Recipe: Sweet potato latkes, served with applesauce and sour cream
Pair sweet potato latkes with the traditional applesauce and sour cream. Debbie Arrington
Happy Hanukkah! My favorite food of this holiday season: Latkes.
Fried in oil, latkes are an edible nod to Hanukkah’s origin story. In Jerusalem’s Holy Temple, lamp oil that was not supposed to last more than one night miraculously stretched to eight nights.
The purest olive oil was used for the temple’s lamp. For my sweet potato latkes, I prefer vegetable oil. This twist on traditional potato latkes uses bright orange sweet potatoes for more color (and antioxidants – these fried potatoes are good for you). I serve them with my homegrown applesauce and sour cream.
Sweet potato latkes also make a savory appetizer. Instead of applesauce, top with sour cream or crème fraiche and a little caviar.
Sweet potato latkes
Makes about 12
Ingredients:
1 pound sweet potatoes, peeled
½ yellow onion
¼ cup flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
2 eggs
Vegetable oil for frying
Applesauce (optional)
Sour cream (optional)
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 200 degrees F. Line a cookie sheet with paper towels or parchment paper. Set aside.
Grate sweet potatoes, either by hand or with a food processor. Soak grated sweet potatoes in a large bowl of salted water (about 1/2 teaspoon salt to 1 quart water) while assembling the other ingredients.
Grate onion. Wrap in a paper towel and press much as water as possible out of the grated onion. Put grated onion in a large bowl.
Drain grated sweet potatoes in a sieve, pressing out the water. Add sweet potatoes to onion in the bowl; toss to combine.
In a small bowl or cup, mix together flour, baking powder, salt and pepper. Add to sweet potato mixture.
Lightly beat eggs and add to the sweet potato mixture.
In a large skillet, heat vegetable oil over medium-high heat. It should cover the bottom of the pan about ¼ inch deep.
Using two wooden spoons, scoop about ¼ cup of sweet potato mixture and drop into hot oil. With the back of the spoon, gently flatten the scoops into patties. Repeat as room allows in the pan without overcrowding.
Fry each patty until golden brown on each side and crispy on the edges, turning once; about 5 to 7 minutes total per patty. As the latkes finish cooking, remove them from the pan and set on the prepared baking sheet. Keep the latkes warm in the oven until all of them are fried.
Serve immediately with applesauce and sour cream, if desired.
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Garden Checklist for week of Nov. 3
November still offers good weather for fall planting:
* If you haven't already, it's time to clean up the remains of summer. Pull faded annuals and vegetables. Prune dead or broken branches from trees.
* Now is the best time to plant most trees and shrubs. This gives them plenty of time for root development before spring growth. They also benefit from fall and winter rains.
* Set out cool-weather annuals such as pansies and snapdragons.
* Lettuce, cabbage and broccoli also can be planted now.
* Plant garlic and onions.
* Keep planting bulbs to spread out your spring bloom. Some possible suggestions: daffodils, crocuses, hyacinths, tulips, anemones and scillas.
* This is also a good time to seed wildflowers and plant such spring bloomers as sweet pea, sweet alyssum and bachelor buttons.
* Rake and compost leaves, but dispose of any diseased plant material. For example, if peach and nectarine trees showed signs of leaf curl this year, clean up under trees and dispose of those leaves instead of composting.
* Save dry stalks and seedpods from poppies and coneflowers for fall bouquets and holiday decorating.
* For holiday blooms indoors, plant paperwhite narcissus bulbs now. Fill a shallow bowl or dish with 2 inches of rocks or pebbles. Place bulbs in the dish with the root end nestled in the rocks. Add water until it just touches the bottom of the bulbs. Place the dish in a sunny window. Add water as needed.
* Give your azaleas, gardenias and camellias a boost with chelated iron.
* For larger blooms, pinch off some camellia buds.
* Prune non-flowering trees and shrubs while dormant.
* To help prevent leaf curl, apply a copper fungicide spray to peach and nectarine trees after they lose their leaves this month. Leaf curl, which shows up in the spring, is caused by a fungus that winters as spores on the limbs and around the tree in fallen leaves. Sprays are most effective now.
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