Today’s newsletter
from the Food Network
features several Hanukkah recipes. Since I love anything with potatoes, I
thought the following dish from
Emeril Lagasse sounded particularly appetizing:
Emeril’s Special Latkes
2½ pounds baking potatoes, peeled
1 medium onion, julienned
2 eggs
Salt
Freshly ground white pepper
¼ tsp. baking powder
2 TBS matzoh or all-purpose flour
Vegetable oil, for frying
1 C applesauce
1 C sour cream
4 ounces caviar
Using a hand grater or food processor, grate the
potatoes. In a mixing bowl, combine the grated potatoes, onions, eggs,
baking powder, and flour. Mix well; season with salt and pepper. In a large
skillet, over medium-high heat, cover the bottom with ½-inch of oil. When
the oil is hot, spoon 2 tablespoons of the filling into individual cakes.
Using the back of the spoon, flatten each pancake. Pan-fry until golden
brown on each side, about 2 to 3 minutes. Remove from the oil and drain on
paper towels. Fry the cakes in batches and do not over crowd the pan.
To serve, place a dollop of the applesauce or sour
cream in the center of each latke. Place the latkes on a platter and serve
warm.
I would leave out
the caviar as I cannot abide the taste.
The
Food Network also offered tips for keeping grated potatoes fresh for latkes:
Q: Can potatoes be grated into cold water
and kept for several hours for potato pancakes?
A: Potato pancakes are made all over the world.
And they have names as different as the people who make them. If the
potato-cookers are Yiddish, the pancakes are latkes; if Italian, the
pancakes are fritattas; if Spanish, the pancakes are tortillas,
and if French the pancakes are criques. Other potato pancakes are
made with cooked potatoes, such as American hash browns, Swiss
roesti, and the French macaire. The Irish use both raw and cooked
potatoes to make a potato pancake called
Boxty.
Depending on the kind of potato pancake you're making,
leaving grated potato in water may not be a good idea. Let's assume you are
making latkes. Soaking the grated potato in water will leech out some of the
starch. Since starch is one of the main things that hold the pancake
together, you will be losing this valuable glue.
Many recipes in fact call for pressing the grated
potato in a sieve over a bowl to drain off as much liquid as possible. Then,
when the starch has settled to the bottom of the potato water, you pour off
the water and add the starch at the bottom of the bowl back to the potatoes.
Here's what you can do instead: Combine
the grated potato with chopped onion. This not only tastes great, but the
onion keeps the potatoes from turning brown before you cook them. Potatoes
brown because they are exposed to oxygen. Commercial processors use certain
sulfur compounds to prevent this browning. Onions contain several of these
compounds. That's what gives onions their distinct odor, but they'll also
keep your potatoes white.