These are not Latkes, they are potato pancakes. Latkes are a thing that can only be made well by grandmothers. No catholic-raised Jersey boy would be dumb enough to make anything and call them Latkes, and definitely wouldn't write up a recipe for them. When guys like me make Latkes we call them Rostis and do things like trap chorizo in the interlocking branches of shredded potato.
This is a way to use leftover mashed potatoes and was developed on the day after Thanksgiving about six years ago, to help Wife get over the inevitable hangover of spending a holiday with my family.
Wife thought it would be good this year if we had some friends over for brunch as people returned to the city from their respective holidays and, if we were going to do so, that Potato Pancakes would be the thing to serve, so:
Saturday night we returned to the city and whipped up ten pounds of mashed potatoes. Then Sunday morning I started the pancakes around 10am, expecting about 20 people to wander in any time between noon-ish and four-ish. In the interest of variety I made three versions.
The first was scallion; I separated about 1/3rd of the potatoes out into their own bowl. To this, I added 5 standard matzos I had whizzed up in the food processor. I dumped the matzo on top of the potatoes and cracked in 5 large eggs. I then chopped the white part of 2 bunches of scallions, brought this all together with a wooden spoon, and started frying them about 5 at a time in a 12" nonstick skillet on medium high heat with a ½ tablespoon of butter and splash of olive oil. Just fill your wooden spoon with the mix and push the resulting dollop into the pan and pat them flattish with your fingers. Do not stress: the more ragged the edges, the more your guests feel loved by your effort. Basically, when I saw a color brown I liked start creeping up the edge, I flipped them and waited until the centers became a little resilient to the touch. I transferred them to a parchment-lined baking dish and threw them in a 200º oven once I finished the batch to keep them warm while I moved on to...
The next third was prepared in much the same way, except I added 5 frozen summer truffles to the food processor with the matzo and ¼ cup of white truffle oil into the mix.
The last third was same as the scallion batch except, instead of scallions, I added the shredded remains of a Gruyere and an Emmentaller that I had in the fridge (probably 2 cups together).
For garnish, I threw the chopped green portion of the scallions on the scallion batch. I also put out a bowl of applesauce and a bowl of sour cream on the table I was serving the pancakes on. For a little gilding-the-lily touch, I put a small jar of Iranian Osetra out to top the truffle version if that suited one's taste. All this, next to some cheap Cava and a pitcher of OJ I spiked with Cointreau and a pot of coffee. Fun fun fun.
Since this is a recipe for leftovers and the portions I am usually dealing with are far smaller, the guidelines as I see them after some experimenting are: 1 matzo and 1 egg for every 2 cups of mashed potato. Then add anything you like, crumbled bacon maybe.
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