The Art of Making Latkes: A Step-by-Step Guide
Making latkes is an art that requires precision, patience, and attention to detail. It's a process that involves multiple steps, each one crucial to achieving the perfect crispy exterior and fluffy interior. In this article, we'll take you through the entire process of making latkes from scratch.
**The Importance of Oxidation**
Before we begin, it's essential to understand the role of oxidation in latke making. Oxidation is a chemical reaction that occurs when potatoes are cut or grated, causing them to turn brown. This browning can affect the flavor and texture of our final product. To prevent oxidation, it's crucial to remove excess moisture from the grated potatoes as soon as possible.
**Removing Excess Water**
To achieve this, we need to dump our grated potatoes out into a clean kitchen towel, twisting the towel into a tight bundle, and wringing out all the excess water. This process may require some elbow grease, but it's essential to remove about half a cup of water from four large russet potatoes. The resulting potatoes will be less starchy and more prone to browning.
**Checking for Raw Potatoes**
A common mistake when making latkes is using raw potatoes. These can cause digestive issues and are not suitable for consumption. To avoid this, we need to check if our potatoes are still raw by squeezing them gently between your fingers or thumb. If they're not yet tender, they're ready to be used.
**Don't Waste Potato Water**
Another common mistake is throwing away the potato water that's collected during the grating process. This water contains starch, which can help bind the latkes together and make them extra crispy. To avoid wasting this valuable resource, we need to let it sit for about five minutes. The starch will settle at the bottom of the bowl, making it perfect for adding to our egg mixture.
**Mixing the Egg Mixture**
With our potato water collected and our potatoes ready, it's time to mix our egg mixture. We'll combine three eggs with the reserved starch and add about a cup of panko breadcrumbs to make these latkes extra crispy. Mixing everything together by hand ensures that we don't overmix the batter, which can lead to dense latkes.
**Forming the Latke Patties**
To create the perfect latke shape, we need to form our potato mixture into patties. This is where the magic happens – when we ball up the potatoes and then smoosh them down, they kind of explode outwards, giving our latke plenty of cracks and crevices that translate directly into more crispiness.
**Frying the Latkes**
With our latke patties ready, it's time to fry them in a skillet. We'll heat about half an inch of vegetable oil to 375 degrees Fahrenheit and carefully place our latkes inside. Frying each side for about four to five minutes or until they're deeply golden brown and crispy will give us the perfect texture.
**Topping Your Latkes**
The final step is topping your latke with whatever you like! Whether you're feeling classic with a dollop of apple sauce and sour cream, adventurous with pastrami and whole-grain mustard, or bold with spicy red pepper jelly, the possibilities are endless. Don't be afraid to get creative – after all, that's what makes making latkes so much fun!
**The Perfect Pairing: Wine**
When it comes to enjoying our delicious homemade latkes, we need something special to complement their rich flavors. That's where Bright Sellers comes in – a wine club that selects the perfect bottle just for you from around the world. With their expert knowledge and personalized recommendations, we can find the perfect pairing for our latkes. And right now, Bright Sellers is offering 50% off your first six-bottle box, so be sure to follow the link in the description below to take the taste palate quiz and get started on your wine journey!
"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthis episode of basics with babish is brought to you by Brite sellers a monthly wine club that matches you with fine wine you'll love and delivers it right to your door bright cellars is offering you 50% off your first six bottle box so follow the link in the video description to take the taste palate quiz and get started more on that later for now we're making latkes let's get down to basics all right so has you folks might have guessed latkes begin and end with potatoes I have here before me a smattering of Idaho grown russet style potatoes the ideal tuber for this particular application we're gonna start by peeling our potatoes I'm using four large russets and then grating them on the large holes of a box grater along with a small onion grating the onion along with the potatoes gets it all nice and mixed in right off the bat throughout this process you're gonna notice that your potatoes are starting to discolor turning a reddish muddy brown this is a perfectly normal and natural process called oxidation and it will not affect the flavor of your final product next up the most important step in latke making the ringing that is dumping our grated potatoes out into a clean kitchen towel twisting the towel into a tight bindle and wringing all this excess water out of the potatoes this is gonna take a bit of elbow grease but in the end you should be able to wring about a half a cup of water out of four large russet potatoes you'll notice that the potatoes are now browning more slowly that's because we've just removed a large amount of their starch these guys are now ready to become latkes it's gonna give them a taste to make sure that they are still raw potatoes I'm just kidding don't do this raw potatoes are bad for you question mark another thing to don't do is don't throw away all this potato water let it sit in a bowl for about five minutes at which point all the starch from the potatoes will settle in the bottom of the bowl and according to Cook's Illustrated this stuff when added to the eggs that we're gonna add to the latkes will both help bind the latkes together and make them extra crispy so we're gonna mix all that reserved starch with our eggs I'm gonna start with three eggs we want just enough to bind our grated potatoes together so in a extra large bowl where we combined our potatoes with our egg and starch slurry mixture along with about a cup of panko breadcrumbs to make these guys extra crispy then we're gonna mix these guys together the hand again we want just enough egg in there so the potatoes hold their shape when pressed together three eggs turned out to be not quite enough in my situation so I'm going to add another one and with that we have created the basis for the ultimate potato latkes now comes the matter of forming them into potato patties for extra crispy edges I like to ball up the potatoes into a ball and then go ahead and smoosh them down this causes the sides patty to kind of explode out giving our latke plenty of crackles and cracks which will translate directly into more crispness when a fried speaking of which it's time to fry into a 12-inch skillet goes about a half inch of vegetable oil that we're gonna heat to 375 degrees Fahrenheit in go the latkes which we're gonna fry on each side for about four to five minutes or until deeply golden brown and crisp it's during this time that we're going to daydream about what we're gonna top these bad boys with are you gonna be super basic about it and use apple sauce and sour cream are you gonna go completely off the reservation and make latke poutine whatever you do you are gonna drain these guys on a wire rack and salt them immediately after they come out of the oil once everybody's all fried up we can commence to topping first up tail is oldest I'm some smoked salmon and cream cheese perhaps a a sprig of dill if you're feeling extra fresh next up let's go make a meaty with some pastrami whole-grain mustard and a Cornish on pickle next up one of my personal favorites a dollop of cream cheese and some spicy red pepper jelly last up how about some grass-fed yogurt pomegranate seeds a slice or two of fresh habanero for the bold and a drizzle of clover honey and there you have it folks the world's crispiest fluffiest latkes topped with the world's most flavorful toppings whether you're celebrating a holiday or just celebrating lunchtime these are some beautiful blank canvases upon which to make your masterpiece and if you ask me most of these would pair nicely with a rich buttery white wine but where to find a rich buttery white wine oh yeah how about today's sponsor bright sellers I might know a thing or two about food but I certainly don't fancy myself a sommelier which is why I've thoroughly enjoyed using bright cellars a service that selects wine just for me from all around the world and delivers it right to my door the service is only for adults 21 and older all it takes is a quick seven question non wine snobby survey to gather your taste preferences and deliver wines you're guaranteed to enjoy the folks that bright cellars take pride in educating their club members so each box comes with a wine education card for each bottle that outlines tasting notes suggested pairings ideal serving temperature and origin instead of just talking about it let's see what came in this month's box my pick of the bunch was the boutique Chardonnay a full-bodied fruit-forward Chardonnay that I think would pair really nicely with today's smoked salmon kiss right sellers is offering you 50% off your first six bottle box so be sure to follow the link in the description below to take the taste palate quiz and get startedthis episode of basics with babish is brought to you by Brite sellers a monthly wine club that matches you with fine wine you'll love and delivers it right to your door bright cellars is offering you 50% off your first six bottle box so follow the link in the video description to take the taste palate quiz and get started more on that later for now we're making latkes let's get down to basics all right so has you folks might have guessed latkes begin and end with potatoes I have here before me a smattering of Idaho grown russet style potatoes the ideal tuber for this particular application we're gonna start by peeling our potatoes I'm using four large russets and then grating them on the large holes of a box grater along with a small onion grating the onion along with the potatoes gets it all nice and mixed in right off the bat throughout this process you're gonna notice that your potatoes are starting to discolor turning a reddish muddy brown this is a perfectly normal and natural process called oxidation and it will not affect the flavor of your final product next up the most important step in latke making the ringing that is dumping our grated potatoes out into a clean kitchen towel twisting the towel into a tight bindle and wringing all this excess water out of the potatoes this is gonna take a bit of elbow grease but in the end you should be able to wring about a half a cup of water out of four large russet potatoes you'll notice that the potatoes are now browning more slowly that's because we've just removed a large amount of their starch these guys are now ready to become latkes it's gonna give them a taste to make sure that they are still raw potatoes I'm just kidding don't do this raw potatoes are bad for you question mark another thing to don't do is don't throw away all this potato water let it sit in a bowl for about five minutes at which point all the starch from the potatoes will settle in the bottom of the bowl and according to Cook's Illustrated this stuff when added to the eggs that we're gonna add to the latkes will both help bind the latkes together and make them extra crispy so we're gonna mix all that reserved starch with our eggs I'm gonna start with three eggs we want just enough to bind our grated potatoes together so in a extra large bowl where we combined our potatoes with our egg and starch slurry mixture along with about a cup of panko breadcrumbs to make these guys extra crispy then we're gonna mix these guys together the hand again we want just enough egg in there so the potatoes hold their shape when pressed together three eggs turned out to be not quite enough in my situation so I'm going to add another one and with that we have created the basis for the ultimate potato latkes now comes the matter of forming them into potato patties for extra crispy edges I like to ball up the potatoes into a ball and then go ahead and smoosh them down this causes the sides patty to kind of explode out giving our latke plenty of crackles and cracks which will translate directly into more crispness when a fried speaking of which it's time to fry into a 12-inch skillet goes about a half inch of vegetable oil that we're gonna heat to 375 degrees Fahrenheit in go the latkes which we're gonna fry on each side for about four to five minutes or until deeply golden brown and crisp it's during this time that we're going to daydream about what we're gonna top these bad boys with are you gonna be super basic about it and use apple sauce and sour cream are you gonna go completely off the reservation and make latke poutine whatever you do you are gonna drain these guys on a wire rack and salt them immediately after they come out of the oil once everybody's all fried up we can commence to topping first up tail is oldest I'm some smoked salmon and cream cheese perhaps a a sprig of dill if you're feeling extra fresh next up let's go make a meaty with some pastrami whole-grain mustard and a Cornish on pickle next up one of my personal favorites a dollop of cream cheese and some spicy red pepper jelly last up how about some grass-fed yogurt pomegranate seeds a slice or two of fresh habanero for the bold and a drizzle of clover honey and there you have it folks the world's crispiest fluffiest latkes topped with the world's most flavorful toppings whether you're celebrating a holiday or just celebrating lunchtime these are some beautiful blank canvases upon which to make your masterpiece and if you ask me most of these would pair nicely with a rich buttery white wine but where to find a rich buttery white wine oh yeah how about today's sponsor bright sellers I might know a thing or two about food but I certainly don't fancy myself a sommelier which is why I've thoroughly enjoyed using bright cellars a service that selects wine just for me from all around the world and delivers it right to my door the service is only for adults 21 and older all it takes is a quick seven question non wine snobby survey to gather your taste preferences and deliver wines you're guaranteed to enjoy the folks that bright cellars take pride in educating their club members so each box comes with a wine education card for each bottle that outlines tasting notes suggested pairings ideal serving temperature and origin instead of just talking about it let's see what came in this month's box my pick of the bunch was the boutique Chardonnay a full-bodied fruit-forward Chardonnay that I think would pair really nicely with today's smoked salmon kiss right sellers is offering you 50% off your first six bottle box so be sure to follow the link in the description below to take the taste palate quiz and get started\n"
