hi I'm Melissa from little kosher lunch
thank you for joining us and as you can see today we are making latkes
Chanukah is very fast approaching although I would say that these latkes
are so good crisp and delicious that you may make them at other times of year as
well my typical ratio is three very large and
long russet potatoes one onion one egg and then I fry in grapeseed oil but you
can use another clean flavorless oil and then I salt mine at the end the reason
you use the russet potato is you're going to get a very consistent potato
starch level that works well and gives a crisp latke you want a really long
big potato because my first rule of an excellent latke is a long strand so I
have peeled three russet potatoes already I have grated one onion already
I'm gonna set these aside I have an egg here I have another egg at the ready
just in case I feel like I need another egg my onion has already been grated
this is one grated onion on an old-fashioned box grater I've peeled my
potatoes I've shredded two of them but I have one that's hiding in this bowl of
cold water and I'm gonna pull it out and I want to share with you how I like to
grate a potato for best results when you're forming your little latke this is
going to help your latkes hold together well and it's a long shred technique so
you're gonna go this way this is the reason I don't use a food processor
which usually cuts the potato the short way I'm gonna start grating I'm gonna move my bowl over we're gonna stop there because I think I have enough potatoes ready for
you so I grab my strands as you can see they're nice they're long they're not a
really short strand they're already kind of tangledy amongst themselves they're
really wet I'm going to put them back in the cold water so this is at this point
just a bowl of cold water with three peeled and hand shredded potatoes done
on the box grater so I just tickle them out of my box
grater put the rest in there's some discoloration as you see but it doesn't
bother me I'm gonna set this aside okay and the next step is because I don't add any fillers to my latke that's the next tip for a perfect latke is add as little
filler as possible perfect latke to me is a very pure pure experience of a
crispy crispy delicious potato with the flavoring of your onion and the
saltiness and crunch when you add your salt that's on the outside so what I do
now is we are going to remove the potato strands and I'm going to leave in this
bowl of water the starch that's left behind and we're gonna let the starch
settle as I'm carefully lifting out squeezing the water I'm letting the
starch you can see cloudiness I'm letting the starch return to the bowl
and I'm just gonna put my strands off to the side in this colander they're gonna
maybe drip and dry out a little more okay so I'm just squeezing it out with
my with my little fist and I'm gonna run my fingers through I already feel a
little layer of starch forming at the bottom it'll probably take three to five
minutes maybe you can give it even longer for the starch to really settle
and you'll see a layer of white at the bottom of your bowl so I'm gonna just
press press a little bit and my colander dust off my hands I'm gonna let my oil
come up to temperature which is in a cast-iron skillet it's gonna slowly heat the skillet okay
it's still a little bit cloudy and but because I want to get on with these
latkes I think it's good enough that I can see about a quarter to a half an
inch of the white starch that has formed at the bottom are you able to see that
all right so now I take my bowl over the sink and I'm going to
very gently and slowly pour out the water running over the edge not too
quickly but really slowly so that the starch at the bottom isn't disturbed alright put my potatoes back in now
they're really nice and dry even though our water turned pink our
potatoes are still white and nice-looking this is pretty nice and dry
once I add my onion it has some juice I'm just gonna add the whole thing and
we're gonna squeeze these latkes again okay so we have one shredded onion three shredded long strand shred potatoes one egg and I'm just going to mix them and
incorporate the potato starch from the bottom the potato starch is that binder
instead of flour like many people add to their latkes so I'm gonna just use my
final technique that I'm going to show you today which is a tangle and squeeze
technique to form my little latke and this is going to remind you of a
hairball that you find in your drain in the shower the reason we made these long
strands is that they're going to tangle really really well like a little tangle
of hair and when I put them in the palm of my hand which is the size of vodka
that I like you're then going to tangle them so that they hold together really
nicely press them to squeeze out additional moisture and this is your
perfect latke that you throw into your pan of shimmery hot oil you will need to
add oil over the course of making a full bowl of latkes so I keep my oil handy
and I have a cookie sheet ready that's lined with paper towels to receive the
cooked latkes okay oh so testing with a piece of potato it
looks great I'm gonna form a latke I'll show you how it goes so we have this
little guy we've tangled I press any additional liquid out just back in the
bowl and I'm gonna lay it in so tangle it up squeeze that extra bit of moisture out this is pretty nice and
golden it could go even a little bit further another way that you can tell
that your latke has given off a lot of its moisture and the potato is very
cooked is when you see fewer bubbles happening so I kind of watch and I see
vigorous bubbling here that means that there's a lot of moisture cooking out
and sort of boiling out of your latke in your potato and then as that settles
down and is a little bit less enthusiastic bubbling then you know that
your latke is getting more cooked and is really just turning golden you don't
want it to go too far so this one has quieted down these are getting ready to
be turned still lots of liquid in those potatoes to cook again I said
these refrigerate really well you can also just leave them out if you're doing
them late night or early morning before an event and you can freeze some if
you're doing them even further in advance and then warm them in a 200 to
250 degree oven and then a flip and then I'm going to take some of these out and
let them cool on a towel you can look at them better after they've drained and
cooled okay so now our latkes are here and
they're gonna be draining I like to give them a little hit of salt while they're
cooling and having the oil absorbed by the paper towel here they need to cool a
little bit and look how golden they are these are the most fantastic crispy
latkes they are creamy in the center crisp and shaggy on the outsides latkes
are a very special food for Hanukkah they're also a very egotistical and
important food for a mother to make for her family or whoever is cooking in your
family these are the latkes that everyone is going to talk about at the
party I'm Melissa from little kosher lunch thank you so much for your time
and your learning with me today and Happy Hanukkah