The only place I occasionally have potato pancakes is at Jewish deli restaurants. In our case, Epstein's. Before Epsteins, I had potato pancakes at friend's houses growing up. They were Jewish and certainly knew how to make latkes. I think they have it for the holidays. I don't remember. Anyway, Steve & I weren't celebrating anything in particular nor were we using a recipe. I looked over some to get potato to flour ratios correct.
So here's what we did; what Steve did. He grated up three large russet potatoes using the medium hole in the box grater. To this we grated a little onions and then squeezed out the whole mixture by hand til it was somewhat dry. To it we added, eggs, flour and baking soda. The baking soda element surprised me. I had no idea. But two recipes I looked at called for it. To continue. We plopped some potato mixture into a pan with a good amount of canola oil. Then Steve would flatten the top with the spatula. We fried them til they were golden brown and crispy on the outside. Oh, we made them in two batches. For the second, we added panko (Japanese bread crumbs) to the potato mixture. Steve read somewhere that it improved the texture.
I didn't love them. I'll tell you why. Main point: Seasoning. It lacked some serious salt. The flavor was not what it could have been even with the tops being salted. For most foods, I prefer that the salt be in the food. I don't like having to add extra salt but too many times, I find that I have to. The first batch was crispy on the outside and mashed potato ee on the inside. It had a slight onion flavor that I enjoyed. It wasn't just straight potato. Steve likened the first batch to potato knishes. I saw his point.
Steve liked the second batch better. The panko created a different texture. You could taste the potato shreds. It didn't mush up as much. I thought they tasted a little underdone but Steve thought it was perfect and loved them. With a little more seasoning in the batch, minus the panko, the potato pancakes are good. Oh, we had them with sour cream though we toyed with the idea of applesauce. In the end, we put a little low sugar grape jelly on some - to be eaten with the sour cream. It was okay.
As always, Eat Something Good!
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We went for another round with the potato pancakes. As you can see, we didn't care about the shape. Clearly, it's not round. I can live with that especially with the way it tasted. We served them with asiago cheese and sour cream. And this time we used enough salt. It was seasoned pretty well. We also made some changes and added paprika, ground mustard and finely grated carrots. It was yum.