Cooking for Hanukkah? Try Jake Cohen's 'perfect potato latkes' from his 'Jew-Ish' cookbook
Latkes are a time-honored culinary tradition for Hanukkah and Jake Cohen, author of "Jew-Ish: A Cookbook: Reinvented Recipes from a Modern Mensch", has the perfect recipe to try at home.
The Jewish festival of lights starts on the evening of Dec. 18 and ends Dec. 26.
“Hanukkah may be the festival of lights, but when it comes to the food, it’s really the festival of oil," Cohen writes in his cookbook. "There’s no better way to celebrate than with a glistening platter of freshly fried latkes begging to get smothered in applesauce and sour cream.”
Cohen shared the recipe with USA TODAY.
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Perfect Potato Latkes
Makes: Around 10 latkes
Ingredients:
1 pound russet potatoes, peeled
¼ medium yellow onion
¼ cup matzo meal, plus more as needed
2 teaspoons kosher salt
2 large eggs
Vegetable oil, for frying
Applesauce, for serving
Sour cream, for serving
Instructions:
Using a box grater, coarsely grate the potatoes and onion. Transfer to a medium bowl lined with cheesecloth or a thin dish towel and wring the cloth to squeeze out any liquid into the bowl. Set the bowl of liquid aside to sit for 5 minutes. Put the squeezed potatoes and onion in another medium bowl, add the matzo meal, salt, and eggs, and mix until well incorporated.
Pour off and discard the reserved liquid from the first bowl, revealing a thin layer of white potato starch stuck to the bottom. Stir the potato starch into the potato mixture.
In a large cast-iron or nonstick skillet, heat ¼ inch of oil over medium-high heat until shimmering. Line a plate with paper towels.
Working in batches, scoop 3 or 4 (⅓-cup) balls of the potato mixture into the pan, spacing them 2 inches apart. Using a spatula, smash each ball to flatten. Cook the latkes, flipping once, until golden, 2 to 3 minutes per side. Transfer to the paper towel–lined plate to drain. Repeat with the remain-ing potato mixture, adding more oil to the pan between batches as needed (be sure to let the oil get hot before continuing with the next batch).
Transfer the latkes to a platter and serve immediately with applesauce and sour cream.
From Jew-ish by Jake Cohen. Copyright © 2021 by Jake Cohen. Reprinted by permission of Harvest, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Perfect latkes: Try Jake Cohen's recipe this Hanukkah
