Perkins Restaurant Potato Pancakes

 While on a family trip this summer we had great potato pancakes at Perkins Pancake House in Hudson, Ohio. These were thin, light in texture, tasted like real potatoes (not the freeze-dried variety that comes in the box at the grocery), herbs and seasonings (parsley, salt, pepper, very little onion), and some very finely shredded potatoes. We asked the manager for the recipe, but he would not give it out, as it is a Perkins secret. Please let us know if you have such a recipe or a cookbook that would provide something close. Again these were almost crêpe-like and very light.

 Within about 15 minutes of receiving a message from someone at the Perkins Restaurant & Bakery headquarters — explaining that they don't give out their recipes and instead of making them yourself, why not just hop in the car and drive from New York to Hudson, Ohio again so you can enjoy some more potato pancakes — we were pawing through some of the cookbooks on our shelves and stumbled upon Top Secret Restaurant Recipes, by Todd Wilbur. And guess what? It has a recipe for "Perkins Family Restaurants' Potato Pancakes."

So take that, unhelpful Perkins PR lady!

Wilbur's various books state that he spent years researching and experimenting to get just the right formulas for everything from Nestle's Crunch bars to Pizza Hut's Original Stuffed Crust Pizza and from McDonald's Quarter Pounder with Cheese to Ruth's Chris Steak House's Barbecued Shrimp. While we're pretty confident we could have figured out the formula for the Crunch bar ourselves, we appreciate the help with the potato pancakes. Hope he got it right and that they're as good as you remember.

Recipe for Perkins Family Restaurants' Potato Pancakes (by Todd Wilbur)

Other books from Todd Wilbur, one of our our newest cooking heroes:

• Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2: More Amazing Clones of Famous Dishes from America's Favorite Restaurant Chains
• Top Secret Recipes: Creating Kitchen Clones of America's Favorite Brand-Name Foods
• More Top Secret Recipes: More Fabulous Kitchen Clones of America's Favorite Brand-Name Foods
• Top Secret Recipes: Sodas, Smoothies, Spirits, & Shakes
• Top Secret Recipes Lite!: Creating Reduced-Fat Kitchen Clones of America's Favorite Brand-Name Foods
• Low-Fat Top Secret Recipes: Creating Kitchen Clones of America's Favorite Brand-Name Foods
• Even More Top Secret Recipes: More Amazing Kitchen Clones of America's Favorite Brand-Name Foods

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