Latkes (potato pancakes)

I’ve been harvesting some early potatoes and thought I’d post my latke recipe. I take one potato and chop it finely, then another few and grate them into a bowl with the finely chopped one. Then I add grated onion until it’s about 1/3 of the mixture. I add salt and spices and one egg and mix it all together thoroughly. The size of the potatoes is variable so it is all eyeballed and determined by the individual taste of how eggy one likes one’s pancakes. For a gigantic batch two or more eggs may be called for.  

Then I heat a pan to a medium heat and with enough oil to pan fry them. It takes a little while and is important as with eggs to allow the bottom to cook until it no longer sticks to the pan before flipping.

I read somewhere that the original latkes may have been fried cheese until they moved into the more northerly parts of Europe, where olive oil was scarce and lard was more common. Since there is a Jewish rule not to mix meat and dairy, the cheese was abandoned for cakes made from root vegetables. I also add some grated cheese at time to my latkes, and do make fried cheese as well (although usually it has enough fat to fry itself and then some, in the case of a hard cheese).

How thick/flat are they? Or maybe, how runny is the batter? Do you put a ball of stuff on the griddle and mash it down to flatten or do you pour it onto the griddle like a pancake batter?

I use a fork to fork the mixture over onto the skillet, so it isn’t too runny. Usually a little egg/starch/juice runs off the sides and solidifies but not very much, and I can scrape it back. They are maybe a quarter to a third inch thick but I try to make them thinner so they cook better and aren’t so dense.

Thanks for sharing this recipe with us M.