85. Potato Latkes (p. 567)

Let's stick with the Hanukkah theme from the last post about rugelach. I made this recipe the other night to kick off the Festival of Lights. I've never had latkes before, and I don't know how I've lived without them. These things are great! And they're so easy, there's no need to save them for the holidays.

First, I chopped up an onion. Then I grated one pound of potatoes (one great big Idaho did the trick) using a box grater. I soaked the grated potatoes in cold water for a bit (to get rid of some of the extra starch?). Then I drained them and put them (along with the chopped onions) in a dishtowel and wrung the heck out of them. I was really amazed at how much liquid I was able to squeeze out.

The cooking was very easy, too. I heated some oil in a 12-inch skillet and then I made little mounds of two tablespoons of the potato mixture in the skillet, flattened them out and cooked for a few minutes on each side until they were nice and crispy. Out of the pan and onto some paper towels to drain, and that's it!

The traditional accompaniments for latkes are sour cream and applesauce. Much to my surprise, the only applesauce recipe in The Book is for Calvados applesause that is a component of a dessert recipe. I thought about just buying some Mott's, but I came across this recipe for Rosy Applesauce on the Gourmet website. This applesause was super-easy to make, I just cooked four pounds of Golden Delicious apples with a handful of fresh cranberries, some sugar and a cinammon stick. Once the apples are all soft and broken down, I forced the applesauce through a sieve and let it cool. The cranberry and cinammon kick to this applesauce was excellent with the latkes, and we enjoyed the leftover applesauce swirled in our morning oatmeal. Yum!

Date Cooked: December 20, 2008
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: A-