DRANIKI, LATKE or simply POTATO PANCAKES!

Potato Pancakes, Latkes, Draniki...and so on and so forth. There are so many names of these wonderful, cozy, comfort food patties. I can't tell you exactly where they originated from. You can look it up on wikipedia. com. But, I know for sure that they cook them all over former Soviet Union. Theses pancakes cross cultures and borders and are served on the table in Ukraine, Russia, Belorus, Caucauses and Central Asia.

What you will need:
1. 5 medium potatoes. Any kind will work. What I did is I mixed up 3 medium golden potatoes with 2 medium Russet potatoes...just wanted to play with the texutre.
2. Salt pepper to taste
3. 1 egg
4. 1/2 cup of flour
5. Oil to fry pancakes.




1. Peel and wash potatoes. Put them in cold water so that they won't turn brown after being exposed to air.











2. Grate potatoes using large wholes of your grater. Salt and pepper to taste. I am not a huge fan of salt. Yet, I used slightly less tan 1 teaspoon of salt. It just tastes better that way.









3. Add 1 whole egg.













4. Add flour and start mixing potatoes really well. (In Costco I purchased a bunch of plastic gloves that are used to handle food. I normally put those on and mix potatoes).











5. This is what the potato mixture looks like.














6. Heat up oil. Split the potato mixture in 8 equal servings. And start frying until golden on both sides. Make sure not to burn yourself. Also ensure that DRANIKI are thin enough so that they will get cooked through. You don't want to end up with beautiful looking DRANIKI with uncooked potatoes in the middle. Therefore, you should be cooking on MEDIUM heat. It takes me about 8-10 minutes per side.

7. Here is what cooked DRANIKI will look like. VOILA! Enjoy them with sour cream as a standalone dish or as a side dish. We had them with baked chicken. And it was delish!

AS DAMDY BOLSYN! BON APPETTIT!