Love, Peace and Latke Grease!

My friend Nate recently left Greensboro for the holidays and traveled to his home in Wilmington, Delaware.  Soon after, he was cooking latkes with his brother.  Even without the pictures he posted on facebook, I was hooked on the idea of making them this week.  Since my husband was going to be out on Tuesday AND Thursday nights, I thought I'd save them for today, Wednesday.  After a HORRIBLE experience with a gluten free flour blend that I used for making homemade pizza crust, I wanted to make sure that I used a more pure flour, or at the least, mixed my own blend that had been proven successful for other folks who've been at this longer than I have.  Instead of a blend though, I decided just to use white rice flour.

This is a very simple recipe, but often, simple things are very satisfying to eat.  I made about 6 latkes that were just larger than a saucer with this recipe.  You can use your choice of oil to fry in, and your amount of oil.  In fact, Nate and his brother were discussing the lack of/overabundance of oil in each other's versions of the latkes.  It's all about personal taste.  I fried these in about 1/4" of vegetable oil in a frying pan.

Gluten Free Latkes
appx. 3 russet potatoes (they were about the size of my hand in a fist)
2/3 c. white rice flour
1 1/3 tsp. salt
pepper to taste
2 eggs, beaten
oil for frying
(You can chop up an onion if you choose to, about 2/3 of a yellow onion ought to do it for this recipe)

1.  Set your oven to warm, or a low setting near 200 degrees.

2.  You can either wash and peel the potatoes or just wash them and grate them with a box grater, or use the grater attachment on your food processor.

3.  Heat the oil in the pan for frying.

4.  In a separate bowl, mix the flour, salt, pepper and two eggs.  When I did this, I got sort of a doughy paste.  That's fine.  It won't be doughy for long.

5.  Take a handful of potato gratings and squeeze out over another bowl, or the kitchen sink and then mix into the other batter ingredients.  I am not fancy. . . I did this with my hands.  Do this until you've incorporated all the potato gratings.  The batter will get a lot less doughy and a lot more fluid.

6.  Scoop out the batter by 1/4 to 1/3 cups into the oil.  Flatten either with the measuring cup, or a spatula.  While the latke shouldn't be TOO thin, a thinner, lacy latke will get nice and crispy.  Fry until golden brown, flip with a spatula or tongs (I prefer tongs).

7.  Transfer the latkes to paper towels to drain.  As they drain, place the latkes on a foil-lined sheet pan in the oven to keep warm while you finish frying.


When you're all done frying and ready to plate, try serving with applesauce and sour cream!  Nate's brother says you should mix the applesauce with the sour cream for best results, but I haven't been brave enough to try it.  I hope everyone enjoys this recipe as much as I do!  If you sub out some other ingredients, or try a different cooking method, let me know how they come out in the comments!