Your Best Potato Pancakes

A tableau of ingredients: sweet potato, russet potato, parsnip, ginger, flour, onion, egg and fennel seed.

When making latkes, the key is to get everything measured and ready before you grate.

This may look like a lot of flour, but it's just right.

The parsnip and sweet potato get peeled, but the Russets just get a good scrub.

Use the coarse side of a box grater, or your food processor's grating attachment.

Merrill found that parsnips are a bit tougher to grate than potatoes.

When you grate the onion, make sure to keep your face away from the bowl -- you don't want any stray onion juice in your eye!

The russets go last, as they are quickest to brown.

Amanda takes over for a bit.

In go the fennel, salt, black pepper and fresh ginger (also grated, but on a microplane).

After a few minutes, the vegetables release a lot of their liquid, and it's time to squeeze! Four hands are better than two for this job.

First egg, and then flour are folded into the potato mixture.

Sagegreen calls for peanut oil or another oil with a high smoking point; we used canola.

A few minutes on each side, and the pancakes should be golden brown.

Sour cream, panko, chives, Yukon Gold potato, pastry flour, white peppercorns, and an egg.

Grating the peeled potatoes on a good ol' box grater.

We took it down to the barest nub.

A whole lot of chives. Sliced neatly by Merrill.

Squeezing out the grated potato.

Grated potato, potato water, panko.

The grated potato mixed with white pepper, chives, salt, eggs and pastry flour.

Getting the oil ready -- you want to add enough oil to come halfway up the sides of the latkes (about 1/8 inch). This way they cook on the bottom and sides at once.

Shaping a latke patty. We squeezed the potatoes as we shaped the patties. Then we fluffed the potato strands do the pancake was good and airy.

A dip in panko! The pancakes are fragile -- it's a good idea to use 2 hands to coat them.

Fry them as you go!

First two done, draining on some paper towel.

The pan gets a bit messy as you go because the panko burns. You may want to stop halfway through to clean out your pan. Otherwise, pick out the charred bits and forge ahead!

That's sour cream and chives on the right. You know what's on the left.