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Latkes for Hanukkah Jewish pancakes

Hanukkah Latkes (Jewish Potato Pancakes)

Crispy, tender, and packed with bright flavor! Latkes are a classic of Jewish cuisine — potato pancakes similar to hash-brown fritters, but with a few tricks of their own that you'll pick up in this recipe. Served with a sour cream and caviar sauce, they look downright festive.

Pirko Rita

Recipe author

Composition / ingredients

Servings:

Potatoes

Sour cream (full-fat)

All-purpose flour

Salt

Sour cream

Red caviar

Vegetable oil

Translation table of volumetric measures

Nutrients and energy value of the composition of the recipe

By weight of the composition:

Proteins 10 % 3 g

Fats 30 % 9 g

Carbohydrates 60 % 18 g

163 kcal

GI: 78 / 0 / 22

Cooking method

Step 1:

How do you make Jewish latkes? Gather all the ingredients on the list, along with your tools and a skillet for frying. Scrub the potatoes clean with a brush and dry them. Sift the flour through a fine-mesh sieve.
Step 2:

Peel the potatoes with a vegetable peeler. Set a colander inside a deep bowl. Grate the peeled potatoes on the medium holes of a box grater, then put them in the colander and let them sit for 30 minutes so the excess liquid drains off.
Step 3:

Preheat the oven to 210°F (100°C). After half an hour, squeeze the potatoes, letting the juice run straight into the bowl. Now pour off the accumulated liquid from that bowl. A white sediment should be left at the bottom — that's potato starch. Keep it; you'll need it.
Step 4:

In a separate bowl, mix together the grated potatoes, sifted flour, reserved potato starch, and salt.
Step 5:

Add the sour cream to the potato mixture and stir everything together well.
Step 6:

Now move on to frying. Pour vegetable oil into a skillet, set it over the heat, and let it get hot. Spoon the potato mixture into the pan with a tablespoon, shaping pancakes. Cook them in small batches over high heat, about 1.5 minutes per side.
Step 7:

Place the fried latkes on a baking sheet or in a baking dish. Once all the pancakes are fried and arranged, put them in the oven preheated to 210°F (100°C). Bake for 7–10 minutes. Adjust the exact time and temperature to your own oven.
Step 8:

Make the sauce. In a bowl, combine just two ingredients: sour cream and red caviar. You could serve these pancakes with plain sour cream, but the caviar makes the flavor brighter and richer.
Step 9:

Serve the potato latkes hot — just arrange them on a plate and spoon the sour cream and caviar sauce over the top. This is a traditional dish for Hanukkah, but they're great any day of the year.

Fry in an oil with a high smoke point! Every oil is good only up to a certain temperature — the smoke point — beyond which it starts to burn and form harmful compounds. Unrefined oils, with rare exceptions, have a low smoke point; they're full of unfiltered organic particles that burn quickly. Refined oils stand up to heat better and have a higher smoke point. Whether you're cooking in the oven, in a skillet, or on the grill, use an oil with a high smoke point. The most common ones are refined sunflower, olive, and grapeseed oil.
Here's an easy way to check whether the oil in the pan is hot enough: lower a wooden spatula into it. If bubbles gather around it, you're ready to fry.
Important! The wrong pan can ruin even the best recipe. See here for all the details on choosing the perfect skillet for different dishes.
Note:
You don't have to peel the potatoes for latkes. Leaving the skin on gives the dish an appetizing brown color and a crispier crust — just be sure to scrub the potatoes very thoroughly.