Several folks have sent me a widely-circulated recipe for latkes that purports to be the Jennie Grossinger formula. It sounds about right to me…
2 eggs
3 cups of grated, drained potatoes
4 tablespoons of grated onion
1 teaspoon of salt
¼ teaspoon of pepper
2 tablespoons of cracker or matzo meal
½ cup fat or butterBeat the eggs and add the potatoes, onion, salt, pepper and meal. Heat half the fat or butter in a frying pan and drop the potato mixture into it by the tablespoon. Fry until browned on both sides. Keep pancakes hot until all are fried and add more fat or butter as required. Serves 8.
My mother omitted the pepper, used a little more onion and instead of the fat or butter, she fried in about a half-inch of oil — corn oil, usually. She used, of course, matzo meal, not cracker meal and then, when the latkes came out of the frying pan, she'd lay them on paper towels to absorb some of the oil. They were quite wonderful…even cold, later in the evening.