This potato latkes recipe with smoked salmon, caviar, sour cream, and fresh dill makes the potato fritters or crispy potato pancakes traditionally eaten during the Jewish holiday Hanukkah. My recipe is based on my non-Jewish, Orthodox-Christian, Russian-Ukrainian grandmother’s recipe for potato latkes, which she called ‘potato fritters’. Whatever you want to call them, they’re addictively delicious.
While potato latkes are a beloved Jewish dish of Ashkenazi Jewish cuisine traditionally eaten for the holiday of Hanukkah, this recipe makes my version of my church-going, Russian-Ukrainian, Eastern Orthodox-Christian grandmother’s ‘potato fritters recipe’. I’ve been eating and making these for as long as I can remember, but it’s only recently that I realised my baboushka’s potato fritters recipe is essentially a potato latkes recipe.
These crispy potato fritters are fantastic served as part of a spread of Eastern European or Russian-Ukrainian dishes for a festive feast. Although we’d happily serve these crispy fritters topped with smoked salmon or smoked trout as part of an Australian-style seafood focused holiday meal alongside prawn cocktails and a platter of chilled cooked prawns. They’d also be fabulous for a holiday breakfast or brunch with glasses of bubbly.
I’d also serve these potato fritters as finger food for a holiday party but I would make them a little smaller. I’d carry them around the room on trays and serve them directly to guests, so they eat them hot rather than leave them on a platter on a buffet or table. Provide napkins.
If you enjoy things topped with smoked salmon and caviar, try these traditional Russian buckwheat pancakes with smoked salmon, sour cream, dill, and an ‘ikra’ (caviar) of gherkin and radish, classic blini with smoked salmon and caviar for a DIY blini spread, my elegant devilled eggs with smoked salmon and caviar, and Terence’s scrambled eggs with smoked salmon and caviar, perfect for a special breakfast or brunch.
But before I tell you about this potato latkes recipe with smoked salmon, caviar, sour cream and fresh dill, I have a favour to ask. Grantourismo is reader-supported. If you’ve enjoyed our recipes, please consider supporting Grantourismo. You could buy a handcrafted KROK, the best mortar and pestle ever; book a cooking class or meal with locals on EatWith; or buy something on Amazon, such as a cookbook for culinary travellers or classic cookbook for serious cooks.
Looking for more cooking inspiration? We’ve got thousands of recipes in our archives from around the world from places we’ve lived, worked, travelled, and loved. And note that you can save your favourites in a private account by clicking on the heart on the right of posts. Now let me tell you more about this potato latkes recipe with smoked salmon, caviar, sour cream and fresh dill.
Potato Latkes Recipe with Smoked Salmon (or Trout), Caviar, Sour Cream and Dill
This potato latkes recipe with smoked salmon, caviar, sour cream and fresh dill makes the potato fritters or crispy potato pancakes traditionally eaten during the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah. However, my recipe is based on my Russian-Ukrainian grandmother’s potato latke recipe and my baboushka wasn’t Jewish, but was Orthodox-Christian, attending both the Russian and Ukrainian churches for holidays.
Baba’s recipe is for ‘potato fritters’ and while I remember eating these as a child, and I’ve made them over the years, it wasn’t until I tested Baba’s handwritten recipe this year that my adult self, now more knowledgeable about cuisines and their histories realised these potato fritters were exactly the same as potato latkes.
That’s partly why I’ve called this a potato latkes recipe rather than a potato fritters recipe. I want you to find it, and despite the word ‘latke’ only coming in to usage in the early 1900s, I’m pretty sure these potato fritters would be more recognisable as potato latkes than fritters. Plus I have another potato fritters recipe I want to share.
But what’s in a name? A lot, actually! I love etymology but here’s where things get interesting and confusing. The Yiddish word latke comes from the Russian word ‘oladyi’ and Ukrainian word ‘oladky’, however, these are more like little fluffy pancakes than fritters, with a lot more flour used.
My grandmother called these potato fritters ‘draniki’ in Russian or ‘deruny’ in Ukrainian, but I have another recipe for potato draniki/deruny here which still calls for more flour and is something in between a small pancake and fritter. Growing up, when my grandparents struggled to find an English word, they’d tell me the Russian vocabulary was far larger than the English vocab and words much more nuanced. Yet I’m struggling to find the right word here.
Admittedly, the Russian and Ukrainian world of pancakes and fritters is huge. There are also blini (‘blin’ is singular and ‘blini’ is plural), which are less fluffy than oladyi/oladky and more like pancakes as we know them, pikelets when small and crepes when large, which some call ‘blinchiki’, which is really just the diminutive form of blin/blini. And of course language travels and words and their meaning and usage changes in diasporas.
I have some tips to making this potato latkes recipe or potato fritters recipe or whatever you want to call them.
Tips to Making this Potato Latkes Recipe
Just a few tips to making this potato latkes recipe with smoked salmon, caviar, sour cream and fresh dill, beginning with the ingredients.
Ingredients
Let’s start with the ingredients, including a few non-traditional elements, such as our use of spices.
Potatoes and Onions
It’s best to use a baking potato for potato latkes. We use russet potatoes, which are high in starch, with a dry texture. The texture of the potatoes helps make the latkes crispy, as long as you extract as much liquid from the potatoes as you can.
Our potato latkes recipe simply calls for ‘onion’, as everyone has their preferences when it comes to onions. I personally prefer red onions, such as Spanish or Calabrian red onions or the small purple shallots, which are the sweetest onions.
However, some cooks dislike their purple-blue-grey colour after frying. If that’s you, then use brown onions, which our American readers call yellow onions. White onions work, they just aren’t as sweet.
Flour and Baking Powder
Our potato latkes recipe calls for flour but a traditional Jewish potato latkes recipe would call for matzo meal. Matzo meal is ground ‘matzo’ (or ‘matzah’ or ‘mazzah’), which is unleavened bread or flatbread, that comes in both a soft and crisp form.
So matzo meal is essentially breadcrumbs, or unleavened bread crumbs, ground as finely as flour. The matzo meal absorbs any excess moisture from the shredded potatoes and onions and, along with the eggs, is essentially a binding agent, to hold everything together.
Here in Australia, we use ‘plain flour’, which is the same as ‘all purpose flour’ in the USA, and is a 100% white wheat flour, usually medium protein. There are no raising agents in ‘plain flour’, as there are in ‘self-raising flour’, which is why a little baking powder is used.
With potato latkes or potato fritters, the baking powder isn’t used to create a lighter fluffier latke as it would be with a pancake, but rather to create latkes that are less dense, have more texture, and are more crisp. It works best if you combine the plain flour and baking powder first before mixing it with the other ingredients.
Spices
Traditional Jewish potato latkes recipes don’t call for spices but my Russian-Ukrainian grandmother’s potato fritters recipe calls for 1 teaspoon of ‘spices’. Baboushka doesn’t specify which spices to use. Most of baba’s savoury cooking was by instinct, experience and taste, and she would have used whatever she had to hand.
It was rare that Baba sent papa out for an ingredient when she was cooking. If she didn’t have an ingredient to hand that wasn’t integral to the recipe, she’d use something else she had in the cupboard. When it came to dried spices, there was always ground paprika and ground cumin in her kitchen cupboard.
After testing the recipe a few times, I decided to use a combo of both. I’ve used more spices in tests and loved the deeper flavours, however, as I’ve opted to call this a potato latkes recipe rather than a potato fritters recipe, I’ve reduced the amount of spice for a more subtle flavour, just a hint of warmth.
Cooking Oil
Classic Jewish potato latkes recipes call for chicken schmaltz, which is rendered chicken fat, but my grandmother used sunflower oil for most shallow frying. We tend to use canola oil, but any neutral cooking oil with a high smoke point.
Smoked Salmon or Smoked Trout
I’ve long had a love affair with smoked salmon, for its luxurious texture as much as rich flavour. Plus it’s super-healthy, being low in saturated fats and high in Omega-3 fatty acids, which are good fats. You’ll know this if you’re a regular reader, as we have a lot of smoked salmon recipes. But I eat much less of it these days, for two reasons.
After being diagnosed with hypertension or high blood pressure earlier this year, I cut salt from my diet (I only use a pinch in pasta water) and have dramatically reduced sodium intake, which means I closely scrutinise those tiny nutritional boxes on products for sodium content.
Unfortunately, due to the salt brining and curing process, smoked salmon is high in sodium. I still eat smoked salmon occasionally, but make sure I’m not eating anything else high in sodium that day. I’m serious when I say I count sodium milligrams. You would be, too, if you were told you were a walking time bomb!
Plus I only eat smoked salmon when I can source sustainable smoked salmon. That means no farmed salmon and definitely no Tasmanian smoked salmon, which is mostly what supermarkets sell in Australia. I know I’ve recommended Tasmanian salmon here on the site before, as, like most consumers, I was fooled by the marketing, but I’m gradually deleting those references in recipes on this site.
After reading Richard Flanagan’s book Toxic: The Rotting Underbelly of the Tasmanian Salmon Industry on the salmon industry’s destruction of the environment on the once-pristine Bruny Island, I will never recommend, buy or eat Tasmanian farmed salmon again, particularly that of Tassal and Huon Aquaculture, which used tonnes of antibiotics in salmon and thousands of anti-seal explosives, resulting in seal deaths.
You want line-caught wild salmon or smoked trout, which is more sustainable than smoked salmon. In Australia, for sustainable smoked trout and smoked salmon, look for the Blue Tick label on packaging, which indicates it’s been produced by a certified sustainable fishery and check sites such as the Marine Stewardship Council’s Sustainable Seafood Guide and Goodfish, and for the USA Seafood Watch, and in the UK, the Marine Conservation Society’s Good Fish Guide.
Caviar or Salmon Roe
There was a jar of caviar on the table for most family meals at my Russian-Ukrainian grandparents home when I was growing up. But it was always the more affordable lumpfish caviar, which wasn’t terribly expensive. If you’d like to splurge on something special, by all means buy some glossy salmon roe or spend big on fancy caviar.
Step-By-Step Process
If you’ve made vegetable fritters or pancakes before, you’ll find these potato latkes are no harder to make. Once you’ve made them a couple of times you’ll never need to look at the recipe again. But I’ve provided detailed instructions in case you’re making potato latkes or potato fritters for the first time, as there are a few important steps.
Heat the Oven to Keep Cooked Latkes Warm
Turn the oven on and set to low heat, around 70–80°C (158-176°F), to keep the latkes warm as you’ll be cooking them in batches. Line a couple of oven trays (baking sheets) with baking paper/foil and top with wire racks to lay the latkes on, so the heat circulates around them to keep them crisp.
Grate the Potatoes and Onion
Grate the potatoes and onion, coarse or fine, using a box grater or shred them in a food processor. After grating you should have around 725 g potato and onion.
Push the grated potato and onion through a sieve over a bowl or wrap the grated potato and onion in a clean cotton tea towel and squeeze it over a sink to extract as much liquid as you can. Leave for 10 minutes, then squeeze the liquid out again.
Make the Potato-Onion Mixture
Transfer the grated potato-onion mixture to a big dry bowl. Combine the flour and baking powder then tip that, and the eggs, spices, salt, and pepper into the same bowl and thoroughly combine with the potato-onion mixture.
Fry the Potato-Onion Mixture in Batches
To a large sized frying pan over medium heat, pour in the oil to a depth of around half a centimetre (no more) and heat. Note: to make sure the oil is hot enough, slide a teaspoon of the mixture into the pan; when it’s ready it should sizzle and start to brown; remove it, blow on it to cool it down, taste it to check the seasoning and adjust if you like.
Scoop, Slide and Shape
Working quickly, use a large tablespoon to scoop out the potato mixture, slide it into the pan, and use the back of the spoon to push the mixture down and shape it into a roughly shaped disc if it spreads too much. Note: if it does spread too much, it has too much liquid in it, so take the pan off the heat and add a little flour and combine before proceeding.
Work in a Clockwise Direction
Repeat, working in a clockwise direction around the edge of pan, working your way to the centre, leaving around 3cm between each dollop of potato-onion mixture, until you have filled the pan, cooking the latkes in batches until you’ve used up the mixture.
Look for Crispy Brown Edges
Fry the rounds of potato-onion mixture for 3-5 minutes until the latkes are crispy and brown around the edges, which means the undersides should be brown. Lift the first one a little to check; for crispy exteriors and soft interiors, you want golden-brown latkes; for extra crunch, cook until deep brown, taking care not to burn them.
Turn the Latkes Over
Returning to that first latke, and working in a clockwise direction again, use a fish slice to turn the latkes over and fry the other side for another 3-4 minutes until brown.
Soak Up Excess Oil
Use the fish slice or slotted spoon to transfer the latkes to a large plate lined with absorbent kitchen paper to soak up any excess oil, then use tongs to lay them on the wire rack on the oven tray and slide that into the oven to keep the latkes warm.
And Repeat
Repeat the steps above, cooking the latkes in batches until you’ve finished the potato-onion mixture. Add more oil as needed in between batches, but make sure it heats up before adding the mixture to the pan.
I always use the same large tablespoon and every time I make this potato latkes recipe it reliably makes 34 potato latkes.
Serving the Potato Latkes
When ready to eat, distribute the latkes between plates, lay some smoked salmon or smoked trout on top, spoon on a dollop of sour cream then a dollop of caviar or fish roe, sprinkle on fresh dill sprigs and sliced spring onions (scallions), and serve immediately.
Or, you could transfer the potato latkes and smoked salmon/trout to a serving platter, along with dishes of sour cream and herbs, and serve up the spread for DIY potato latkes, and let guests assemble their own latkes. Provide plenty of spoons, tongs, and, small finger bowls filled with water and lemon slices for guests who like to eat with their hands.
My mother and I can happily eat these potato latkes as the main with a garden salad but you could serve them as a starter or appetiser. You can also serve them without the toppings as a side to a soup, in the same way we eat fried piroshki with Russian-Ukrainian borscht. While traditionally served for Hannukah, these potato fritters are fabulous for Christmas lunch or dinner or New Year’s Eve parties.
Potato Latkes Recipe with Smoked Salmon, Caviar, Sour Cream and Dill
Equipment
Ingredients
- 500 g Russet potatoes - around 2-3 large potatoes, cleaned, cut into quarters
- 250 g onion - brown or yellow onion, 1 large onion or 2 medium sized onions, peeled, cut into quarters
- 60 g plain flour - all purpose flour in the US; half a cup
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 2 eggs
- ½ tsp ground paprika
- ½ tsp ground cumin
- ¼ tsp salt
- ¼ tsp ground black pepper
- canola oil - or sunflower oil or neutral cooking oil for shallow frying
- 200 g smoked salmon - sustainable or smoked trout
- 300 g sour cream
- 50 g lumpfish caviar - red or black, or salmon roe if you prefer
- 4 spring onions - scallions, diagonally sliced
- 1 cup fresh dill - sprigs only
Instructions
- Turn the oven on and set to low heat, around 70–80°C (158-176°F), to keep the latkes warm as you’ll be cooking them in batches. Line a couple of oven trays (baking sheets) with baking paper/foil and top with wire racks to lay the latkes on, so the heat circulates around them to keep them crisp.
- Grate the potatoes and onion, coarse or fine, using a box grater or shred them in a food processor. After grating you should have around 725 g potato and onion.
- Push the grated potato and onion through a sieve over a bowl or wrap the grated potato and onion in a clean cotton tea towel and squeeze it over a sink to extract as much liquid as you can. Leave for 10 minutes, then squeeze the liquid out again.
- Transfer the grated potato-onion mixture to a big dry bowl. Combine the flour and baking powder then tip that, and the eggs, spices, salt, and pepper into the same bowl and thoroughly combine with the potato-onion mixture.
- To a large sized frying pan over medium heat, pour in the oil to a depth of around half a centimetre (no more) and heat. Note: to make sure the oil is hot enough, slide a teaspoon of the mixture into the pan; when it’s ready it should sizzle and start to brown; remove it, blow on it to cool it down, taste it to check the seasoning and adjust if you like.
- Working quickly, use a large tablespoon to scoop out the potato mixture, slide it into the pan, and use the back of the spoon to push the mixture in and shape it into a roughly shaped disc if it spreads too much. Note: if it does spread too much, it has too much liquid in it, so take the pan off the heat and add a little flour and combine before proceeding.
- Repeat, working in a clockwise direction around the edge of pan, working your way to the centre, leaving around 3cm between each dollop of potato-onion mixture, until you have filled the pan, cooking the latkes in batches until you’ve used up the mixture.
- Fry the rounds of potato-onion mixture for 3-5 minutes until the latkes are crispy and brown around the edges, which means the undersides should be brown. Lift the first one a little to check; for crispy exteriors and soft interiors, you want golden-brown latkes; for extra crunch, cook until deep brown, taking care not to burn them.
- Returning to that first latke, and working in a clockwise direction again, use a fish slice to turn the latkes over and fry the other side for another 3-4 minutes until brown.
- Use the fish slice or slotted spoon to transfer the latkes to a large plate lined with absorbent kitchen paper to soak up any excess oil, then use tongs to lay them on the wire rack on the oven tray and slide that into the oven to keep the latkes warm.
- Repeat, cooking in batches until you’ve finished the potato-onion mixture. Add more oil to the pan as needed between batches, but make sure it heats up before adding the potato-onion mixture to the pan.
- When ready to eat, distribute the latkes between plates, lay some smoked salmon or smoked trout on top, spoon on a dollop of sour cream then a dollop of caviar or fish roe, sprinkle on fresh dill sprigs and sliced spring onions (scallions), and serve immediately. Or, transfer the latkes and smoked fish to a platter, along with dishes of sour cream and herbs for DIY latkes, and let guests assemble their own latkes.
Nutrition
Please do let us know if you make this potato latkes recipe as we’d love to know how it turns out for you.
