the potato latke/pancake

i've spent many a-potato-pancake making sessions working out the right recipe for myself. although it's quite a traditional dish adopted by many different cultures - like many traditional dishes made at home by the family cook(s) - the recipe gets tweaked here and there until it fits the eating party. 

for myself, it really starts and ends with the very simplest of ingredients: potatoes, eggs, onions, salt, pepper, flour, panko bread crumbs. a few things i've noticed during my early trials of making potatoes that were not mashed but in either cube form (for hash browns) or grated (for hash or latkes), the texture of the potato came out gummy and slimy, not crispy. the main reason for this is the amount of starch the potatoes had and once they're in the process of cooking, that starch begins to thicken and coat each little potato bit and you end up with some texturally unappealing potatoes. 

so what i do with all the potatoes once they were grated or cubed is to keep them soaked in very cold water, once you were ready to use them - rinse them out several times (like you would with white rice) until the water ran pretty clear. this was really the key to getting rid of that extra starch. the other thing was to make sure the potatoes are pretty dry before cooking, so squeeze it through some cheese cloth to get rid of the excess liquid.

so now that we've established that, onto making these latkes. 

• start out with about 4-5 russet or eastern potatoes (this'll make about 12 medium latkes). grate the potatoes and be sure to keep in cold water while grating the rest of the potatoes. Rinse and drain out a few times, squeeze out excess water. 
  
• take 1 med. sized onion and grate, set aside. 
  
• in a big bowl, mix the potatoes, grated onion together. add some salt (about 1 large pinch) and black ground pepper. add 2 eggs and mix until combined. 
  
• take about 1/4 cup of unbleached flour and throw into mixture which should start to get tacky and come loosely together. you don't want it to be starchy and thick, just enough that it'll stick together. add about 1/2 cup of panko bread crumbs and lightly mix.  
  
• take a medium sized pan and heat it up with some canola oil, just enough to coat the bottom of the pan. once hot, just grab a palm full of potato mixture and throw into pan, slightly flatten so it cooks thoroughly on medium to low heat for about 3-4 mins on each side. 
  
• serve it up with some sour cream, applesauce, ketchup, plain or with just a sprinkle of salt.
  
• eat up and enjoy!