Potato Latkes or Potato Pancakes

I’m not interested in getting into a discussion or disagreement about the difference between potato latkes and potato pancakes. To me, and those I usually cook for, they are basically the same thing, shredded potatoes cooked in hot oil.

Or at least close enough not to worry about.

I suppose some people would say that the pancake is a bit thicker and has some extra ingredients included and a latke has only a few ingredients, is thinner and crispier all the way around and through.

But in my mind they are so close as to be not worth arguing over. Fried potato shreds salted right out of the oil are always delicious.

In this house it doesn’t matter if you include a little egg, maybe some flour, maybe not, how about some onion or a shallot? Again, it’s all about the fried potato.

There are some who make potato latkes only at the holidays, which I think is a real waste, because I have yet to cook up a batch only to have my friends or family refuse because it’s the wrong time of year. It just doesn’t happen, never any complaints and they always disappear.

I also appreciate the simplicity of this recipe, missing one of the ingredients? No problem, just skip it or swap something out. Except potatoes, need the potatoes.

Don’t want to use the flour? Don’t. Don’t like onions or shallots? Skip them. Rather use the flour and skip the eggs? Great.

I use a large box grater but am sure that a food processor would also work to shred the potatoes, and chop and assemble everything else as most people normally would.

But the one step I won’t skip is piling all of the shredded potatoes into a cheesecloth and squeezing hard to drain off all of the extra water from the potatoes. You’ll end up with crispier and tastier potato pancakes this way.

Most everyone I know, both in real life or just having read online blogs, calls for frying in canola oil, which I won’t do. I understand the sentiment, a flavorless oil that doesn’t color your food and seems like you can really heat it up. But I consider it an abomination and not worthy of being used with so many other high quality, natural oils to choose from

And for my potato latkes, I choose either avocado oil or refined coconut oil, either one should work just fine, usually avocado oil.