Potato Latkes

How many of you out there are NPR listeners? Particularly fans of the Diane Rehm show? Well we found this cooking blog/cookbook by hearing the authors interviewed on NPR several times. We have also now seen the book practically everywhere (although it's a teeny bit out of our price range in the post-Christmas month of paying off Christmas bills), but we really wanted to try one of her recipes. Will was perusing NPR's website recently and discovered that they had posted a really delightful looking recipe from The Smitten Kitchen cookbook (not the blog) that he really wanted to try. We had the eggs, onion, and all the dry ingredients on hand-all we needed was the potato-so he figured why not give it a shot? The Smitten Kitchen cookbook seemed to be everywhere, so clearly there was something to this woman's writing and recipes!

Despite the fact that Will claims these could had turned out better, I think they turned out very nicely. The latke had a nice almost-crunch to it, without being overcooked or soggy in the middle. The combination of potato and onion is always a satisfactory taste, so there were no complaints from me there. And much to my delight, I discovered I did not dislike having the fried egg on top. Sometimes I feel like Will tries to get me to eat more eggs than I really want to, so I always have this underlying hesitation to eating eggs leftover from not liking them for so many years. However, this was a nice pairing with the potato latke, and the main dish was complimented well by our side of kale (always a good choice). Our small cast iron skillet from World Market has turned out to be the perfect size for cooking eggs and apparently, cooking potato latkes!

Cooking Notes: Will believes he over-food processed the potato and onion, because ours was a little less chunky and stringy than it should have turned out to be. Will recommends chopping up the onion before putting it in the food processor or chopping the potato and onion separately, later mixing them by hand.

Potato Latkes with Egg (adapted from Smitten Kitchen; serves 4)
1 large baking potato, peeled
1 small onion, peeled
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp fresh ground black pepper
1 large egg, lightly beaten
Olive oil, for frying
Fried eggs, to serve

Preheat oven to 250 degrees and line a baking sheet with foil, keeping it in the oven until needed. In a food processor, coarsely shred potato and onion. Transfer mixture to a lint-free dishtowel or paper towel and wring out as much liquid as possible. Let it stand for a couple minutes and then wring it out again.

In a large bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, salt, pepper and egg together. Stir in potato-onion mix until evenly coated. In a small cast iron skillet, begin to heat about 2 tbsp of olive oil until it gets shimmery. Drop 1/4 of the potato mixture in the skillet and flatten with the back of a spoon until it's about a 5" circular shape. Cook the latke over medium heat until edges begin to get golden brown, 4-5 minutes. Flip, until golden brown on the bottom, another 3-4 minutes.

Transfer latkes to baking sheet in oven to keep warm. As you cook the other 3 latkes, make sure you're adding oil as necessary so they can properly fry. Serve warm with a fried egg on top! We served this with Kale with Tomato and Feta.

Recipe: NPR: Smitten Kitchen Breakfast Latke