FOOLPROOF POTATO PANCAKES (POTALATK)

Foolproof Potato Pancakes (PotaLatk)

There is nothing quite like the classic potato pancake but instead of being the Kristen light do your potato pancakes turn out soggy oily and just disappointing and general well perfect recipe for potato pancakes so let's get started so what is a potato pancake without the potato right and you need the right kind of potato when you're making potato pancakes and today on using a russet potato now a russet potato or an Idaho Potato this is a high starch potato it's not waxy or too high and moisture and that's really what you're looking for to get something that's nice crisp and light in the end so I'm going to start by killing this I've for potatoes that I'm using today I've already peeled and shredded some over here in this bowl and I have them hanging out in a little bit of ice water and you might be saying okay that's a little bit of. 

How To Make Foolproof Potato Pancakes (PotaLatk)? Please Watch The Video Below

 

Right we don't want soggy potato pancakes right so why are we using a bowl of ice water well what we're doing is we are taking off any of the excess starch on the shredded pieces of potato which will in the end help us to avoid a gummy interior in the inside of your potato pancake so he'll this guy up and you know what's really great about this recipe is that you could do this stuff peeling and shredding your potatoes in advance you can let these hang out in the refrigerator and then when you guys come over you can assemble the potato pancake batter and fry them off right to order so using the large side of the Box grater here the big holes 

I'm going to take my potato and I'm going to just Shred the potato in tonight long strands and it's really great to have long beautiful threads of potato because what they do in the end when you create your pancake some of these threads kind of extend out beyond the pancake and get really super crispy in the oil so trying to make the strands as long as possible is a really great kind of tip here this is what we're looking for and again this is going right into the bowl of ice water and the one other thing that the ice water does that helps to prevent any of that oxidation benefit discoloring of the potato so you can see that in the bowl you're getting like this brownish pinkish Hue but what's happening is going to wash that away and then we're going to leave these potatoes dry 

so in the end we won't have any kind of brown oxidized easy potato pancakes all right so into the ice water and then just gently mix the shredded potato in with this icy cold water again what we're doing is we're trying to rinse off all of that excess starch and you can really leave this for about 10 minutes on your kitchen counter or in your refrigerator or like I said before you can do this may be up to overnight and it starts will sink down to the bottom of the bowl and that's really what we're looking for him before we take these guys out and we squeeze them dry so it's been about 10 minutes and now it's time to train are potatoes that you can do this with your hands or you could use a slotted spoon for a colander if you would like 

but I like to just pick up the potato strands squeeze them gently in my hands to remove any excess water and then put them in a clean kitchen towel and now we're going to do is we're going to squeeze all of the moisture out of these potatoes now this is a very important step here again because what we're trying to do is end up with a soggy or gummy potato pancake in the end so really removing all of that moisture is he in creating a light and crisp potato pancake all right so I think I got a good amount of moisture out of these potatoes and I put these off to the side you can see that they dried out a bit I need to be perfect for our potato pancakes now I'm going to drain the water from this bowl here and I'm going to leave just a little bit of the potato starch in the bottom of the bowl and imma show you what I'm going to do with that next all right so as you can see in the bowl here there's just the potato starch remaining and this is kind of a little bit of a secret ingredient you want to make sure you keep a little bit of that potato starch would have to do is going to help create a nice structure for your potato pancakes so into the reserves potato starch here 

I'm going to add the shredded potatoes all of these guys go right in I have one small onion here that I've graded as well man this is going to add really fantastic flavor is two eggs and these just need to be beating slightly before you add them in the eggs will help in creating a structure for your pancakes and really you know when we say pancakes are there actually Fritter so the eggs and a little bit of flour which are going to help maintain a nice shape two eggs right in and now for a little bit of fun a little bit of bubbles I have some beer here you want to use a nice light beer nothing that's too dark or too flavorful because really what we're doing here with the beer as we're adding lightness these levels are really going to expand when they get into the hot oil and they're going to create really nice lofty and light and crisp potato pancakes so all I really need is a quarter of a cup of the Light beer 3 tablespoons of all purpose flour a tablespoon of coarse kosher salt so you might say a wow that seems like a lot of salt but you really do need a generous amount of salt to season all of these potatoes it's really important to make sure that you're using enough seasoning so if you wanted to add a little bit of spice here and you certainly could do that some cayenne pepper would be fantastic so I'm just going to mix this up and actually you know a question that gets asked a lot when it comes to alcohol as people ask for substitute so I'm sure you could if you were opposed to using beer you could use a little seltzer water again to add that lightness so as you can see with the ingredients that I've added to this mix these aren't overly wet they're not gummy or you know pancake battery this is a very light mixture it's full of those beautiful strands of potatoes 

so in the end this is going to be great guys because we're going to get something that's really crisp and delicious on the outside and it's not going to be gummy and oversaturated with no flour and egg in the inside because we're not using to too much of those ingredients you really just want to make sure that you're giving this a nice mix here so that all of the ingredients are evenly distributed all of the seasoning is evenly distributed and over here I have a really large cast iron skillet this is about a 12-inch cast iron skillet the reason I'm using cast iron today is because it retains heat really well so a lot of people like to use cast iron for frying because it helps to maintain an even temperature over a long. Of time alright so this looks thoroughly mix and now a good tip your guys if you don't have a thermometer on hand to test the temperature of your oil what you can do is just take a strand of potato and place it in the oil and what should happen is it should immediately start to bubble 

and the potato sugar rise to the top of the pan Which it's doing right here so this means that you're ready to shape and place your potato pancakes I'm going to start doing that now now I'm using a neutral flavored oil hear nothing you know not olive oil this is a really nice a flower oil you could use a grape seed oil anything that has a high temperature to it or high smoke points and I'm using 1/2 cup ice cream scoop here now you can certainly use a scoop like this or you can use a standard 1/2 cup measure no take your potato batter I guess I'll call it give it a light squeeze in the cup and then place this right in your oil and leave it just like this before we start pressing it down to make it into a nice flat Fritter some of the repeat the process and again I think I could fit about maybe three or four in this pan you don't want to over crowd whenever you're frying try not to put too many things in the oil at one time otherwise what's going to happen is you're going to end up dropping the oil temperature and ultimately whatever you're frying will become kind of soggy and over-saturated and oil so I think three is good here and just take the fish spatula or anything flats 

and press the potato pancakes out into a nice thin layer Andy potato pancakes over medium-high heat will take about 4 to 6 minutes you want to flip halfway through so I'm going to let these guys cook for about 2 to 3 minutes and I'll check on them to make sure they're nice and go all right it's been about 3 minutes and you can see the potatoes around the edges are starting to turn a wonderful golden brown so I'm going to try and flip these over and so just scoot Critter and then gently turn it over it's so beautiful and golden brown and it's really crisp on the outside so I'm going to flip these over and this is going to take another three minutes on this other side to get nice and cold in it alright it's been another 3 minutes in a potato pancakes look gorgeous now I'm going to drain these on a wire rack set over rimmed baking sheet and like I said guys 

I always love to do this is my favorite technique I don't like to put fried foods directly on a piece of paper towel because I think it encourages theme to build and what will happen is the bottom side of whatever you fried is going to get a little soggy so right after these potato pancakes come out of the frying oil just give them a sprinkling of salt now what you can do is you can repeat the process with the rest of your potato pancake batter fried them off in patches and he pees in a low oven about 200° they say nice and warm and crisp I'm actually going to try one of these right now because they smell so delicious 

and I actually cannot wait because I love potato pancakes now you can serve this with whatever you'd like I'm using a little bit of sour cream today you could certainly use creme fraiche on top of these delicious and crispy potato pancakes and a little bit of chives but really this recipe for potato pancakes is honestly one of the best that I've tried it is super crisp can you hear this and yet they're light on the inside and not soggy gummy or oily in the end now as always guys if you have any kitchen conundrums holiday conundrums bacon conundrums whatever those conundrums might be recharged was using the hashtag kitchen conundrums we love to hear from you we love to see if you're making