We all get a bit flustered when the mall begins setting up
the Santa photo booth before Halloween has passed. I visited New York on November 16th
and was annoyed when Barney’s announced the reveal of its Christmas window
display the weekend before Thanksgiving.
Certainly, we have come to anticipate (and even enjoy) the excess of
Black Friday, but the more recent habit of opening retail establishments at 8pm
on Thanksgiving Day is just ridiculous.
It was very refreshing when Nordstrom bucked tradition, insisting that
it would take its holidays one at a time.
Even so, many of us are not off the hook until
Christmas. Chanukah is upon us,
beginning at sundown on December 8th. And for those of us who live blended,
multi-cultural lives, this means an entire week of unique foods and festivities
inserted between the Turkey of Thanksgiving and the Standing Rib Roast and
Yorkshire Pudding of Christmas. Many
people believe that Chanukah is about 8 days of gifts compared to Christmas’
just one. In fact, gifts have no place
in traditional Chanukah celebrations. It
is a holiday about miracles in oil, and that can only mean one thing—Latkes!
I have been asked by more than one person for a good recipe
for latkes. I am certain that you can
find one in any Jewish holiday cookbook.
For me, latkes are imprecise and dynamic—more of a direction than a
destination. Even in my grandmother’s
own recipe box, one of my most treasured possessions, there is no impeccably
written card for latkes among the many for other traditional holiday foods such
as kugel, rugelach, Mandelbrot, and Passover sponge cake.
I am no culinary anthropologist, but I believe latkes to
originate from Eastern European traditions.
My good friend Betty, who is an Israeli culinary master born in Morocco,
had her very first latkes at my own dinner table. In Israel, the Chanukah tradition is
Sufganyot (soof-gone-yote), another fried-in-oil delight that resembles a
traditional jelly donut. Although I grew
up in one of the most saturated Jewish communities in America, I never heard of
eating jelly donuts for Chanukah until I visited Israel. My family always celebrated Chanukah with
latkes, and it was made more special by the fact that we never ate them at any
other time of year. Before the advent of
the Cuisinart, latkes were incredibly laborious to produce, the potatoes
oxidizing quickly while my grandmother grated away her manicure with the spuds. I remember my father begging my grandmother—his
mother-in-law—to make latkes, promising to do all the grating if she would just
please fire up the skillet of oil.
Today, with my handy Cuisinart, latkes are less daunting but
still a major production. The smell of
hot oil lingers in the house for days afterward (like this is a bad
thing?). I have ruined more than my fair
share of clothes with irrevocable splashes of oil, always landing conspicuously
outside the edges of the restaurant style apron that I keep specifically for
this purpose. No matter what precautions
I take (towels, newspapers), there will always be grease all over the kitchen
floor, later tracked from the low-maintenance tiles to the hardwoods throughout
the house. For this reason, I have
learned to make latkes in advance of any celebration. I flash freeze them individually, laid out so
as not to touch each other on a special sheet pan that fits the narrow shelf of
my side-by-side Sub-Zero. Then, I throw
the frozen pancakes into a large Ziploc bag, keeping them in the freezer. Because the pancakes retain so much oil, you
can reconstitute them by heating them in the oven and they will taste as if
they were just fried! When my kids were still
at home, I usually kept a supply of latkes in the freezer. They made a great go-to snack when lots of
kids were in the basement watching a movie!
So in the absence of a recipe, I will describe my latke
production in narrative form. I use good
medium russet potatoes, about ½ to 1 per
person—or if I am making them just for fun, I consider how many will fill the
processing bowl of my food processor. I
use canola oil, because it is the lightest and least flavored oil I know. I usually pick up a fresh quart bottle in the
store, because whatever is sitting in my pantry probably isn’t enough. I use matzoh meal, which is a Passover staple
yet is always available on the kosher food aisle of the supermarket. Latkes can also be made with flour—and I have
done this on occasion—but for me there is a certain flavor and texture that
comes from the matzoh meal. I use one or
two yellow onions, depending on the size of the onions and the number of
potatoes I am buying. One onion can
stretch over as many as 4-5 potatoes.
Sometimes I will buy fresh chives, snipping them finely into the potato
mixture to give it color. Sometimes I
simply add the chives to the sour cream, which is served on the side as an
accompaniment, along with apple sauce (made from scratch when I have the time)
and my personal favorite, ketchup.
You will need a food processor fitted with a
shredding/grating disk, a very large mixing bowl, and a large skillet (cast
iron is ideal). Cut the potatoes into ¾ inch
cubes. (The size of the cubes determines
the size of the shreds in the food processor.)
Feed the cubes through the feed tubes in batches. Transfer the grated potatoes to a large cotton
dishtowel. Wrap tightly and let stand
for 30 minutes over the mixing bowl. Wring
as much liquid as possible from the potatoes, discarding any liquid that drips
into the bowl. If you have a smaller “grating” disk, use that
to grate the onion, or grate the onion on a box grater. Put the dried potatoes and grated onions in
the mixing bowl, mixing the onion through the potato shreds. Sprinkle generously with salt and
pepper. Break a room temperature egg
into a small bowl and scramble until it is light yellow; add to potato mixture
and mix to coat. (If you have a lot of
potatoes, use 2 eggs) Sprinkle matzoh
meal over the potato mixture and stir to incorporate. I do this by sight and feel, but perhaps a
cup is about right. The texture should
not be too wet or too dry—enough for the potatoes to hold together but to still
have some of the wetness pancake batter.
Heat about 1/3 inch of oil in the skillet. It is ready to go when the handle of a wooden
spoon placed into the oil causes small bubbles to congregate. Make
sure the oil is hot before placing any of the potato mixture into it. I use a large table spoon or soup spoon to
heap the mixture into the oil. Spoon the
mixture into the oil and then press with the back of the spoon or a spatula to
flatten it. Continue adding about 4 or 5
more into the pan. Do not overcrowd the
pan or it will lower the oil temperature and they will poach rather than
fry. Turn each latke as it browns on the
bottom and then cook until it is brown on the other side. Remove with a slotted spoon and allow to
drain on paper towels. Remove every latke
from the pan before beginning the next batch, giving the oil a minute to return
to high temperature. In between batches,
remove any errant scraps with a strainer or slotted spoon to avoid
burning. Continue this way in small
batches until all the potato mixture is used up.
The uncooked potatoes will continue to give off liquid as
they sit. Lift the potato shreds from
the liquid, or drain the mixture occasionally to avoid getting too much
moisture into the batter. I use a
slotted spoon to pull the mixture up the sides of the large bowl and out of the
pooling liquid.
It is a good idea to make latkes in large batches. The clean-up is the same no matter how much
you make, but you will always want more around.
The freeze and re-heat method assures that you can have latkes regularly
with minimal mess. Just make sure that you only serve these delicious and fattening treats to people you really, really love!
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