Latkes!

 I take a modern approach to cooking -- I let my husband and son take care of it. Except, except for certain holiday foods.

For Chanukah I firmly take the frying pan in hand and make the latkes.

Latkes, for those of you not in the know, are fried potato pancakes and one of two traditional foods during Chanukah. (The other food is jelly donuts, I buy those.) Every family has their prefe
rred latke recipe and by recipe I mean "loose set of steps" by which they create these oily delights. 

Some put in an egg or two, others include matzo meal, flour, or other starch. Yet others choose to purchase theirs, ready to reheat for a crowd. There is no right or wrong way to make latkes. But mine is the right way -- at least for my family.

This morning I woke to a message from my daughter asking what the ratio of potatoes to onions was and, do I use salt and pepper. After I finished my first draft of this post I was asked "how many potatoes per person." I laughed.

I thought for a moment and replied (8 hours after the message was sent) 3:1 ish, and yes.

That's it folks, that's my latke recipe. Roughly 3 potatoes (medium size) to one similarly sized onion. I think. Then grate them all using your preferred grating method (I use the large hole grating disk on our food processor) to create large, wide, shreds, place in a strainer or colander to drain for a bit (10 to 30 minutes) sprinkle with a generous pinch of salt and several grinds of pepper and fry.

To fry, heat about a quarter to a half inch of oil (1 cm for my friends who use the metric system) and take a generous pinch of the mixture (I use the tips of all fingers and thumb) and drop in the oil. Repeat. Leave enough space between the latkes so that the pan isn't too crowded. Do not press. Fry until the latkes release easily from the bottom of the pan and flip. (The latkes, not your body, that would be dangerous in a kitchen with hot oil on the stove.) The latkes are roughly 2 inches in diameter and about a quarter inch thick. (5 cm and 1 cm)

When the second side is nicely browned, remove the latkes and drain on a double layer of paper towels. Keep going until either you are tired of frying or you run out of the source material.

Eat with sour cream or apple sauce and try not to think about the layer of oil spatter in the kitchen.

Happy Chanukah!