Updated: Dec 31, 2019
#plantbased #vegan #glutenfree #nutfree
Welcome to my 8 day Chanuka Latke Challenge! I will (attempt) to make a different kind of Latke for all 8 days of Chanuka. Give me some more ideas in the comments below.
I have to say, I really don’t love frying. Let me repeat. I loooove fried foods but I hate frying. Things usually burn, I smell burnt, and the apartment smells like oil and burnt food for days.
I know, I know, I know. Fired food😱. Bayla? That’s not healthy.
I’ll tell you a little secret 🤫. I believe in moderation. That is such a buzz word though. What do I even mean?
I think that eating out and getting fried food makes overeating fired food easy. Which is bad for you. But, this is why I believe in making everything at home as much as possible. Especially the indulgent stuff. You see, when we have to do things from scratch at home we will make them less often and then ultimately eat them less often. Making full fat ice cream, butter or french fries from scratch is a pain. But, if you only ate them when YOU made them then you could enjoy them when you had them and you would not be afraid to overindulge. You would have your cake and eat it too 🤯.
SO, that is why I start off by telling you I hate to fry. I don’t fry often because of this. But, when I do and when it happens not to burn 😂, OMG. Sooooo good! Am I right?
The only problem is that since going mostly plant-based/vegan I’ve had to find egg alternatives. Vegan websites promote flax eggs, aquafaba and lentil flour which is cool but it took me time to build up my stash. Secondly, I am still learning how to successfully sub eggs in non-vegan recipes.
Well, what I like about this recipe is that it uses the natural potato starch from the potatoes you are using (score!). I do add aquafaba in the recipe since you know, sometimes better safe than sorry. If you have it (and I know that you have been also trying to figure out what to do with your stash in the freezer) then use a bit and if you don’t have, no harm, no foul. Just make sure to dry the potatoes mixture out well and collect all the liquid and potato starch you can. It’s gold. Sheer gold. There is also a bit of flour here which is a nice binder and works amazingly in this recipe. I used oat flour to keep it gluten-free but regular flour should have the same effect.
I am actually really excited by these because they hold up so well in frying. If you have been trying to come up with vegan alternatives for your favorites then you know what I mean. There is nothing worse than having a plant-based burger fall apart mid flip 😭. I’m serious. I have ugly cried when this has happened. No more! These fritters are beautiful, stable, flippable and most importantly freak’n awesome.
Cred time: I used the base recipe from Susie Fishbein’s Kosher by Design Cookbook and was inspired by Lazy Kitten’s Latke recipe for the measurements of the vegan egg subs.
Order up!
Ingredients:
- 5 Potatoes peeled
- 1 yellow onion
- 4 scallions (white and green parts)
- 3 tbsp of fresh parsley without stems
- 2 tbsp of aquafaba (chickpea juice from canned chickpeas–optional)
- 2 tbsp of oat flour (or potato flour or wheat flour if not gluten-free)
- 1 1/2 tsp salt
- black pepper to taste
- 1 cup of frying oil
Method:
- In your food processor use the large grate grating disk and grate all the potatoes.
- Place a fine strainer over a large bowl and dump half of the grated potato mixture into the strainer.
- Now, remove the grating disk and replace it with the regular food processor disk. You will have to move the left grated potatoes over to the side or move them into another bowl. (uch, I know, another dish but taters gotta tate).
- Add the onions and scallions and pulse until super smooth. Add the parsley once everything else is smooth and pulse a bit more.
- Back to the strainer. Push the previously grated potatoes down into the strainer to get out as much liquid as possible. Then move to an empty mixing bowl. Now, take the contents of the food processor and move them to the strainer. You are really gonna wanna push and squeeze this well. The dryer this mixture is the better the fritters will stick together. Take a good 3-5 minutes to practice your squeezing action. Pour the liquid out (save for a soup, sauce thickener, add it to that vegetable stock mix stashed in your freezer. I see you.) making sure to save the starchy awesomeness on the bottom of the bowl. If you feel the starch it feels well, starchy. Pretty cool. Add the potato mixture to this starchy mess bowl.
- Add the aquafaba if you are using it. Then the flour, salt, and pepper. Mix it up with a spoon real nice. You want everything to be incorporated. If it is feeling parched then add a little more aqufaba, like drops or some of the potato liquid you saved (told ya it would come in handy). You don’t want this to be liquidy but moist.
- Heat a cup of oil in a large frying pan until hot but not smoking (Yes, it is really a cup. They don’t call it deep frying for nothin. I’m sorry 🙁 we cut out eggs isn’t that good enough? No? You are totally welcome to experiment with less oil). If you put your hand over the oil it will feel really hot. Just be careful! Do a test batch/one to make sure the oil is ready. Plus the first one is always a flop. It usually burns but now you know to reduce the heat. Smart! 🤓
- My tips for frying here are to keep mixing the potato…um mixture. The liquids start separating while it’s sitting but those are your key binders. So keep everything nice and incorporated. Use a table spoon (like the one you use to wat soup) and spoon out a nice helping of the mixture. I found that if I make sure all the little strings of potato are stuck in and the mixture is packed into the spoon before sending it to be fried then the fritter cooks evenly and doesn’t start to burn at the edges.
- Spoon a heaping of the potato mixture in the hot frying pan. Flatten a little with the back of your spoon or spatula. Make sure not to crowd the little guys. Fry on one side for about 2 minutes. But really, check it out once you see browning on the edges. They can either be completely white on the other side or burning. It all depends on your frying pan and the location the fritter is on the frying pan. Flip over and fry for another ~2 minutes. Flatten a little more with a spatula if too ball-like and less…latke-like.
- Line a plate with paper towels (Waste. I know. Please let me know alternatives in the comments) to absorb the oil from the fried fritters.
- These should make about 12-14 fritters.
- Serve up with Cashew sour cream (check out my recipe here) and cucumber salad on the side. Fresh, vinegary salads go great with fried foods. They balance each other out.
