Yummy Yummy Latkes

Posted by Maurisa Singer on 21 December 2011

Tags: recipe

The holidays are a wonderful time of year and one of my favorite parts of the holidays is the food. We can all agree the holidays would not be the same without traditional foods. While I love traditions, I’m also open to trying new and modern ways to prepare holiday foods.

A few weeks ago, I had one such learning experience. While preparing for an early holiday celebration, several wonderful women shared a shortcut to making latkes. Latkes are potato pancakes — traditionally made for Hannukah. They are served with applesauce or sour cream — both if you like. Russet potatoes are grated and combined with other ingredients, then fried. 

We planned to prepare latkes in a small kitchen/café and only had time to fry them. This meant the ingredients needed to be premixed. However, we were worried about the potatoes sitting out for a while prior to being fried. Grated potatoes have a tendency to quickly turn dark and expel liquid. The brilliant shortcut was to use frozen store-bought hash brown potatoes instead of grating/shredding several russet potatoes. 

The recipe was delicious. Every single person in the building at the time came into the kitchen to inquire what we were making and taste test! We had raving reviews from people who had previously never tried latkes.

Following is the recipe for latkes made with frozen hash brown potatoes — compliments of my friend, Kelly:

Yields about 7-9 latkes

3 cups frozen hash brown potatoes

1 small onion

3 eggs lightly beaten 

3 tablespoons matzo meal

1 1/2 teaspoons pepper

Vegetable oil for frying

Directions:

Heat oil — I put enough oil to cover the bottom of the pan. Make sure the oil is very hot before frying.

Mix all ingredients together.

Form into little pancakes and fry.

Note:

I like to season the mixture with an all-purpose seasoning and a touch of garlic salt. Regular salt is fine as well. If you don’t have matzo meal, you can use cornstarch or flour as a substitute. I prefer to use cornstarch instead of flour as I like the consistency better.

I want to wish everyone Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!

Do you have any special holiday recipes to share?