One of the most popular Hanukkah food is the latke, a fried pancake made with potato, flour and egg with onion or garlic for flavoring. Latkes are often eaten with applesauce or sour cream. No one makes a better latke than my dad. Made with grated potatoes and onions, his latkes are super thin and crispy. Sometimes you’ll see latkes that really do resemble a pancake: round and thick with a soft middle. While these are good, they’re not my cup of tea. I prefer to hear a crunch with every bite I take and when I eat my dad’s latkes, that is always the case.
Regretfully, I was unable to assist him this year when he turned the kitchen into a latke-making factory. It’s one of my favorite things about being home during the holiday season. As a team, we are able whip up multiple batches of latkes in under two hours, but when working alone it took my dad close to three! I’m sure he missed having me as his sous-chef, but that didn’t stop him from making plenty of latkes for the rest of the family. Luckily, he didn’t mind filling me in on the details of his cooking this year and agreed to be part of my Eight Days of Hanukkah Cook-a-Thon.
To make Barry’s Hanukkah Latkes you will need:
5 pounds potatoes, grated
1 cup flour
1 onion, grated
3 eggs, beaten
1/2 tsp salt
Vegetable oil
My dad did a few things differently this year. As I stated above, dad’s latkes are always really thin, which he accomplishes by flattening each dollop of the batter with a spatula after dropping them in the oil. This year, he wanted to make them “meatier,” that is, more potato in each one, and chose not to flatten them. He also decided against letting them get as crispy as previous years. He changed my two favorite things about his latkes! I guess my not being there makes it easier to do so. But despite those two small changes, he says they still turned out terrific and the whole process went extremely smooth.
This recipe makes a ton of latkes, so be prepared to have a lot for your Hanukkah dinner, and plenty more left over to give to friends. I brought them into work last year and they were gone within minutes. Here’s the Latke Master himself, enjoying a piece of his work! Special thanks to my wonderful father for sharing his recipe with Take A Bite Out of Boca for the fourth night of Hanukkah.