate taste and being rich in omgea-3 means it oxidises quicker than other oil. it’s nature is delcate too. It needs to be bought fresh and consumed with about a month and a half of opening the bottle. Once i 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 is why Flaxseed oil is special.

Which brings us back to that old saying:

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

An old meal that looks surprisingly modern

Simple foods on a plate that give us so much.

Potatoes: provide satisfying carbohydrate to fuel everyday activity or intense training. They are extraordinarily filling — boiled potatoes came out top in a well-known study comparing the satiety of common foods — and they also provide potassium, vitamin C, fibre and a surprising amount of useful nutrition for such a humble food.

Quark: choose fat-free quark if you want to keep the saturated fat low — is rich in protein, particularly casein, which is digested relatively slowly. That makes it useful when you want a substantial, protein-rich meal

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

Carbohydrate. Protein. Essential fat.

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

Bricks, mortar and building muscle

Think about building muscles like building a house, You need bricks and mortar; the protein is the bricks and flaxseed oil is the mortar. Without mortar, you’ve just got a pile of bricks that can’t be used. Actually, what happens is, if the body has more protein than it can build into muscle, it is turned into urine and peed down the toilet.

Flaxseed oil adds omega-3, which makes it easier for the body to build the protein you eat into muscle – but remember you can’t do it sitting on the sofa; you do have to work muscles to build them.

My own experience

This part is personal experience rather than a laboratory claim. At an age when many women complain that they are losing muscle, I started using flaxseed oil regularly and found developing and maintaining muscle noticeably easier than it had been when I was younger.

The people of 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 a comfort food into a muscle-builder.

Read More

Boiled potatoes rank as the most satiating food tested in the landmark study: A satiety index of common foods published in 1995.

Johanna Budwig was probably the first to bring flaxsed oil and quark to the attention of those looking to support health through diet. She treated the oil and quark slightly differently.  Read her recipes and more about the Budwig Diet 

Michael Gregor explains how filling potatoes are and can be a food to help you control your weight https://nutritionfacts.org/blog/taking-advantage-of-sensory-specific-satiety/