Latkes may be the food most associated with the eight nights and days of Hanukkah, but fried potato pancakes are delicious enough to eat anytime of the year — especially if you follow the advice of OyBar’s Jeff Strauss.
Strauss, the former TV writer and producer who not only founded OyBar in Studio City but the Highland Park deli Jeff’s Table, takes a global approach to latkes. At his annual Whole Latke Love event, which this year runs through Dec. 20, he invites fellow chefs such as Bridgetown Roti’s Rashida Holmes, Ronan’s Daniel Cutler, Estrano’s Diego Argoti and former Alta Adams partner and Jaca Social Club founder Daniel Patterson to serve their own free-wheeling takes on latkes.
Recently, Strauss came to The Times Test Kitchen to share what he calls “a very Los Angeles, very OyBar approach” to latkes.
Starting with his tried-and-true basic latke recipe, Strauss showed us two global variants on the potato pancake — a kimchi latke inspired by L.A.’s Koreatown and one inspired by aloo tikki, the potato patties sold by many Indian street food vendors. He also made sauces for each variation — a quick chutney in which you doctor a jar of applesauce and a spicy apple-soy sauce.
Of course, none of these global twists would work if Strauss didn’t begin with a great basic latke. And Strauss is a pro at making crisp, golden brown potato pancakes.
“One thing that’s really important in a latke is the texture. I like something that is on the side of a hash brown, more than a kind of flat, cakey potato pancake.”
The way to get that lacy and crisp texture is by hand-grating the potato into long strips with some shorter strips mixed in to help the pancakes cohere.
“You’re going to be tempted to use a food processor,” says Strauss, who uses the largest holes on a box grater for his latkes. “When you use a food processor, two things happen. One, you get a kind of random mush, even if you use the grating blade on the processor. The other thing is that the food processor actually warms up the potatoes and begins to break down the structure of the nice potato strips.
“So going by hand, taking that extra time, keeping your knuckles out of it, that’s the magic.”
And how do you keep your knuckles from making contact with the grater?
Strauss says finger cuts come when cooks try to grate every bit of the potato. It’s better, he says, to leave the last part of your potato unused and grab another potato to get the amount you need.
“At the point your knuckles are getting uncomfortably close to the grater,” he says, “just stop. It’s a potato. You can let that go.”
One more tip before you start grating: If you have one of those melon ballers unused in the back of your utensil drawer, Strauss says you might want to dig it out because it’s an excellent tool for easily removing the “eyes” of potatoes.
Once you have your grated potato and onion you want to eliminate as much moisture as possible. Moisture, Strauss insists, is the enemy of potato pancakes.
“One secret to making a perfect latke is to put grated onion and potato in cheesecloth,” he says. “Then we’re going to twist it and squeeze out as much liquid as we possibly can. That water that’s in there, that just creates dark, unhappy latkes.”
The best way to cook potato pancakes, Strauss says, is to shallow-fry them in about a half an inch to a third of an inch of neutral oil. “I like to use a cast-iron pan,” he says, “because it holds the heat really well.”
Strauss uses a thermometer to check the temperature of the oil for readiness — he aims for 350 degrees. But he also relies on his senses. “If your oil is too cold, you’re not going to hear much sizzling,” he says. “If your oil is too hot, it’s really going to jump and spit and react very strongly.”
To flip the latkes, Strauss likes to use a fish spatula because the oil can go through the spatula cut-outs, helping to ensure that the hot oil doesn’t splash on your hand as you flip.
Follow these tips and you should have golden, happy latkes.
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