It is something about letting the potato starch sink to the bottom.

I love that your family is Jewish and your name is Porkchop. My husband is not Jewish. He said he never ate much pork until he met my family. We’re having pork tenderloin tonight. Shabbat Shalom!

I did recently see a tip to save the squeezed-out liquid and let it stand long enough for the potato starch to settle, then add that starch to the mix for extra crispy results.

But what you describe seems more like a less laborious way of letting the moisture drain off without having to squeeze the potatoes.

OTOH, I make Andrew Zimmern's killer potato latkes which have one hurry lest the russets get rusty. :) I also make sweet potato latkes and zucchini latkes (I think the last is my version of Ina). Those are easy. AZ's recipe are far superior to my Grandma's or any of my aunties' (and a pain in the neck to make but soooo worth it!)..

So, I did a quickie search and found a "rule" to reserve the excess water squeezed from the potatoes and let the starch go to the bottom...to add the starch back in to make the latkes crisper. i get that, but thank-you, I can afford to squeeze with towels and add a spoon of boxed potato starch if I want more (I don't need it, but c'mon!) So, based on Kendrah's idea, did your grandmother pour off liquid rather than squeezing, and then stir the starch back in? Or is it one of those "Reader's Digest that's the way we do it things", like her own mother did it and that's the way it's done, but really was about getting the mix made before it was time to start the dinner, to have it ready to fry when the men got back from Maariv. The cloth over it, however, besides the obvious keeping it clean and bug free, would help keep it from oxidizing. so much.

Carol and I crossed. :)

"So, based on Kendrah's idea, did your grandmother pour off liquid rather than squeezing, and then stir the starch back in? Or is it one of those "Reader's Digest that's the way we do it things",..."

No clue. And she's been dead a long time now, as is my mother, so I can't ask them.

"I love that your family is Jewish and your name is Porkchop."

My family isn't Jewish....that I know of. Who knows what happened way back when in the "old county". I think pretty much all Europeans make some sort of potato pancake and call it something else, don't they? I don't remember what my grandmother called them in Polish, I just remember them as potato pancakes.

Yes - my dad's family was Jewish, and my mom's was Catholic - and Lithuanian - so many of their foods were similar, like kugels and potato pancakes, plus my mom learned to make a lot of traditional things too, like matzoh balls.

It's funny, I really liked my mom's matzoh balls because they were dense and chewy, which isn't how they're supposed to be, but I never liked them light and fluffy, which is the ideal.

I do like potato pancakes very much, but haven't made any in years - it's a lot of work, IMO.

And sour cream all the way - no applesauce!