A rustic pan of potatoes from the Sila highlands of Calabria, sliced into rounds and cooked slowly in olive oil with garlic until they catch, stick together and form a golden crust. The dialect name comes from the way the slices clump and 'glue' into one another by the end — 'mpacchiuse meaning stuck or matted. Made above all with the starchy yellow potatoes of the Sila plateau, it is a soft-hearted, crusty, comforting side, the kind of cheap mountain food locals call cibo del buon umore, good-mood food.
Patate 'mpacchiuse belong to the cucina povera of the Sila, the high forested plateau straddling mainly the province of Cosenza, and are most associated with the Cosentino. The dish is built on the Patata della Sila, a mountain potato grown above 1,000 metres that earned IGP protection from the European Union on 9 October 2010 and is also entered in Italy's register of mountain products. The slow growth and altitude give it a higher-than-average starch content and a full flavour, and that starchiness is exactly what makes the dish work — cooks favour the yellow-fleshed varieties such as Agria. It is humble everyday and festive-table food alike, with no recorded inventor or founding date, its name simply describing in dialect how the potatoes end up stuck together.
A contrast of crust and softness: the outsides of the slices fry to a deep golden, almost crisp shell while the insides stay creamy and tender, and because they are starchy they cling together into soft, rough cakes rather than staying as separate rounds. The flavour is plain and satisfying — sweet potato, fruity olive oil, the mellow background of cooked garlic — with a Calabrian lift of chilli when it is added. It is faintly chewy at the crusted edges and meltingly soft within, and best eaten hot straight from the pan.
The dish lives and dies by the potato's starch. The Sila potato is unusually starchy, and starch is both the glue and the source of the crust: as the slices cook, surface starch granules gelatinise, gem the cut faces, and then dehydrate and brown against the hot pan, building a crisp golden layer through the Maillard reaction and caramelisation of the potato's sugars. The same gelatinised starch makes the slices tacky, so they fuse into the clumped cakes the name describes. The method is deliberately slow and barely stirred — the potatoes are covered to steam-soften through, then turned and pressed and left undisturbed so a real crust can form rather than washing it off with constant movement. Plenty of olive oil conducts heat evenly across the pan and fries the surfaces; the garlic is browned first to perfume the oil and usually removed so it does not burn. Floury, high-starch potatoes are essential — waxy ones stay separate and never 'mpacchiano'.
Variations
The base is just potatoes, olive oil, garlic and salt; the most common Calabrian addition is hot chilli, and some cooks throw in onion, peperoni cruschi, a little tomato, herbs or a final dusting of pecorino. The classic method is on the stovetop in a heavy pan, covered and then crusted, but a version finished or fully cooked in the oven is also made. Texture is a matter of taste — some crust them hard and dry, others keep them softer and more melting. Sila potatoes of the yellow Agria type are the traditional choice; elsewhere any floury yellow-fleshed potato is the nearest substitute.
On the Palate
Where Patate 'mpacchiuse sits in the Italian flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 4How it's made
5 steps · 35 min active + 15 min waiting
- 18 min
Peel the starchy Sila potatoes and slice them into rounds about half a centimetre thick. Do not rinse them — the surface starch is what helps them stick and crust.
Watch outDon't rinse the sliced Sila potatoes — the surface starch is exactly what fuses the slices into clumps and builds the golden crust; wash it off and they neither stick nor brown.
- 25 min
Warm a generous amount of olive oil in a wide, heavy pan over medium heat and lightly brown a clove or two of garlic to flavour the oil, then remove the garlic.
- 315 min
Add the potato slices, season with salt and chilli to taste, turn them through the oil, then cover the pan and let them cook gently so they soften through with a little steam.
- 412 min
Uncover, raise the heat a little and turn and press the potatoes, then leave them mostly undisturbed so a golden crust forms on the underside; flip in sections and crust the other side too. They are ready when stuck together and deeply browned.
Watch outAfter steaming soft, leave them mostly undisturbed on higher heat so a crust forms underneath, then flip in sections — turn too often and you get soft potato with no crust; they're ready when stuck together and deeply browned.
- 52 min
Drain off any excess oil and serve the patate 'mpacchiuse hot, straight from the pan, on their own or alongside meat or sausage.
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