Sweet Potato Latkes with Homemade Applesauce and Sour Cream
Sweet Potato Latkes with Homemade Applesauce and Sour Cream
Having gone to the (not very difficult but completely new) trouble of making homemade applesauce for the applesauce birthday cake for Tiffany, Steph and Monica, I wanted to make sure this tasty new creation didn’t while away it’s life in the recesses of the refrigerator and grow fur like so many other things that we make.
What do you do with applesauce? Having spent time waiting tables at Jerry’s Deli in Los Angeles, my mind immediately jumped to latkes.
Taking a gratitude-filled page from Monica’s book, I like a seasonal theme, so it seemed like just regular old, run-of-the-mill latkes didn’t quite express the oncoming autumn properly. Sweet potato latkes on the other hand, seemed like a good choice. I fired up the iPad, perused a few recipes and before too long, an early September breakfast was born.
Applesauce
Ingredients
5 large Fuji Apples
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 slice of lemon rind (about 1/2” in width)
Directions
Slice the apples with an apple slicer (or knife if you’re not addicted to kitchen gadgetry like I am). Leave on the skins, because they’re delicious.
Cover the apple slices and lemon rind with the water in a large sauce pan and bring to boil.
Boil for 10 minutes and then add the cinnamon and vanilla.
Reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes. There won’t be a lot of water left when you’re done, but your house will smell great. You can add a little more water during the process if it’s boiling away too quickly.
Remove from heat and allow to cool completely.
Process apples, water and lemon rind in food processor until it looks like applesauce (about 1 minute).
Voila! You’re done! You can store the applesauce in the fridge for a week or so.
Sweet Potato Latkes
The trick here is to get all the excess moisture out of the ingredients as you grate them so they form into nice, neat pancakes and brown nicely in the oil.
Ingredients
1 large sweet potato, peeled.
1 large yellow onion
1/2 tsp. fresh ground black pepper
1/2 tsp. finely chopped fresh thyme
2 large cage-free organic eggs (I’ve been to a chicken farm, trust me, you don’t ever want anything else)
2 tbs olive oil
6 tbs sour cream
kosher salt
pepper
water
Directions
Fill a medium-sized bowl with water and add a few pinches of kosher salt.
In a food processor, grate the sweet potato. Place in bowl of salt water for 5 minutes. Drain water and squeeze out as much as you can. Place in a bowl.
Grate onion in food processor. Drain excess moisture (I squeezed them between paper towels). Add to sweet potatoes and mix well.
Add pepper, chopped thyme, kosher salt and eggs and toss until mixed well.
Heat olive oil in a non-stick pan until it shimmers. Using about half of the sweet potato mixture, press into 3 pancakes and cook in pan until browned (about 5 minutes). Flip pancakes and brown on the other side.
Remove pancakes from pan and repeat process with remaining mixture. Add more olive oil to pan if necessary.
Salt and pepper pancakes to taste. Serve with applesauce and sour cream.
Monday, September 5, 2011