On The Third Night of Chanukah, My Latke Gave to Me - Sweet Potato, sort of

We've now reached the third night of Chanukah, and I think my tummy might not make it to the 8th night.  Latkes are VERY filling when eaten night after night.  Here's a cool picture Sam took of the chanukia tonight.

So we were going to make a "modernist" (as it was described by Saveur magazine) style latke tonight, but we had some trouble tracking down potato starch.  We DID (key word being did) have a box of it in the cupboard, but we somehow used it all up.  I thought it would be readily available at the grocery store, but I was sadly mistaken.  After the second grocery store and no luck.  Sam informed me that he bought it at the Vons/Pavillions store the last time he bought it.  Oh well!  The one grocery store I didn't go to.

While at the second grocery store, I decided to pick up a couple of sweet potatoes and come up with my own version of a sweet potato latke.  I say it's sort of a sweet potato latke because I did use some regular potatoes as well.  Anyway, on to the recipe.  Here's what you'll need:

1/2 pound of sweet potatoes
1/2 pound of yellow potatoes (we used Klondike, but any yellow potato will do)
2 eggs, beaten
2 tablespoons flour
2 large shallots
2 cloves of garlic, minced
pinch of cayenne pepper
pinch of salt
large pinch of black pepper

First you'll need to finely chop your shallots and mince your garlic.  Once you've done this, place both in a large bowl and add in the cayenne pepper, salt, and black pepper.  Stir until mixed.

Next peel and shred your sweet potatoes and yellow potatoes.  We used the food processor for this tonight. 

Put the shredded potatoes and sweet potatoes in the bowl with your onions, garlic and spices.  Add the eggs and flour and mix thoroughly.  You should end up with something that looks like this:

 

Heat some olive oil in a pan and drop heaping tablespoons of the mixture into the frying pan.

Make sure not to over crowd the latkes in the pan, or else they'll turn out to be a soggy mess.  Cook on one side until golden brown, about 5-6 minutes.  Flip, and continue cooking another 3-5 minutes on the other side.

Allow to drain on a cooling rack that is set over a cookie sheet.  Again, this helps save you from a large mess, and it keeps your latkes nice and crispy instead of letting them get soggy.  Continue cooking until all of your batter is used up.  You should get 9-10 medium sized latkes.  

These were a tasty bomb of sweetness followed by a little kick.  Yummy!