This one-ingredient latke hack is the product of my extreme laziness

Anyone who has done latex knows it is a process that has inherent pain. There are the tears shed over the noxious mixture of grated onion, and there are the inevitable bloodied knuckles when you’re trying to get a little more out of that last nubbin of potatoes. And then, above all, comes the squeezing. And squeezing. And More squeeze. Because we all know—we’ve all heard it a million times—You need to squeeze out every last drop of unwanted moisture from the mixtureOtherwise your tresses will become soggy, less brown, and (oy they’re merry!) break off!

I lived by these self-evident potato-pancake truths my entire life, until one day many years ago a lazy urge interrupted things. I didn’t feel like squeezing potatoes until my fingers hurt. And I’m sure he was in no mood to lift the sack up with a stick, twist and turn it like a garrote until the potatoes were compressed to dry.

So I happily squeezed my potatoes just enough. And then I used my cooking knowledge to take care of the rest. If you’ve ever read Max Falkowitz Great Latte RecipeYou’ll notice in the middle of the headnote that after squeezing the potatoes and onions and mixing in the matzo meal and eggs, he extracts the hydrated potato starch from the dried liquid (after letting it solidify first) and adds it back into the latkes mixture, a step Which improves moisture management and bond of mesh. I realized I could do the same thing with dried potato starch I had in my pantry. (Honestly, you could probably make it work with cornstarch, too.)

The process is as follows: Grate your onions and potatoes, then squeeze them as best you can, but without turning the face blue or using any kind of elaborate equipment to squeeze them further. Add your binders such as egg and matzo meal and then sprinkle just a little bit of potato starch as well, just enough to bind things together and soak up any remaining moisture that you didn’t manage to squeeze out.

Now, I know the next question, which is, How much potato starch should I add? And I’m sorry to say I don’t have a solid answer other than: just a little is enough, but not too much. I’ve learned the hard way that if you’re not only lazy, but unbearably lazy – as I was one day when I got a little too cocky about how much less I could hesitate thanks to this trick, can’t escape – then you’ll end up stuck in a very bad place. The reality is that adding more and more starch to a bowl of very wet potatoes won’t solve your problems. Instead, it will create sticky latkes.

So think of it this way: do your best, try to keep the water out. Then proceed as normal, relying only on sprinkling small amounts of potato starch judiciously into the mixture as needed to promote binding and crispiness.

Does This Trick Produce the Greatest Latte Ever? No, I wouldn’t say that. But when your initiative is low, this is something that you can take advantage of to make them quite good.