These Crispy, Golden-Brown Latkes Are The Only Recipe You Need For Your Hanukkah Celebration (2024)

FAQs

What are latkes eaten at Hanukkah? ›

A latke (Yiddish: לאַטקע latke; sometimes romanized latka, lit. "pancake") is a type of potato pancake or fritter in Ashkenazi Jewish cuisine that is traditionally prepared to celebrate Hanukkah. Latkes can be made with ingredients other than potatoes such as cheese, onion, carrot, and zucchini.

Russet potatoes: Russet potatoes, or baking potatoes, are high in starch and have a dry, mealy texture. This type of potato is best for latkes because the dryness of the potato is partially responsible for that desirable, crispy texture. Yellow onion: Yellow onion adds a savory flavor to the latkes.

But, corn meal is a great substitute for matzoh meal and will also make your latkes gluten-free and nice and crispy.

Before the potato, latkes were made with grains like rye, cheese, and vegetables like turnips, carrots, and even beans. Safe to say, though, that with the addition of this new world tuber the latke has found a friend forever. Cassola pancakes, a Sephardic cheese fritter thought to resemble latkes of the Medieval days.

A latke is a type of potato pancake or fritter found in Ashkenazi Jewish cuisine. The dish, which is traditionally served during Hanukkah, can be made with grated, shredded, or mashed potatoes. This top-rated recipe is made with shredded russet potatoes, all-purpose flour, an egg, an onion, and salt.

Latkes. These fried potato pancakes are possibly the best-known Hanukkah food. The oil used to fry them is a commemoration of the oil in the temple lamps. Made of shredded potatoes and onions much like hash browns, they're traditionally topped with applesauce and served as a side dish.

Potato pancakes have a creamy, almost mashed-potato-like center, with a thin, golden, crisp exterior. Latkes, on the other hand, should have a deeply browned crust, with wispy, lacy edges. Latkes also aren't hash browns.

Vegetable oil or canola oil is usually best, because of its high smoking point. Latkes were traditionally made with schmaltz, or chicken fat, so if you have access to it, you should certainly add it in, because it does contribute to the flavor.

Hash browns are shredded potatoes and onions that are scattered in a pan and pan fried. They can also be formed into a patty and deep fried. When comparing hash browns to latkes and potato pancakes, hash browns require the fewest ingredients. Latke recipes include a binder like egg.

In addition to apples' lengthy Jewish history, applesauce enjoys another key advantage: It's not dairy, so it can be served with latkes cooked in chicken schmaltz, a commonplace in the old country.

Can I use panko instead of matzo meal? ›

Matzo Meal Substitutes

One acceptable substitute is almond flour. During any other time of year, crushed crackers such as saltines or oyster crackers and any breadcrumbs, including panko, can be used.

The Latkes Taste Unpleasantly Greasy

Surprisingly, this flavor is caused by frying oil that's not hot enough. In fact, frying any food in oil that's not hot enough imparts this unpleasant greasy flavor. To avoid this, always fry up a small test clump of latke before starting a big batch.

Latkes are typically eaten dipped in sour cream or applesauce. Making latkes is a Jewish tradition that has been passed down for centuries, and has found itself in my family. In conclusion, latkes are important to me because they help preserve my family's heritage, and they also taste really good.

Although many Americans associate potato pancakes with Hanukkah, they have more broad origins. They originated in the eastern European countries of Germany Austria, Russia and Poland as a peasant food. Potatoes were cheap, plentiful and easy to store, making them a staple and necessitating inventive potato recipes.

Historically, Jews in Central and Southern Europe cooked kaese (cheese) latkes, and Jews in Eastern Europe made latkes from buckwheat or rye flour.

Applesauce and sour cream are the traditional accoutrements for latkes. Some load their potato pancakes up with both toppings, while others have strong feelings about one over the other. (I'm Team Applesauce, all the way.) However, this Hanukkah, don't feel constrained by these standard-bearers.

Called sufganiyot in Hebrew, this confection is a Chanukah treat throughout the Jewish world. Deep-fried jelly doughnuts recall the oil that burned miraculously for eight days in the second-century BCE Temple in Jerusalem.

Tart and fruity applesauce—unsweetened is best—cuts through the grease and lightens them right up, leaving you feeling perfectly satisfied, but not stuffed. Sure, sour cream is tart too, but since it's dairy, it can weigh down the latkes—adding unwanted heft to an already filling meal.