Perfecting Potato Latkes

This past wednesday my friends and I got together for a super casual Chrismukkah get together to eat latkes and look over all of our pictures from Cuba (you may see the below holiday post for one photo). I was the one in charge of the latke making and was on a mission to perfect them! The last and only time I have ever made latkes was this past Passover. My Passover latkes tasted amazing, but I found the process of making them a bit painful. I got very frustrated frying the latkes for Passover because I was having trouble keeping the shreds of potato together, the latkes just kept falling apart in the beginning. It took me a really long time to get the hang of it, and by that point I already had a number of broken latkes. So for our Chrismukkah latkes, I turned to Williams Sonoma to help me out.

Williams Sonoma has a recipe for Perfect Potato Latkes that sounded well...perfect! I gave the recipe a try and what do you know, perfection! I changed the recipe slightly, using their ingredients as a guideline. My recipe serves more people which I thought was important for holiday season. It's always better to have more food than too little during the holidays, and come on, who doesn't love leftovers?

Note: If you do not have a food processor or the shredding disk attachment, you may shred your potatoes using a cheese grater.

Note: You can easily make this recipe Passover friendly by substituting matzo meal for the flour.

Tip: Rinsing the potatoes in water removes excess starch, which allows for more successful frying.

Tip: You may serve immediately, but you can just as easily make your latkes a day ahead and reheat in the oven upon serving time.

Tip: Serve your latkes with my Homemade Applesauce.

Ingredients:

4 large russet potatoes, peeled

2 - 2 1/2 small onions, peeled and quartered

3 eggs, beaten

2 tbsp olive oil

3 1/2 tbsp flour (or matzo meal if making for Passover)

1 tsp baking powder

salt and pepper, to taste

vegetable oil for frying

Directions:

1. Insert the shredding disk attachment into food processor. Cut potatoes into chunks to fit the feed tube. Insert potato chunks into feed tube and pulse to grate.

2. Pour shredded potatoes into a colander on top of a large bowl or a salad spinner and cover with water to rinse for about 5-10 minutes. Drain very well.

3. Insert onion chunks into feed tube and pulse to grate.

4. Pour well drained potato shreds into a large bowl and mix in the shredded onion.

5. Add the eggs, olive oil, flour, baking powder, salt and pepper, and stir until well combined.

6. Line a baking sheet with paper towels. In a large nonstick fry pan or griddle over medium high heat, pour vegetable oil to a depth of 1/8 inch.

7. When oil sizzles when lightly splashed with a bit of cold water (be careful doing this), working in batches, scoop the potato mixture with a large spoon and place onto oil. Flatten out and shape with the back of the spoon. Fry, turning once, until golden brown, 3-5 minutes per side.

8. Place the fried latkes on the lined baking sheet to drain off excess oil. Makes about 25 medium sized latkes.