Here is my no-recipe wing it latke making for 2023.
This time I decided to just go for it without measuring, not to show off but to show you how malleable this technique is. I used my base premise, that a few Yukon gold potatoes, steamed and peeled, riced into the bowl helps create the best texture for the pancake AND the julienned Idaho bakers make the best crispy lacy edges.
From a myth busting perspective, if you do things in the right order, you don’t need to julienne the potatoes into water, just let their own juice and starch combine with the matzoh meal and egg, onion etc and you have latke heaven. Mix it all in the right order and you won’t even see any oxidization. I also didn’t peel the Idaho bakers, allowing the flavor of the skin to be a part of these latke. This batch made 12 very large latkes that I topped with my friend Gillian’s apple butter and and sour cream. I only plated the first 8 in the video. The rest my friends ate.
Andrew’s No-Recipe Latkes
Ingredients
- 1 egg
- 1 egg yolk
- 1 onion, chopped
- 1 garlic clove
- 4 medium sized Idaho potato
- 1 cup matzoh meal
- 2 large Yukon gold potatoes, steamed, cooled and peeled
- Salt and pepper
- Vegetable oil, for frying
Instructions
Place the eggs in a large bowl.
In a food processor, pulse and puree the onion, garlic, and 1 diced Idaho potato. Combine with the eggs. Rice the cooked and cooled Yukon gold potatoes into the bowl and mix to combine.
Julienne the remaining Idaho potatoes into the same bowl, season with salt and ground pepper. Add the matzoh meal and combine, increasingly more forcefully, the potato strings won’t break.
In a large, heavy skillet, heat 1/2 inch of oil until it shimmers.
Make 1/3 inch thick pancakes the size of your palms, brown in 375 degree oil until very crispy, drain on a rack, season with more salt, top as you like and enjoy.
