How To Make Latkes

Hanukkah may be over today, but that doesn't mean it's too late to make latkes. If you've never made latkes before, may I suggest you do so tonight?

It's pretty easy and pretty rewarding. Granted, it's not guiltless food: eating a bunch of latkes is basically equivalent to eating a bunch of french fries, so you may want to serve them on a treadmill with a side of personal trainer. But holiday time is about treating yourself, isn't it, and when was the last time you tre

[THIS POST HAS BEEN INTERRUPTED BY A FAN WHO JUST APPROACHED ME AT THE COFFEE SHOP WHERE I AM WRITING THIS. SHE SAYS SHE'S BEEN READING ME FOR A LONG TIME, THAT SHE'S A GEOGRAPHY TEACHER AND THAT SHE LIVES IN BUFFALO. I TOLD HER THAT I AM TERRIBLE AT GEOGRAPHY, THAT I REALLY DIDN'T KNOW WHETHER PHILADELPHIA WAS NORTH OR SOUTH OF NEW YORK, AND SHE GAVE ME A PITYING LOOK.]

Where was I? Oh yes, latkes. Let's continue below, shall we?

I got the recipe from this month's Saveur and the technique (for the recipe is more of a technique than an actual recipe) comes from Joan Nathan, the Jewish cooking guru.

Essentially you peel a bunch of potatoes (Yukon gold), put them through the shredder of your food processor (that's how I did it, anyway), intermingling it with a raw onion which you shred too, and then you put the shredded potato and onion in a colander over a bowl and squeeze out all the liquid. Once the liquid is squeezed out you transfer the dried out potatoes and onion to a bowl:

Here's where you need the recipe: you add a certain amount of matzoh meal (3 Tbs?), an egg or two (I don't remember), salt and pepper and then--rather amazingly--the starch from the potato liquid which remains at the bottom of the liquid bowl once you pour out all the liquid. [I'd be more exact in this recipe, but the magazine is at my apt. and I'm at a coffee shop where fans are stalking me. They're all staring at me while I write this.]

Ok, so let's say you just mix all that together--don't be so exact, it isn't science, it's Judaism--and then you add a bunch of oil to a pan and heat it. You take walnut size balls of latke mix and flatten them in the hot oil:

Oil is what we're celebrating on Hanukkah, in case you didn't know: the fact that oil burned for 8 nights and kept those Maccabees well-lit (there's nothing less attractive than a shadowy Maccabee). Flip them over and cook on the other side:

Then drain on paper towels:

Since this is quite a heavy dinner (the word "gut bomb" came up), I served it with a healthy, stealthy beet salad--also quite Jewish, I think:

I used a Barefoot Contessa recipe: there's orange zest in there, orange juice and orange segments. And then Coach Farm goat cheese on top because Craig's a cheese nut.

And speaking of Christian Craig, he'd never had a latke before in his whole life. Here he is sampling his very first one: (notice, they are served with apple sauce and sour cream in abundance)

His verdict? "Oy! This latke is geshmak! I'm going to plotz."

Make latkes tonight and celebrate your inner Jew.