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Potato Pancakes
2 CUPS GRATED RAW POTATOES 2 EGGS, WELL BEATEN 1/2 TEASPOON SALT 1/4 TEASPOON BAKING POWDER I TABLESPOON FLOUR To save draining, grate potatoes into one side of a platter or plate, tilted so water runs down into empty side and can be poured off as you grate. Mix grated potato with egg, mix dry ingredients and add. Fry in a little more fat than you would allow for other pancakes, and do not put too much batter in each cake, to keep them thin and small. Eat with applesauce or with gravy.
A lean, plain latke batter — potato, egg, and just enough flour to bind. The whole recipe hinges on getting the water out and keeping the cakes thin.
- Grate and drain fastGrated raw potato browns within minutes and weeps steadily. The tilted-plate trick works, but pressing the gratings in a clean towel gets more water out, and drier potato means a crisper cake.
- Potato choiceUse a starchy baking potato such as russet. Waxy red or new potatoes hold too much water and the cakes slump in the pan.
- QuantityTwo cups of gratings is roughly two medium russets, something under a pound before peeling. Expect eight to ten small cakes, enough for two or three people.
- Fat and heatA shallow layer of oil or rendered fat, something like an eighth to a quarter inch, hot but not smoking (in the region of 350F). Cooler than that and the cakes soak; much hotter and the exterior colors before the potato cooks.
- Thin is the instruction that mattersTwo tablespoons of batter spread to about 3 inches gives a cake that cooks through in the three or four minutes it takes each side to brown. Thick cakes come out brown outside and raw and gluey in the middle.
- Baking powderA quarter teaspoon in a potato batter does very little lifting; its main effect is a slightly lighter, less dense crumb. Leaving it out changes the cake very little.
- Outdoor cooking noteOver a fire or a camp stove, use a heavy cast-iron skillet and let it come up to temperature slowly. A thin pan over an uneven flame scorches the cakes at the hot spots.
- Holding a batchDrain on paper or a rack rather than stacking, which traps steam and softens the crust. They keep crisp in a 250F oven for twenty minutes or so.