Baked Latkes--April 2009--Nikki

I have always been interested in traditional Jewish cooking, so I decided to take this month's challenge as an opportunity to further explore this delicious food. However, as evidenced by last month's challenge, I am a lazy ho. So. What does a lazy ho do when she wants delicious potato latkes? She searches for shortcuts. And I found some really excellent shortcuts that produced fantastic results. I must give my friend Jess full credit for reminding me that pre-shredded potatoes do, you know, EXIST in the world. Thanks, Jess!

Here are the ingredients:



1 lb. of frozen shredded potatoes
1 onion (I was going to use 2, 'cause they were small, but one was enough.)
1/2 lb Havarti cheese, shredded
1 egg
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
3 tbsp flour

I planned to shred the onion, but after a few passes with my little grater, I was weeping and frustrated by my super slow progress. So, I decided that a fine dice would suffice. And I was right-- didn't notice the lack of shred in the final product.


See? I diced it TINY.

Next, I added the shredded potato, and then I put the potato/onion mix into a collander, and squished the hell out of it, removing as much of the water as possible.

Next, I shredded the cheese in my little box grater. I just want to share my love of my little box grater. It's adorable, and easy to store. Sigh. Love it.

Isn't it cute? I know.

I mixed the potato, onion, and cheese in a mixing bowl the size of a bathtub, and then I was joined by my helper, who was interested in the egg cracking.




We mixed the eggs, and added the baking powder, salt, and the flour. Then, we dropped the mixture onto a greased cookie sheet. Oh, did I mention that these bad boys are BAKED? Not fried in lots and lots of oil? Yep. Easy peasy. Like I said, lazy ho-- right here. If I can get away with leaving something in the oven versus standing over boiling oil, I will choose the oven every time. Oh, and it's healthier. Or something.
Anyway, here are the latkes awaiting the oven:



I baked them at 425 for 20 minutes, then I flipped them, and baked them for another 10 minutes. Here's the interesting thing. I had one batch on an airbake cookie sheet, and another batch on a dark metal pan. They both turned out well, but the one on the dark sheet browned better than the ones on the airbake sheet. See below:



How did these crazy renegade baked cheesy latkes taste?



Yes, I know-- they don't look super enthusiastic, in spite of the thumbs up. Part of that was the fault of the photographer, and part was because of poison ivy (Jay) and extreme hunger (Nan). But I can vouch for them-- they were freaking. awesome. They even tasted good cold, a few hours later. Ahem.