I ate a lot of potatoes when I lived in Germany. Germans, although more famous for their beer and sausage, do a lot of potato-eating. One of my favorite ways to eat them was as a pancake. My family always called them "Kartoffelpuffer" ("Kartoffel" being the word for "potato"), although they were also commonly referred to as "Reibekuchen" (literally: "grated cakes"). The first time we made them, I bit into mine and said, "Oh! It's a latke!" because the only time I'd ever had them previously had been during a Chanukah thing. Technically, a latke can be made without potatoes (they've been around a lot longer than potatoes have been available to Jewish communities), but most people really like fried potatoes, and, as I said above, they're a great food source, so why not?
Kartoffelpuffer
~1 lb potatoes
1 small onion, diced
1 large egg
~2 Tbsp bread crumbs
Salt and Pepper
Oil (for cooking)
Peel and grate the potatoes. If you prefer to leave the skin on your potatoes, feel free to do so; just be sure that all the skin gets grated and you aren't left with large sections of it. Combine with the other ingredients, stirring it to mix thoroughly. Here's the tricky bit: you have to wait. I am an impatient cook, so I always mix everything together, look at it, and freak out. When first combined, everything is loose, resembling a salad more than a batter. Give it some time to sit though, and liquid will be pulled out of the potatoes. Stir periodically until you start to notice a batter-like, cohesive consistency (shown at right). In the mean time, heat your oil/pan/griddle. My recipe says to cook them like pancakes, but when I'm making pancakes, I use a lot less oil. Grease your pan or griddle generously; you can even shallow-fry these (which is more in keeping with the Jewish latke tradition). 
Scoop a portion of the potato mixture into the oil. If you need to, spread it to about 1/2 uniform thickness. Fry/cook over medium heat until the edges are set and slightly browned; flip the latkes and cook until both sides are browned. Be aware of how much oil the pancakes absorb-- you may need to re-grease the pan when you flip. Work in batches until all the potato batter is used up. Serve while warm (fresh out of the pan is best). My family in Germany eats them with applesauce; they're also delightful with sour cream, cottage cheese, apple butter, or any combination thereof.
Notes: If you are terribly impatient like me, you might add a 2nd egg to get to batter-like consistency faster ("It's too dry!"). If you opt to do this, be prepared to add more bread crumbs or flour as the liquid is drawn out of the potatoes. Even without adding an extra egg, you may find it useful to have flour around-- potatoes hold a lot of water.
When greasing the pan, I used about 1 Tbsp of bacon fat and 2 Tbsp of canola oil at the beginning of each batch. Bacon fat just gives such a lovely hint of flavor.
If you're having trouble with the pancake deforming as you try to scoop it up and flip it, that's probably it's way of saying that it is not done cooking on that side. If it breaks, then it is sticking to the pan. But I found that usually it seemed sticky because it was under-cooked. No worries if you realize the problem after flipping. Just let it finish cooking on the 2nd side, and flip it back to the first side. And try to be more patient next time. It's hard, I know.
These are oily. That's why they're eaten at Chanukah-- it's all about the oil. I recommend draining them, though, if you aren't going to immediately devour them. Crumple some old newspaper and cover it with a clean paper towel, and place the pancakes on that to dry. (See photo, left) Newspaper soaks up the oil nicely, and it's a bit cheaper than a roll of paper towels.
No comments:
Post a Comment