BIG BREAKFAST
LATKES
Cooking from a tiny galley kitchen
in her Manhattan apartment, Deb
Perelman launched her award-
winning blog, Smitten Kitchen, to
bring comfort-cooking from scratch,
with a good dose of warmth, candor
and wit, to the everyman — noth-
ing fussy or overly complicated, just
great recipes presented in gorgeously
mouthwatering photos.
What followed, of course, was an
equally popular and delec-
the.
table cookbook The Smitten
smitten
kitchen
Kitchen Cookbook (Knopf;
cookbook
$35).
deb perelman
Of this recipe, Perelman
PHOTO 2 CREDIT: PHOTO BY
DEB PERELMAN. EXCERPTED
writes: "Personally, I just
FROM THE SMITTEN KITCHEN
want to eat latices all year
COOKBOOK BY DEB PERELMAN.
COPYRIGHT 2012 BY DEB
round, and I maintain that
PERELMAN. EXCERPTED BY
if you're limiting your latke
PERMISSION OF KNOPF, A
DIVISION OF RANDOM HOUSE.
consumption to the eight
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
nights of Chanukah, you are
missing out. The lake, at its
base, is the ideal breakfast potato — humble russets and everyday onions, shredded,
mixed with the slimmest amounts of egg and flour, and fried until brown and crisp
on both sides. Latices hold together better than hash browns, which allows you to
make them bigger. And the bigger they are, the more ideal base they become for the
other perfect breakfast, a fried egg:'

Recipe:

1 large baking potato (1 lb.), peeled
1 small onion ( 1/4 lb.), peeled
% cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
% tsp. table salt
% tsp. freshly ground black pepper
1 large egg, lightly beaten
vegetable or olive oil, for frying
fried eggs, to serve (optional)

Preheat your oven to 250 degrees.
Line a baking sheet with foil, and
keep in oven until needed.
In a food processor or on a box
grater, coarsely shred the potato and
onion. For longer, mop-like strands,
lay the potato sideways in the chute
of the food processor. Transfer the
shredded mixture to a square of
cheesecloth or lint-free dishtowel,
and gather the ends to wring out as
much water as possible. Let it stand
for 2 minutes, then squeeze it out
again.
In a large bowl, whisk the flour,
baking powder, salt, pepper and egg
together. Stir in the potato-onion
mixture until all the pieces are evenly
coated.
In a small, heavy skillet (cast-iron,
if you have one), heat 2 Tbsp. of
vegetable oil until it shimmers. Drop
one-quarter of the potato mixture
into the skillet, and flatten with the
back of a spoon to a 5-inch round.
Cook the latke over moderate heat

until the edges are golden, about 4 to
5 minutes; flip, and cook until golden
on the bottom, about 3 to 4 minutes
more.
Transfer latke to the prepared bak-
ing sheet in the oven. Repeat process
with remaining latke batter in three
batches, creating a total of four large
latkes, being sure to add more oil
as needed and letting it fully reheat
between pancakes. Keep latkes warm
in oven until needed. Serve latkes
warm in four wedges with eggs or
whole with a fried egg atop each.
Do ahead: Latkes are a do-ahead-
er's dream. You can also keep the
latkes warm in the oven, on low heat,
for an hour or more, if you're wait-
ing for stragglers to arrive. If already
cooked, they keep well in the fridge
for a day or two, or in the freezer,
well wrapped, for up to two weeks.
Reheat the latkes in a single layer
on a cookie sheet in a 300-degree
oven until they're crisp again. Bonus:
If you undercooked them a bit, or
didn't get them as brown as you'd
hoped, you can compensate for this
in the oven.
Cooking note: For neat edges and
a thinner rosti-like appearance, you
can press each pancake into a 6-inch
skillet and proceed to cook accord-
ing to directions. For lacy, craggy-
edged latkes, form the pancakes in a
larger pan.
Makes 4 large (5-inch) latkes.

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Lotsa Latkes on page 46

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December 4 • 2014

45

