Easy Latkes

In solidarity with our Jewish friends, my family thought we should have latkes on this fifth night of Hanukkah. Since I had a side of homemade gravlax in the freezer awaiting Carter’s arrival home I thought it was good timing.

Russ had forwarded me a recipe in New York Times cooking for Pure Potato Latkes. I thought it was an interesting technique so I went that direction. I modified it slightly for the size and type of potatoes I had. I will give you my recipe, but you can log in to NYT to see how theirs varies. It worked perfectly.

You don’t have to be Jewish to enjoy Latkes, but they sure are good with sour cream a a slice of lox. Our house could be called Russ and Daughter tonight. (If you have never been to the lower east side that might go over your head.)

Latkes

Small Yukon gold potatoes

Salt and pepper

Canola oil

Pre heat oven to 350°

Wash potatoes and dry. I used potatoes that were slightly bigger than a jumbo egg. If you use larger one, adjust your baking time accordingly.

Two small potatoes will yield one large latke. Place as many potatoes as you need in the oven and bake for 17 minutes. You are not cooking them through, they should be half way to baked potato.

Add at least one more potato than you need because you are going to lose a little to the food processor. For us, three latkes each was a meal.

After you have baked them a little you want to grate them in the food processor with the grating blade. You don’t want mashed potatoes, so I put three potatoes in the feeding tube at a time. I just grated the whole potato included the thin skins because they add fiber. If you don’t like skins you can peel them before grating.

After you have grated, let the mixture cool a little. Add some salt and pepper. When the mixture is cool enough to handle scoop out a heaping spoonful and form into patties about a half inch thick. Put the latkes on a plate and refrigerate for at least an hour, or covered overnight.

When you are ready to cook them, heat a fry pan hot with a good coating of oil, add the latkes to the pan and turn the heat down to medium high and fry for about four minutes per side. They should be golden brown, not black.

When done place on paper towel covered plate to let them drain a little.

We had our with a dollop of sour cream and. Slice of cured salmon and a good squeeze of lemon.