Big Latkes in Little China

I had my latke party yesterday and it was a lot of fun. I went to the German supermarket earlier in the day to get all the things I needed. I got a bunch of potatoes, salt, eggs, onions, plus apples and sugar and the whole total came to less then 100 RMB. I tried to find applesauce or sour cream but I saw neither so I decided to make my own applesauce. That was much easier then I thought it was going to be just basically involving peeling apples and cooking them until there mush then mashing them with my potato masher. I wasn't sure exactly how much sugar to use so I went a little overboard and the applesauce came out a little sweater then I wanted it to, but besides that it was a big success. I then started preparing everything else for the party by cleaning my room more then it's probably been cleaned since I moved in. I also peeled the potatoes and chopped up one really big onion. At about 8 people began coming over, Steve and his family were first since in China if you say 8 people show up at 8 on the dot. Steve's son Mike saw my Xbox and wanted to play.

I don't have many games that are good for kids or are easy to pick up and play so after asking Steve I put in Call of Duty 4, a shooter, and Mike was playing it for pretty much the rest of the party. I had to try to remember the plot of the game before I put it in because I have one or two games where the Chinese are the bad guys but the bad guys in this game are pretty generic terrorists. After a few more people showed up I started making a bunch of latkes. After mixing this stuff together it's just basically a task of throwing the grated potatoes into a big pot of oil so that they basically float there browning. I remembered that latkes are greasy but even for China I went through a ton of oil. The biggest problem was that it got smoky in my room even with a fan on and for some reason the hot plates refuse to work if it gets to smoky so I had two and when one started complaining I'd switch to the other. Eventually I opened the door which helped enough that I could cook without switching them.

The latkes came out pretty well, better once I started making them a little thicker, but everyone seemed to like them. Latke are a good recipe for China since it's just potatoes and onions deep fired. I think that if I put some hot sauce on it I could open up my own thing selling them outside. Dave joked that I could probably make double what the street vendors made something like 500 RMB a month, all that while only work 8 or 9 hours a night. I must have made close to 30 latkes before all was said and done and my really clean kitchen area became a hige mess. It was a lot of fun though showing everyone some Jewish cooking.