- 14 hours ago
Bon Appétit joins Chef Eli Sussman, executive chef at Gertrude’s in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, to make their delicious Latkes. Eli breaks down every step of the process, from choosing the right potatoes to mastering moisture removal, adding the perfect binders, and frying to golden-brown perfection. Perfect for Hanukkah or any time you’re craving crispy potato pancakes, these latkes bring restaurant technique to a classic holiday staple.
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00:00Hi, I'm Eli Sussman, executive chef and partner of Gertrude's.
00:07We're here at the restaurant in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn.
00:10Today we're going to be making the best latkes that you're going to ever be able to make at home.
00:18The latkes are one of our most popular dishes.
00:20This is a dish that we're very proud of here at Gertrude's.
00:23We make hundreds and hundreds of latkes here a day.
00:25We make several thousand latkes a week here at Gertrude's.
00:28We make them all by hand every single day.
00:30I think what makes the perfect latke is that it has a crispy, almost teeth-shattering experience.
00:36A little bit chewy so you can actually taste the potato on the inside.
00:40And then the toppings, some people like to go sweet, some people like to go savory.
00:44Let's make some latkes and I'll show you how I do it.
00:49So I'm using an Idaho potato.
00:50This is what you can most readily find at your grocery store.
00:53These are really easy to use at home.
00:55They maintain their starch content when they're fried.
00:58And so you get that really crispy exterior.
01:00Another thing that I really like about these for making latkes at home is that they're big.
01:04And if you're going to be hand grating latkes, a little teeny potato,
01:07you're going to end up getting your fingers too close to the grater blade.
01:10And the great thing about these is that you can hold them and you can grate a lot of them.
01:14I've got a box grater here.
01:15There's obviously all these different sizes that you can grate on.
01:18And I'm going to use this one, which is a larger hole, but not the largest on the box grater.
01:24You do not want your latke mixture to be pulp.
01:28What you're looking for is it to have some strands.
01:30It should have some texture.
01:31This is going to help give it the interweaving and interlocking texture of what makes a perfect latke.
01:36I think it's important to actually pay attention when you're grating latkes.
01:40You should really be looking at your fingers while you're doing this because what you don't want is little pieces of your skin inside the latke mixture.
01:47If you're not comfortable going too far down on the potato, just discard the end of it.
01:51The potatoes are going to start to get brown as you're grating them.
01:54One thing you could do at home if you wanted to fight oxidation is just a little pinch of cream of tartar into your latke mixture.
02:00That will help the potato from browning too much before you end up frying it.
02:04But a little browning is okay.
02:06We're going to fry them very shortly.
02:08The reason that I kept the skin on is, as you can see, as you grate the potato, moisture is coming out.
02:13Right?
02:14The process of grating them is releasing the moisture.
02:16It makes it extremely challenging to grate a potato that has been peeled because it's wet and it's slippery in your hand.
02:22So part of it is that I'm saving myself a step.
02:25I don't have to peel the potatoes.
02:26And also it gives me a really nice texture that I can hold onto so the potato doesn't go slipping out of my hand while I'm grating it and I don't end up grating my hand.
02:34All right, so we're going to grate an onion.
02:38This is a white Spanish onion.
02:39We've removed the skin already.
02:41You could use a yellow onion as well.
02:43It doesn't really matter what onion that you use.
02:45What's the most important thing is the ratio of potato to onion.
02:49It is not a one-to-one ratio.
02:50That's going to make your mix way too strongly taste of onion.
02:54What I like to do is a five-to-one ratio.
02:57For every five of these potatoes that you use, you're going to use one onion.
03:00Remember, the onions are going to burn faster than the potato in the fryer.
03:04So the less onion that you have and the more moisture you get out of there, the less likely you're to have a latke that's going to burn.
03:10It's easier if there's a flat edge and then you can grate it much easier along the side of the box grater.
03:16There's not really any way to guard against crying.
03:20You're grating an onion.
03:21You're going to tear up a little bit.
03:22It'll be over before you know it.
03:24It's a very Jewish thing to incorporate crying and pain into the dish.
03:31So these onions, there are some strands, but it is a little bit more mashed than it is like the potato.
03:38That's totally fine.
03:39I actually like that.
03:40It'll make it easier to disperse it.
03:42We're going to mix it very, very gently all together.
03:45We're not actually trying to incorporate it fully because all I want to show you is that at this point, I have not added anything at all.
03:52There's nothing in this bowl except onion and potatoes and it's full of moisture.
03:56So I'm going to try to get as much moisture out of this potato onion mixture as I can before I add back in the wet ingredients.
04:03We do that because when you want to fry something, you want it to have the smallest amount of moisture in it so that we can get it extremely crispy,
04:10or it will be too wet and it will just end up breaking apart in the oil.
04:14I'm going to move the wet product into a bowl that has been lined with a cheesecloth or a kitchen towel.
04:21You're going to twist up and as you're twisting, you're even going to see that all that moisture is going to come out.
04:26A lot of people like this method more than using your hands because they think, number one, it can be a little bit more efficient.
04:32And also then you've got all of the latke and it's an easy way to transfer it to another bowl.
04:37So I'm just going to keep squeezing and squeezing until all that moisture comes out.
04:41And as you can see, a ton of liquid has come out.
04:43Probably like a quarter cup of water has come out of one cup of the latke mixture.
04:48At this point of the process, the biggest mistake that people are going to make is not remove all of the moisture.
04:53So you're squeezing this out and you feel like you've gotten all the moisture out or you're moving really rapidly.
04:58And what you're going to see is that there is still a huge amount of moisture in this very small amount of the mixture.
05:06So this is the consistency that we're looking for.
05:08You can already see that actually some of the potato mixture and onion mixture is already like a little bit stickier.
05:15It's still going to fall apart, but since we've removed some of the moisture, it already will compact a little bit better than it would prior.
05:25Now we've got all our ingredients that we're going to use to bind it together.
05:28Some of these ingredients are going to give it flavor and other ones are just going to help it maintain its shape when we fry it.
05:34This step is an exercise in patience because remember, you can always add more, but you cannot remove.
05:40So we're going to add some egg.
05:42Always make sure that you're cracking your eggs into a separate bowl.
05:46It's really, really challenging to fish out little bits of shell from your potato latke mixture.
05:52I've got garlic powder and onion powder, and I'm going to start by just giving a small sprinkle in just about a teaspoon.
05:59The onion powder is going to up the level of the onion flavor in the latke.
06:03So there are different types of products that you can use to bind your latkes.
06:07What we're going to be using for our latkes today are a mixture of matzo meal and potato starch.
06:13I think that's going to give it a really, really crispy exterior with also a nice texture throughout the latke.
06:18Matzo meal is going to not only absorb some of the moisture, but it's going to help hold it together.
06:23And then what you can see with the potato starch is that it is a super, super fine product.
06:27It's much more fine than flour.
06:29What that does is it allows it to be incorporated much more uniformly into your latke mixture.
06:34We refer to the potato starch here at the restaurant as one of our secret ingredients in the latkes because it really holds the latkes together incredibly well.
06:42I think a lot of people don't use that product at home in the same way that they don't necessarily use cream of tartar.
06:47And these are just some of the restaurant techniques that you can bring into your house to make a really incredible latke.
06:54I'm going to mix it all up with my hands and then I want to see what the mixture feels like in order to see if this is going to be enough to help bind everything together.
07:04I can feel in my hands as I'm forming the latke mixture that it's not really holding together.
07:10If you can't really hold it as a actual piece of latke, then you need to add more ingredients to bind it together.
07:17So I'm going to add another two tablespoons of matzo meal.
07:21So starch is the content of the potato.
07:25This is going to make it so that we get a really uniform, nice product that's going to hold together.
07:31So it's looking good. You can actually feel in your hands that they're sticky.
07:36And what you're feeling that's sticky is the binders altogether.
07:39And we're going to salt them after they come out of the fryer.
07:42So now that I've added those extra binder ingredients, it feels like it's really going to stay together.
07:48A common mistake that people make at home is that they do not fry one off before you form the whole batch.
07:53So what we're going to do is make a tester first.
07:55Right now I still have the opportunity to adjust the salt, to adjust the seasoning, to add more matzo meal if I want.
08:01So I'm going to fry one off and hopefully it's going to stick together.
08:04Here's my tester latke.
08:05I can't even tell you how important it is to make a tester when you're making a full batch of something.
08:10It's really critical to taste it so that you can adjust the seasoning of it before you go ahead and make all of it at the same time.
08:17So we're going to salt both sides on the next round.
08:20We're going to pull them out of the oil maybe 20, 30 seconds earlier so we don't get those dark bits.
08:25But overall, I'm really happy with the crispiness of it.
08:28We're definitely cooked on the inside. We're really crispy on the outside.
08:31I'm going to taste it right now and make sure that I like the salt level of it.
08:35I don't taste much salt. I work in a restaurant. I like things pretty salty.
08:40So I'm going to add a little bit of salt to the mix before I fry the next round.
08:43And again, our texture was where we wanted it.
08:45We just wanted a little bit of a pop from that additional bit of salt.
08:49And we're going to form some more latkes.
08:55I love to have like a little bite size latke.
08:57And so we're going to make about silver dollar size latkes for this round.
09:01And we're going to round them off in our hands and just set them aside.
09:05And I'm trying to really make them perfectly rounded so that I can show you that I can make really nice rounded latkes.
09:11But if you want those little flyaway pieces, those little jagged edges on the side,
09:15you don't have to make them perfectly, perfectly rounded.
09:18Some people like those little crispy bits at the edges.
09:21Again, we're going to get those because we've made them thin and we've added enough potato starch that these are going to get super crispy.
09:27But this is the size and the thickness that I like them, but you can play around with them a little bit in your home kitchen.
09:32The latkes at the restaurant, they're a really laborious process.
09:35We always basically have someone either mixing or hand forming latkes.
09:40We consider it in the same way where if you were to sit down at a sushi restaurant and get a beautiful piece of hand formed rice with some raw fish on top.
09:49That's the same way that we kind of envisioned the latkes that we serve at Gertrude's.
09:53We're trying to get them uniformly, same size, same thickness.
09:57It'll help us track and make sure that we get them in and get them out of the oil in the same round.
10:02So we've got our latkes here.
10:04They've been tested.
10:05They're shaped properly.
10:06They taste good.
10:07They're the right consistency.
10:09Let's go fry them up.
10:10Here I've got a short pot and I have a really shallow amount of oil.
10:18So it's only about three inches of oil.
10:20I don't want to have the pot full of oil for a couple of reasons.
10:23Number one, it's easier for less oil to heat up quicker.
10:26So if I need to move it off the heat, it'll heat back up again quicker.
10:30Also, I just don't want to have to navigate a very deep pot of oil.
10:33It allows me to grab things out of the oil easier.
10:36So I've got a fish spatula right here.
10:39This is a professional kitchen tool, but maybe you have one at home.
10:42If you don't, it's a great thing to have around the house.
10:44It allows me to slide easily right underneath the latke.
10:47And then I'm just going to drop it in the oil.
10:50When you're frying things at home, it's going to drop the temperature of the oil.
10:54So a great way to regulate the heat would be to buy a candy thermometer.
10:57That'll allow you to really understand how hot your oil is.
11:00Here at the restaurant, we have a deep fryer.
11:02It self-regulates, so it always fries at 350 degrees.
11:06When you're frying at home, you really want to keep it in that 325 to 375 range.
11:10That's how you're going to get a perfectly crispy, uniform fried latke.
11:14So you don't want them to crowd too much in the pot.
11:16There's a chance that if they touch together right when you drop them in,
11:19that they'll kind of glob all together into a big potato hunk.
11:22You want them to be, they're separate individualized latkes.
11:25So if you have a kitchen spoon or a fish spatula, you can always reach in.
11:30And once they start to get a little bit golden and you know that they have a little bit of a crispy exterior,
11:34you can start to separate them and move them apart.
11:36You want to try not to jostle the latkes while they're frying because the more you poke and prod at them,
11:41the more likely they are to explode or to come apart or to have you stab through them.
11:46While you're cooking your latkes, little bits might fly off the edges and those little bits are going to sink to the bottom.
11:51They're going to get too hot. They're going to burn. It's going to actually change the flavor of the oil
11:56and it's going to give it an acrid burnt taste.
11:58So in order to make sure that all the latkes taste clean and delicious,
12:01you want to change your oil while you're frying.
12:03You move the oil off to the side, you let it cool down and then you heat up a new pot of oil.
12:08So these have been frying for about one minute.
12:10We want to give them about two or three minutes in the fryer.
12:14Here at the restaurant, we do three minutes exactly at home because, you know,
12:18the temperature of the oil is going to be coming up and down as you add your cold latkes.
12:22You probably are going to have to give some of the later rounds a little bit extra time
12:27because they're going to need a little bit of that additional minute or two to actually fry.
12:30So I'm going to pull one out of the oil right now so we can just look at the status while the other three are frying.
12:35You can see we've got really, really nice browning.
12:38There's great color on both sides, but you still see that there are some interior portions that don't have that golden brown yet,
12:46which means to me that the inside of it is not going to be fully cooked yet.
12:49So I'm going to drop that back in.
12:51I'm going to give it just one more minute.
12:53When I put them in, they were really, really bubbling like crazy.
12:56A lot of the moisture was leaving.
12:58As there is less and less moisture in the product that you're frying,
13:01you'll see the bubbles start to die down and almost like dissipate.
13:04These are going to continue to fry and so they still are bubbling a lot,
13:07but it's a lot less than when we put them in.
13:09So I know that just from looking at them,
13:11they're almost done because they're golden brown and they're not bubbling up as much.
13:14You do want to pull them right at the point where they reach that golden brown
13:19because they are going to carry over just a little bit once you pull them out of the oil.
13:23So I'm going to pull these again.
13:25You want to drain off a good amount of the oil and then let's put them on either a baking sheet
13:30that is lined with some paper towel or with a kitchen towel.
13:34So some of that excess oil can drain off.
13:36I want to salt them right away while there's still some of the oil that's still hot
13:42and still liquefied on the outside.
13:44So that once that oil dries and it evaporates a little bit,
13:47the salt will have bonded to the outside of the latke and it's going to stick.
13:51If you wait too long, you're going to salt the item.
13:53And then when you pick it up, the salt is just going to fall right off.
13:55So now I've got my crispy golden brown delicious latkes.
13:58They've been salted. They're ready to be dressed or topped or dunked in whatever you want to eat them with.
14:07We're going to build our latkes now and we're going to do it with the traditional toppings that we serve here at Gertrude's.
14:12When you're making latkes at home, you're probably going to be serving them in the traditional way,
14:16which is with applesauce or sour cream.
14:18At Gertrude's, we have many, many toppings that we offer during dinner and at brunch,
14:22but probably the most common and the fan favorite is the celery creme fraiche with trout roe and then dill and chive.
14:30This is sour cream, creme fraiche, some celery salt, dill, and it is just a really delicious, almost like a ranch.
14:39Celery is a major flavor profile in Jewish cuisine.
14:42So I really wanted to incorporate that celery flavor into this dish.
14:46So we've got celery salt inside of the creme fraiche mixture.
14:49This is trout roe. It's the eggs from the fish.
14:52It's obviously extremely beautiful. It has a really bright color, but it also has a delicious texture
14:57and it has a really, really nice, smooth fish taste to it.
15:01Next, we're going to put a sprinkle of chives on top.
15:04This gives it some clean vegetable flavor that is going to cut through the richness of the trout roe and the celery creme fraiche.
15:14And then last but not least, we're just going to put little sprigs of dill on top.
15:18I love the flavor of dill. I think it's really brightens this up and also it just looks really beautiful on top.
15:25So now we're just going to plate them up.
15:27You can get really creative with your latkes. It could be sweet. It could be savory.
15:30Here at the restaurant, you can get latkes with lox, with smoked trout.
15:35We make a pastrami salmon salad, an apple compote that comes with sour cream.
15:40We also used to serve them with maple syrup and a maple butter with your latkes.
15:45You don't just have to use the traditional toppings.
15:47So we have our finished latkes here. They're nice and small and handheld.
15:51They look perfect. They're ready to be eaten.
15:54It's got that hot, crispy latke. It's got that really, really shattering crust
15:59that you got to bite through. It's got some nice texture in the middle of almost like not mashed potato,
16:04but really warm, delicious potato on the inside.
16:07And then the cold celery creme fraiche on the top perfectly complements the hot latke.
16:12And then the trout roe gives you that kind of burst of flavor that really makes it that like Jewish traditional latke,
16:17with a little bit of dill and chive on top to just give you that little, little extra pop of flavor.
16:21Lakas are a pretty humble dish, but by putting a lot of care and love into it and really paying attention to the process,
16:28you can create an incredible end result that is going to be super delicious.
16:33And if you want to top it with some special ingredients and some luxury items,
16:36you can take a very humble product and turn it into something incredibly special in your home.
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