No holiday season is complete without latkes! AKA potato pancakes, or Jewish empanadas my Paraguayan host family once called them. This is one of the few recipes from my mom. This year I made them for a work potluck a couple weeks ago and again for the annual Baum ugly sweater party. They’re always a hit!
Ingredients
- 10 medium potatoes
- 2 onions
- 2-3 eggs
- 1/4 cup flour or matzah meal
- 1.5 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp white pepper
- Vegetable oil for frying
- Sour cream and applesauce to top
Instructions from mom
1) Peel the potatoes. Keep them in cold water until ready to grate. (When I made them this weekend I didn’t peel them and they were fine that way too).
2) Starting with the onions, alternately grate some of the onions on the large holes of the grater, and some of the potatoes on the smallest holes. This will keep the potato mixture from getting brown. (Doing this in a food processor with a grater attachment saves you about a half hr of grating).
3) Press out as much liquid as possible and reserve the starchy sediment at the bottom of the bowl. Return the sediment to the mixture. I do this by pressing out the liquid and putting it into a cup. The sediment will sink to the bottom of the cup. Then you can pour off the liquid and return the sediment to the mixture.
3) Blend the potatoes with the eggs, flour, salt and white pepper.
4) Heat 1″ of oil in a frying pan. Drop about 1 tablespoon of mixture for each latke into the skillet and try, turning once. Add additional oil as necessary. Make sure oil is always hot before adding more latkes to fry in the skillet. When golden and crisp on each side, drain on paper towels. You can keep in a warm oven (probably not hotter than 250 degrees) until all are fried.
Serve with yogurt, sour cream, sugar or applesauce. Enjoy!
Happy Hanukah!!!!
NicStan Cooks 