PSA: How to get the latkes you want

The Internet is host to a zillion latke recipes. Some of them aren’t what you would expect. I’m not going to cram in another one, but since tonight is the first night of Chanukka I thought I should say something about them. Whichever recipe you choose to follow, here are some tips for making delicious, problem-free latkes:

1. Know your potatoes (assuming you’re making latkes out of potatoes). Waxy potatoes, also known as boiling potatoes, contain less starch and therefore don’t get as thick or bind to each other as well when fried. If you’re using these—and you might want to, because some of them are delicious—make sure you use a little extra egg and flour/matzo meal/whatever as binder. Starchy potatoes, also called baking potatoes, bind to themselves naturally when fried. Yukon golds also make excellent latkes without too much extra binder.
2. Alternate grating onions and potatoes, and mix the batter a little when you switch. When you grate a potato, you expose its internal starches to oxygen, which causes them to turn brown. (This is the same process that browns the slices of a cut apple.) The acid from onion juice slows down this process and makes for a nicer-looking latke. Grating all the potatoes and then the onion allows the reaction to get started quickly, while keeping the potato always in contact with some onion prevents this.
3. Drain the potatoes and onions once they’re grated. Many a cook has mixed up what seemed like the perfect latke batter, only to have it become watery and difficult to handle when the time comes to fry. (Frying very wet batter can also be dangerous, since lots of water dropped into hot oil causes spattering.) This happens because the vegetables continue to “bleed” watery liquid for a while after they’ve been grated. You can let them sit in a bowl for ten minutes and then tip it out, or even better, drain them for ten minutes in a colander and then squeeze out the excess.
4. Stir in the salt at the last minute if your circumstances allow. Salt leeches more moisture out of the vegetables and creates the same problem addressed in point 3.
5. Stir the batter between frying batches. No matter how diligent you are about steps 3 and 4, some liquid will always settle at the bottom of the bowl. Stirring from the bottom up redistributes it and keeps the batter moist, while not stirring results in a puddle at the bottom and a final batch of weird, splotchy latkes.
6. Keep the oil hot. Fried foods don’t have to be fatty, and the best way to keep them crispy and not soggy with oil is to make sure that the oil itself stays between 350 and 365 degrees Fahrenheit (177 to 185 Celsius). If you have a frying thermometer, use it. If not, drop a small test latke into the oil—enthusiastic sizzling should begin on contact, rather than sluggishly building up. Also, if you find your oil running low, do not add oil while there are latkes in the pan. This will cause the temperature to plunge and result in soggy, oily pancakes. Instead, finish the batch in the pan and then add more oil, giving it time to heat up before you start on the next round of latkes.
7. After frying, drain the latkes well. Some extra oil always follows a latke out of the pan, so place them on a towel-lined plate to dry. You can also drain them directly in a wire mesh strainer positioned over a bowl or the sink, which allows both sides to remain crisp rather than steaming the underside.

If you have any other advice for better latkes, please share! Chanukka sameach!