8 Servings
40 Minutes
Allergens
Herman Saks, my Uncle Herman, who was born in Russia, was the family’s latke maker when I was growing up, and every year he patiently and expertly fried numerous latkes at the family’s big Hanukkah parties. His secret technique? He made his batter in a blender. This method is convenient, especially when making large quantities of latkes; you can quickly whip up batches of batter as you need them. Uncle Herman gave me his recipe just a few weeks before he passed away at the age of 91.
More Latkes Recipes for Chanukah:
Preheat oven to 250 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a tray with paper towels for draining the latkes and have a baking sheet ready for keeping latkes warm.
Put eggs, salt, matzo meal, and baking powder in a blender. Peel and cut potatoes into small chunks. Add potatoes and onion chunks a few at a time and process until potatoes and onions are chopped small and batter is blended well. Scrape batter down occasionally.
Pour batter into a bowl. If it is very thin, stir in another tablespon or two of matzo meal.
Heat 1/2 cup oil in a deep, large, heavy skillet. For each latke drop two to three tablespoons of potato mixture into pan. Do not crowd them in pan. Fry over medium heat four to five minutes on each side or until crisp and golden brown. Turn carefully with two slotted spatulas so oil doesn’t splatter. Transfer onto paper towels. Stir batter before frying each new batch. Add more oil to the pan as necessary, and heat it before adding more latkes. After frying about half the batter, put latkes on baking sheet and keep warm in oven.
Pat tops of latkes with paper towels before serving. Serve hot or warm.
Reproduced from 1000 Jewish Recipes with permission from the publisher.
Quick and Easy but a little too “gummy” I love how quickly this recipe can be mixed up! I didn’t have what I would call “large” potatoes so I used 4 smaller ones and 1 large. The batter was a little too thin and I followed the advice to add 1 T of matza meal. I think the challenge with any blender latke recipe is not to end up with a “gummy” pancake, since the starchy liquid is not drained off. The batter made a nice round shape just being spooned into the pan, browned easily and was easy to flip over. I had enough for 12, 4″ latkes.
I would make this again if I was in too much of a hurry to grate the potatoes (as I usually do). I would add a 2nd onion to this and try making a sample latke without adding any additional matza meal.
Thanks for sharing your Uncle Herman’s recipe!
Good feedback.