My family doesn’t celebrate Hanukkah; the only connection we really have to the Jewish part of our heritage is through processed foods. So we’ll regret not having eaten any latkes until we finally break down mid-June and cook my grandmother’s recipe, which is a box of Streit’s potato pancake mix. There’s a certain appeal to the mix. The way it absorbs water is really satisfying. But I taught myself to make them from scratch and yeah, they’re a lot better that way, and I figure I ought to actually make some during Hanukkah for once.

There are a couple of alternative recipes that I really like but I don’t have the ingredients for them right now. One of them is to add some grated carrot and zucchini and the other is to replace the onion with apple and dust the tops with powdered sugar. But I have the basic potatoes and onions. Yellow potatoes, so I don’t have to peel them.

Normally I would grate my potatoes and onions by hand but a friend gave me an old food processor a couple of years ago. I’ve never used any of the attachments besides the regular blade and didn’t even really know how to put them on, so this was a good opportunity to educate myself on the various blades that go on a food processor. 

The food processor makes quick work of everything and takes maybe a minute to shred what would normally take like half an hour. Even considering that I have to take it apart and wash it, it saves a lot of time.

I drain as much juice out of the shredded vegetables as I can by wrapping them in a clean rag (cheesecloth is good, if you have it) and twisting and squeezing it. If you get enough of the liquid out you don’t have to add any flour to make them stick together, and you can save that liquid and add it to soup or bread later.

The closest thing to vegetable oil I have right now is shortening, which I bought a big tub of a while ago. For baking. I swear it’s for baking. I have dumpstered a lot of olive oil and butter, but olive oil has too low a smoke point to fry in and butter would just be weird. But melted shortening makes a very good frying oil.

The potatoes are mixed with one or two eggs, salt, and pepper.

And then you just squeeze them into patties and fry them on both sides. Did I get hot oil in my eye? Yes, of course, every time I fry. There are screens you can put over a frying pan to prevent the oil from spattering. I have one and I didn’t use it.

And then they go on a wire rack while they cool so they don’t sit in the oil.

I would normally eat latkes with apple sauce but I have none, or sour cream, but I have none, but I often subsitute Greek yogurt for sour cream. It works, but I also happen to like yogurt a lot.