While criques obviously can be made using a hand grater, I made them using a food processor with the grating attachment.

Begin with the potatoes.

Line your largest mixing bowl with two non-linting dishtowels. Leave in the sink, so if you spill potatoes, it’s easy to clean up.

Peel the potatoes and slice them to fit into feed tube of the processor. Shred potatoes in processor with grating blade. Upend them into the dishtowel-lined bowl. Wrap well to squeeze moisture out. Leave to dry.

Place a large clean bowl beside the food processor.

You don’t need to clean the processor for the next step. Carefully put work bowl and shredder blade back on the base. Now shred the cheese, garlic, and parsley. My machine balked at the final addition of parsley, so I just chopped it lightly.

Carefully unpend the cheese, garlic, and parsley into the clean bowl.

You now have the cheesy bowl, the potato bowl, the eggs, and the ham.

This is a good time to clean the processor, before the potato starch dries to stone. I find an old toothbrush effective for cleaning the grater blade and all those tiny processor parts. Clean up the kitchen to make space. Drink some wine. It’s 5 o’clock somewhere.

Return to your potatoes. Carefully squeeze potatoes, then remove the wet dishtowels. The potatoes will be a horrible shade of pink. Don’t worry. It will vanish in cooking. Slide them into the bowl as best you can.

Add the contents of cheesy bowl, eggs, and ham. Mix with a wooden spoon or your clean hands. Salt and pepper generously.

You can fry these in your favorite cast iron or non-stick pan. I use two non-stick pans. Over medium high heat, pour just enough oil to coat the bottom of the pan(s).

Spread some flour on a plate, platter, or large dish. Pick up a handful of the potato mixture. It will be wet; squeeze the mixture to get excess water out. Flour just one side. Criques don’t have to be perfectly round or beautiful. They may seem like they don’t want to hold together. Don’t worry, they will in cooking.

Add as many criques to your pan as it will hold without crowding. Cook 3-4 minutes per side, until nicely browned but not burning. Flip and cook another 3-4 minutes. You may need to give it an additional couple minutes if not cooked through. Taste to be sure. It’s a tough job.

You will likely need to add oil.

Repeat until batter is used up.

As you cook, you’ll notice liquid pooling in the bottom of the batter bowl. I use kitchen toweling and dab this up.

Criques may be kept warm in a low oven. They also reheat well, should you have leftovers.

Notes: Some criques recipes call for Gruyère cheese, while others simply say “hard flavorful cheese.” Some recipe have no cheese at all. I used a mix of Gouda and Manchego because I had them in the fridge. They worked beautifully.

We ate these for dinner with salad, then decimated the remains for breakfast.