stevez wrote:My Bubbe. That's the only tome I need. YMMV.

YMMV=You mom may vary?

bean wrote:

stevez wrote:My Bubbe. That's the only tome I need. YMMV.

YMMV=You mom may vary?

YMMV = Your matriarch may vary?

In our family, my wife's late mother is the canonical authority. Variances in tradition are rarely granted. I had to work very hard to get sous vide cooking of tough cuts of meat officially sanctioned.

Bill/SFNM wrote:
In our family, my wife's late mother is the canonical authority. Variances in tradition are rarely granted. I had to work very hard to get sous vide cooking of tough cuts of meat officially sanctioned.

I know what you mean. I was very surprised..no SHOCKED when my smoked brisket won acceptance over the traditional cooked in the oven version my family has been eating for generations. I thought it would be a one off occurrence (and I completely expected to see an oven cooked brisket as back-up), but now smoked brisket is demanded for all holiday brisket serving opportunities. I'm glad to do it, but personally I miss the oven baked version that my Mom and Bubbe have been making since I was born.

stevez wrote:I would consider a potato "pancake" made with boiled potatoes more of a croquette than a latke.

It's the Passover latke, chremsel. My Hungarian mother made both types, sometimes interchangeably for Hanukkah. But the cooked potato croquette version was the only one she did on Passover - no real reason why.

LTHers,

I'd always been a fan of Waffle House hash browns, so when someone, somewhere on LTH, mentioned that WH used dehydrated spuds for their hash browns, I was instantly all over it. Short version: better than the hash browns made using a method I'd perfected over the years. Happy, but sad, if you know what I mean.

Now, a query: it suddenly struck me whilst reading this thread that there MUST be a path from my box of dehydrated hash browns to most excellent latkes, but I'm not so sure that I perceive said path right at this moment. But I bet that some (? many?) of you can see your way there. I'd really like some suggestions!

Geo

Had a delicious breakfast of latkes (grated on the large holes of a box grater, which added necessary texture) topped with a sunny-side up egg. Turns out runny egg yolk kills applesauce and sour cream for latke sauce.

Geo wrote:LTHers,

Now, a query: it suddenly struck me whilst reading this thread that there MUST be a path from my box of dehydrated hash browns to most excellent latkes, but I'm not so sure that I perceive said path right at this moment. But I bet that some (? many?) of you can see your way there. I'd really like some suggestions!

Geo - I was actually thinking the same thing, and tried some over the weekend! We buy the small cardboard containers of dehydrated potatoes from Costco (Golden Grill - 4.2 oz). For each hydrated pack, I added 2 smallish to medium finely chopped onions, 2 eggs, lots of pepper and around 1/8 cup flour (I eyeball about half or a little more of the 1/4 cup scoop). We like them thin & crispy, so a rounded serving spoon lightly flattened (about 3" across in the frying pan) yielded about 16 - 18 pancakes. And they're delicious! After a couple of hours in the freezer (1 layer on a cookie sheet), I packed them up for delivery on Christmas. I'll definitely do this again!

At the risk of making my mom spin in her grave we picked up some frozen Trader Joe's latkes and tried them over the weekend. They scored extra points on appearance in that they certainly looked handmade and aside from needing a bit of salt, they were surprisingly good (for a frozen product) and easily better than any other frozen potato pancake I ever had.

spinynorman99 wrote:At the risk of making my mom spin in her grave we picked up some frozen Trader Joe's latkes and tried them over the weekend. They scored extra points on appearance in that they certainly looked handmade and aside from needing a bit of salt, they were surprisingly good (for a frozen product) and easily better than any other frozen potato pancake I ever had.

I agree on the TJ latkes. Quite decent for store-bought, frozen products.

I made 4 dozen latkes from scratch yesterday for a family Hanukkah party. I'm totally in the thin and crispy camp, and mine are very good (she says modestly), but my whole house still smells of latkes. Neither kitchen fan nor closed doors can prevent it!

EvA wrote:

spinynorman99 wrote:At the risk of making my mom spin in her grave we picked up some frozen Trader Joe's latkes and tried them over the weekend. They scored extra points on appearance in that they certainly looked handmade and aside from needing a bit of salt, they were surprisingly good (for a frozen product) and easily better than any other frozen potato pancake I ever had.

I agree on the TJ latkes. Quite decent for store-bought, frozen products.

I made 4 dozen latkes from scratch yesterday for a family Hanukkah party. I'm totally in the thin and crispy camp, and mine are very good (she says modestly), but my whole house still smells of latkes. Neither kitchen fan nor closed doors can prevent it!

The other clear advantage or TJ latkes.

EvA wrote:

spinynorman99 wrote:Neither kitchen fan nor closed doors can prevent it!

Here's a holiday-appropriate remedy for latke-stink (though I'm not sure I consider it a bad thing):

Light a candle (or candles). Once it/they burn for a couple of hours, the flame will have consumed much of the offending odor. I use this trick after cooking fish all the time and it really works.

stevez wrote:

EvA wrote:

spinynorman99 wrote:Neither kitchen fan nor closed doors can prevent it!

Here's a holiday-appropriate remedy for latke-stink (though I'm not sure I consider it a bad thing):

Light a candle (or candles). Once it/they burn for a couple of hours, the flame will have consumed much of the offending odor. I use this trick after cooking fish all the time and it really works.

Another good remedy for any cooking stink is to put out a small bowl of cider vinegar on the kitchen counter for a few hours.

crispy wrote:

Geo wrote:LTHers,
Now, a query: it suddenly struck me whilst reading this thread that there MUST be a path from my box of dehydrated hash browns to most excellent latkes, but I'm not so sure that I perceive said path right at this moment. But I bet that some (? many?) of you can see your way there. I'd really like some suggestions!

Geo - I was actually thinking the same thing, and tried some over the weekend! We buy the small cardboard containers of dehydrated potatoes from Costco (Golden Grill - 4.2 oz). For each hydrated pack, I added 2 smallish to medium finely chopped onions, 2 eggs, lots of pepper and around 1/8 cup flour (I eyeball about half or a little more of the 1/4 cup scoop). We like them thin & crispy, so a rounded serving spoon lightly flattened (about 3" across in the frying pan) yielded about 16 - 18 pancakes. And they're delicious! After a couple of hours in the freezer (1 layer on a cookie sheet), I packed them up for delivery on Christmas. I'll definitely do this again!

Thanks for posting this! Someone gave me some of those cartons of dehydrated hash browns from Costco and I was wondering the exact same thing about how to use them for this purpose.

G Wiv wrote:I prefer matzo meal over flour, fry in a mix of peanut and olive oil (not extra virgin), firmly believe in hand grating as opposed to food processor and don't use baking powder.

Ten years later I now use a bit of baking powder. Love love love latkes!

I've never included garlic -- the onions are usually enough. Your early picture shows shreds, but the final product looks like there's some ground spud. Is that the case?

That looks like an awesome plate Gary!

JoelF wrote:I've never included garlic -- the onions are usually enough. Your early picture shows shreds, but the final product looks like there's some ground spud. Is that the case?

These days where onion goes garlic soon follows.........

No ground potato, what you see is what I worked with. I did add a small amount of reserved potato water and lightly smooshed with my hands. I also let them sit a bit so the matzo meal properly hydrated.

BR wrote:That looks like an awesome plate Gary!

Thanks, tasted pretty good, though the bride said she thought the latkes were too crisp. Is there such a thing as too crisp when it comes to potatoes?

I've been a victim of "too crisp syndrome" when I've squeezed too much liquid out of the grated potatoes. Personally, I don't mind having extra crisp latkes, but there's something about having a bit of pliability (along with some knuckle blood) that makes them taste more authentic.

HI,

Ina Pinkney did a latke demo on WGN recently. She let the squeeze potato liquid sit and settled. She removed most of the clear liquid and added some liquid with white potato starch back into her potato pancake mixture.

Regards,

Cathy2 wrote:HI,

Ina Pinkney did a latke demo on WGN recently. She let the squeeze potato liquid sit and settled. She removed most of the clear liquid and added some liquid with white potato starch back into her potato pancake mixture.

Regards,

I always let the drained liquid from the grated potato and onion sit and then pour off the water; the starch at the bottom goes back into the latke mixture. It's amazing how much starch settles out of the liquid. I prefer thin and crispy latkes, so I only use russet potatoes, onions, eggs, and seasoning. The starch is needed to keep these rather delicate latkes together. I use the food processor to grate but then put the potato and onion back in for some quick chopping so that the strands aren't too long. Sometimes I add chopped green onions, something I learned from Joan Nathan.

It is ten o'clock at night and I am hungry, very hungry and nothing in the fridge tempts me...then I see Gary's pictures... Damn you Gary! Pretty awesome.

I was very, very naughty. Made latkes, had neither sour cream nor applesauce. Used cranberry sauce (mit ginger and orange zest) and home-built creme fraiche. So shoot me... it tasted *very* excellent!

photo by Geo, on Flickr

Geo

Instead of shooting you, I'll simply say thanks for the idea . . . sounds great to me!

The cranberry sauce was wonderfully tart against the richness of the creme fraiche--going to do it again and again.

Geo

I was undecided on baked potato or latke for Rosh Hashanah, even though I realize its not latke season so, in true nothing says excess like excess fashion, I made both to go with our holiday roast chicken.





L'shanah tovah!

Looks great, Gary! Can you please share your latke recipe? If you posted it in its entirety upthread, I wasn't able find it.

Thanks,

=R=

excited by the looks of Gary's latkes - they seem to be like my grandma's - not shredded but pulped potato, with beaten egg whites folded in!

stevez wrote:I'm glad to do it, but personally I miss the oven baked version that my Mom and Bubbe have been making since I was born.

Be careful what you wish for comes to mind.

ronnie_suburban wrote:Looks great, Gary! Can you please share your latke recipe?

Happy to, but more stream of consciousness cooking than recipe.

annak wrote:excited by the looks of Gary's latkes - they seem to be like my grandma's - not shredded but pulped potato,

Shredded on a box grater.

annak wrote:with beaten egg whites folded in!

Ha, way too fancy for latkes! I don't think my grandmother ever folded in an egg white in her life.

G Wiv wrote:I prefer matzo meal over flour, fry in a mix of peanut and olive oil (not extra virgin), firmly believe in hand grating as opposed to food processor and don't use baking powder.

G Wiv wrote:Ten years later I now use a bit of baking powder. Love love love latkes!

If anything my latke recipe changes slightly year to year time to time. As mentioned, I now use a bit of baking powder and, since flour was on the counter for apple/pear fritters, I used a mix of matzo meal and all purpose flour.

G Wiv wrote: I also let them sit a bit so the matzo meal properly hydrated.

This is Key, I covered with plastic wrap pressed directly onto the surface of the bowl and refrigerated for an hour for the flour and matzo meal to hydrate.

My recipe/technique is pretty much as above, where I differ a bit from some is my end result before frying is more batter than most and enough frying oil, in this case corn, so it comes to the half way point of the latkes in a 10-inch pan. With a 10-inch pan I fit, with space around them, 4 of the size latkes pictured at a time, two batches for a total of 8-latkes. More people I'd of used a bigger pan and expanded the recipe.

For 8-latkes I used two washed/unpeeled med size russet potatoes, 4-cloves garlic, quarter onion all shredded on a box grater. I did not squeeze the moisture from the potatoes.
I did not measure anything, added, and this is a guess, two tablespoons each matzo meal & flour, glug of canola oil, kosher salt/black pepper, tablespoon of fresh lemon juice and two eggs. Two eggs for two potatoes is probably more than most, this contributes to the batter aspect of the mix. As mentioned I let the mix hang out in the fridge for about an hour.

My oil temp is probably lower than most, it should gently bubble when the latke batter goes in, just hot enough for the batter to set, I spooned additional batter to top. Each side gently fried for 7-8 minutes for a total of around 15, with a flip or two once the batter set to insure the interior cooked though. Once again, oil came up to about the middle of the latke.

If above reads like Jewish grandmother cooking its because I channel my grandmother when I make latkes, pinch of this, mix, pinch of that. Straight up eyeball/muscle memory cooking.

In the end its crispy fried potatoes with sour cream and apple sauce, what can be bad.

Happy Hanukah one and all.

Note:
- These particular potatoes did not extrude much liquid when grated, if there had been pools of liquid I would have poured a bit off but not cheese cloth/tea towel twist/squeeze.
- For a treat schmaltz or duck fat would be insanely delicious. Either all or simply a portion of the cooking oil for flavor. You could also substitute schmaltz or duck fat for the "glug of oil" in the batter recipe.