So I thought it would be great to share this dish with all of you so you can have some fun with the family like we do. Wait.......fun? Well yes, in my house it's fun. It's fun because like most holidays, it's surrounded by good food. There are not many times when you have a group of people in the kitchen and food is being cooked and served that you say....."Boy, I got to get out of this place."
Before I give you this family recipe, I must warn you. These little cakes of potato are very addictive. And when you make them with people in the kitchen with you, you will have to cook fast to keep up with the fast fingers.
Ok, so here is what you need.
5 lbs. of Yukon Gold or Russet Potatoes cut into equal sized pieces about 1" square
2 Spanish onions cut into Quarters
1 Cup of Matzo Meal (Matzo bread crumbs)
3 eggs beaten
3 tablespoons of Salt
1 Tablespoon of Ground Pepper.
Ok, so you got all your stuff together now. Your goal now is to make the potatoes and onions look like......well for lack of a better word.....Mush. But not soup. Like Oatmeal, yeah, oatmeal. When I first started doing this, I would do the potato first, then the onion. But by the time I got to the onion, the potato turned grey which looked well awful. so I figured out to add onion in the processor in batches and the potatoes stayed their nice golden color.
So when you process them, you will see they look like this:
Oatmeal right? or maybe Cream of Wheat. But you get the idea.
So when you have all of the Onions and Potatoes mashed up, you add in the Matzo meal, and the eggs and the salt and pepper. I have asked my son Jonah to help me with this.
Then mix it all up till its all one even bowl of mush. Mush is my technical term for this post. Now this is the tricky part. If you have tasted a Latke before, then you will know what to taste for. if you haven't, then you want it oniony (a new word) and salty but not too salty. So taste if for this. Odds are it will be oniony enough. But will probably need you to add more salt and pepper to season.
So you got your salty, oniony bowl of mush and your ready to cook it. Take a large high sided heavy pan and fill it so you have just under 1/2" of canola oil in the pan and heat it up under just over medium heat. Medium is a shy too low and Medium high is too high, so right in the middle like baby bear.
Let the oil heat up for about 10 to 15 minutes. the take a 1/4 cup measuring cup and pour the batter into the hot oil.
Cook the Latke for about 4 minutes and flip. It should be just beyond golden brown. After another 4 minutes put the Latke on a paper towel lines plate and start all over again till they are done.
Now here is where the tricky part comes. Keeping them there. The whole house will smell awesome and people will be coming by and grabbing them and eating them. Which adds to the fun.
Traditionally you can have these with Sour Cream or Applesauce and some even both. Personally I like them just with sour cream. They are best about 2 minutes after they come out of the oil which is why it's usually a frenzy when you are cooking them and people are just waiting for the to come out of the oil.
But in the end, it's all good.
Happy Hanukkah
