Giant Air-Fryer Potato Rösti

The rösti is the Swiss potato cake — grated raw or par-cooked potato pressed flat and pan-fried in butter until golden on both sides. It's the national breakfast dish, the side at every alpine restaurant, and the structural cousin to the latke, the hash brown, and the draniki. The "giant" version skips making individual rounds and goes for one big disc — easier to make, more impressive to plate, sliced into wedges at the table.

The technique requires the same moisture-squeeze step as latkes — grate the potato, salt, wait, squeeze hard. The difference here is the pressing: the grated potato gets packed firmly into a parchment- lined basket, weighed down lightly for the first 10 minutes (a heat-safe plate on top), then released and finished for another 8 minutes. The flatten-then-cook compresses the grated potato into a solid disc that holds together when sliced.

The photo shows the finished rösti from above on a marble counter: golden-brown disc with visible char marks on the surface, a slight puff at the edges, scattered chives and lemon halves on the side. The kind of simple dish that becomes the centrepiece because of its size.