Every winter, I reread a few of the poems of notorious curmudgeon, conscientious librarian, and revered poet Philip Larkin , who died on December 2, 1985.
Home Is So Sad, Philip Larkin
Home is so sad. It stays as it was left,
Shaped in the comfort of the last to go
As if to win them back. Instead, bereft
Of anyone to please, it withers so,
Having no heart to put aside the theft.
And turn again to what it started as,
A joyous shot at how things ought to be,
Long fallen wide. You can see how it was:
Look at the pictures and the cutlery.
The music in the piano stool. That vase.
Depressing, no? It's typical Larkin: beautifully written, confrontational, elliptic. It's the antithesis of holiday cheer.
Anyway, to honor the 23rd anniversary of Larkin's death, I'm offering something that would probably make Larkin's stomach turn: a good recipe for latkes! It's well known that it's hard to hate life when your stomach is full of fried potatoes.
I like to think that Larkin would actually have enjoyed eating the potato pancakes, but enjoyed them even more as the excuse to write a poem about the familial disillusionment and sordid despair that lies behind the homely smells of salt, oil, and onions. What follows, then, are Larkin Latkes. Delicious, but a little complicated.
My grandmother's were better, but these turned out pretty well. The trick is to parboil the grated potatoes - which cuts out the raw taste and keeps them from turning brown in air - then squeeze out all the excess water before frying so that the grated potatoes get super crispy super fast.
Ingredients
Ingredients
- 1 large potato (1/4 lb?) per person
- 1 large egg per 1lb potatoes (I used about 10lbs for a big day-long party)
- 1 medium onion per 1lb potatoes
- 1 tbsp minced garlic per 1 lb potatoes
- 1 large carrot per 2 lbs potatoes
- 1 cup or so of flour or matzoh meal (optional, but helps the latkes stick together)
- salt
- canola oil (some people recommend olive oil, but I think it gets too smoky at the high heats you need to cook the latkes)
- sour cream and apple sauce for dipping
- brown paper grocery bags
Directions
- Peel potatoes and carrots. Put the peeled potatoes in a bowl of cold water.
- Put a large kettle of water to simmer, then start grating the potatoes into another bowl of cold water. Now you have two bowls of cold water, one with whole potatoes and one with grated.
- In batches, move the grated potatoes into the simmering water and parboil for about 3 - 5 minutes. Dump the boiled potatoes into a colander and run some more cold water over them. Let one batch drain while you deal with the next batch. I got through about 10 lbs an hour or so with my handy electric grater.
- Grate the onions and the carrots.
- If you have a ginormous bowl, now is the time to mix the potatoes and onions and carrots all together. If you have no more ginormous bowls, just keep all the ingredients in separate bowls and mix them up into separate batches as you start frying.
- I tend to make latkes in 2 lb batches. Get a biggish bowl and put about 2 lbs of the potatoes in, about half as much onions, one-fourth as much carrots, and two or so tablespoons of the garlic. Add about 1/4 cup flour. Sprinkle generously with about 1 tsp salt. Add 2 eggs and mix all together.
- Now get your oil going. Take a large frying pan and fill to about 1/4'' with oil. Put it on medium-ish heat until the oil is steaming.
- Now take about a cup of the latke mix on a spoon and roughly shape it into a little circular cake. Place the cake of latke in the oil. It should be sizzling vigorously. Flatten the latke cake a bit with your spoon. Watch it sizzle. Eat a little bit of chopped liver on a cracker to tide yourself over.
- When the bottom of the latke looks browned, gently turn over the latke. I find that this works best as a two handed job with two spoons.
- Since the potatoes are already basically cooked, all you're trying to do is make sure they're crispy and brown. When you think you're done, move the browned latke onto a cookie sheet covered with brown paper bags to drain some of the oil. Then serve with sour cream and/or apple sauce.
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