Soaking Potatoes for Potato Latkes

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Jennifer Cail. On behalf of Expert Village I'm going to show you how to make potato latkes for Hanukkah dinner. Now our potatoes are nicely shredded we are going to take them out of the food processor and we are going to soak the potatoes for a few minutes. Now why are we soaking them? The potatoes are full of starch and the starch is also going to oxidize. So we are going to soak it for a good reason; one is to get some of that starch out because it's just going to have a much better texture and it's going to taste better too. Secondly you can already see the potatoes are starting to turn a little bit brown we don't like that cause it's going to go from pink to brown to black. That is not a pretty sight, it tastes fine it's not going to effect the flavor at all if your potatoes turn a little bit brown or black but it does not look appetizing. Personally I would never live the time that I let my husband grate our potatoes because I didn't soak the starch out for long enough. So you want to have a bowl that is big enough to put water in to submerge the potatoes and then you are just going to let it soak until you can tell that the starch is out. You'll be able to tell because the water will get very thick looking it will turn colors so you are just going to soak it for a few minutes and then you won't have to worry about making gravy or potatoes yourself."