Patatnik or patetnik is a Bulgaria

Bulgaria

Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...

n potato

Potato

The potato is a starchy, tuberous crop from the perennial Solanum tuberosum of the Solanaceae family . The word potato may refer to the plant itself as well as the edible tuber. In the region of the Andes, there are some other closely related cultivated potato species...

 dish characteristic of the Rhodope Mountains

Rhodope Mountains

The Rhodopes are a mountain range in Southeastern Europe, with over 83% of its area in southern Bulgaria and the remainder in Greece. Its highest peak, Golyam Perelik , is the seventh highest Bulgarian mountain...

 in the country's central south. Patatnik is made of grated potatoes, onion

Onion

The onion , also known as the bulb onion, common onion and garden onion, is the most widely cultivated species of the genus Allium. The genus Allium also contains a number of other species variously referred to as onions and cultivated for food, such as the Japanese bunching onion The onion...

s, salt

Salt

In chemistry, salts are ionic compounds that result from the neutralization reaction of an acid and a base. They are composed of cations and anions so that the product is electrically neutral...

 and spearmint

Spearmint

Mentha spicata syn. M. cordifolia is a species of mint native to much of Europe and southwest Asia, though its exact natural range is uncertain due to extensive early cultivation. It grows in wet soils...

, all mixed and cooked on a slow fire. Meat, sirene

Sirene

Sirene/ Sirenje or known as "white brine sirene" .Salads: Shopska salad with tomatoes, bell peppers, cucumbers, onions and sirene. Ovcharska salad with the above mentioned vegetables, cheese, ham, boiled eggs and olives. Tomatoes with sirene is a traditional light salad during the summer.Eggs:...

 (white cheese) or eggs might be added; some people also use savory

Savory (herb)

Satureja is a genus of aromatic plants of the family Lamiaceae, related to rosemary and thyme. There are about 30 species called savories, of which Summer savory and Winter savory are the most important in cultivation.-Description:...

 and peppers

Capsicum

Capsicum is a genus of flowering plants in the nightshade family, Solanaceae. Its species are native to the Americas where they have been cultivated for thousands of years, but they are now also cultivated worldwide, used as spices, vegetables, and medicines - and have become are a key element in...

.

The grated potatoes are squeezed out and mixed with the eggs, onions and cheese. Some of the doughy mixture that has formed is rolled into two sheets. One of the sheets is placed on the bottom of the dish and should be larger in diameter than it so as it comes out a fair bit. The remaining mixture is spiced with savory, poured on top of the first sheet, covered with the other sheet; the edges of both sheets should cover each other: in that respect, it resembles a "potato banitsa". According to one of the preparation methods, the patatnik is turned over when the bottom is well cooked and slipped into the dish with the heated side. According to other recipes, no sheets are formed and instead the ingredients are mixed until they become homogeneous; these are then cooked in a deep dish on a slow fire. After 20 minutes the mixture is turned over and covered and then cooked further.

The dish is traditional for the entire Rhodopes and the nearby regions, from Bansko

Bansko

Bansko is a town and a popular ski resort in southwestern Bulgaria, located at the foot of the Pirin Mountains at an elevation of 925 m above sea level....

 in Pirin

Pirin

The Pirin Mountains are a mountain range in southwestern Bulgaria, with Vihren the highest peak, situated at . The range extends about 40 km northwest-southeast, and about 25 km wide. Most of the range is protected in the Pirin National Park...

 through Smolyan

Smolyan

Smolyan is a town and ski resort in the very south of Bulgaria not far from the border with Greece. It is the administrative and industrial centre of the homonymous Smolyan Province...

 and Zlatograd

Zlatograd

Zlatograd is a town in Smolyan Province, Southern-central Bulgaria. It is the administrative centre of the homonymous Zlatograd Municipality. As of December 2009, the town has a population of 7,110 inhabitants....

 to as far east as Chernichevo

Chernichevo, Kardzhali Province

Chernichevo is a village in southern Bulgaria, located in the municipality of Krumovgrad in the Kardzhali Province. It is situated in the Eastern part of Rhodope Mountains, near the border with Greece. Its original Bulgarian name is "Dunyata"...

. The name is derived from the local word patato or pateto, "potato", with the Slavic

Slavic languages

The Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.-Branches:Scholars traditionally divide Slavic...

 masculine suffix –nik

-nik

The English suffix -nik is of Slavic origin. It approximately corresponds to the suffix "-er" and nearly always denotes an agent noun...

. The word is typical for the Rup dialects

Rup dialects

The Rup dialects, or the Southeastern dialects, are a group of Bulgarian dialects located east of the yat boundary, thus being part of the Eastern Bulgarian dialects. The range of the Rup dialects includes the southern part of Thrace, i.e. Strandzha, the region of Haskovo, the Rhodopes and the...

 spoken in the Rhodopes. It is distinct from both standard Bulgarian kartof (картоф) and the western Bulgarian

Bulgarian dialects

Bulgarian dialects are the regional spoken varieties of the Bulgarian language, a South Slavic language. Bulgarian dialectology dates to the 1830s and the pioneering work of Neofit Rilski, Bolgarska gramatika...

 kompir (компир). In Nedelino

Nedelino

Nedelino is a town and municipality in the Rhodope Mountains of the Smolyan Province, southern Bulgaria. The former name of Nedelino was "Uzundere" which meaning "Long Creek"......

, the dish is known as kashnitsa (кашница).