Happy third night of Chanukah. I really did mean to get this posted last week, but time got away from me. But, luckily Chanukah lasts for 8 nights, so you still have 5 nights left to try these latkes.
When I mentioned to my family that I would be adding cheddar cheese to the latkes this year, it was met with less than enthusiasm. I get it. We really only get to eat latkes once a year, and folks don’t want you messing with tradition.
My husband, ever the diplomat, responded to my announcement with “I’m not really sure how I feel about that.” This coming from a guy that puts ketchup on his latkes (I think it’s an Ottawa thing). My daughter suggested that perhaps I “make two batches, one with cheddar and one without”. Spoken with the innocence of youth, who isn’t peeling and grating the potatoes, squeezing all the liquid out and getting the smell of fried oil in her house and hair for days, as well as trying to film a video!
But hear me out on this one. You know when you make a grilled cheese sandwich and those rogue bits of cheese escape and get all brown and crispy at the edges of the sandwich. That’s the best part, right? So imagine crispy fried potatoes and crispy cheese. Two kinds of crispy. How bad could that be? Pretty damn fantastic. They were met with rave reviews.
The inspiration came from Chef Michael Solmonov. I saw him add cheddar to his latkes on the Rachael Ray show last week, and I was sold. He added a full pound of cheddar to his latkes, but I scaled that back to 5 ounces in my version, which still let the potato flavour come through strong.
A few tips for success:
Do not skip the step in the recipe where you squeeze all the water out of the grated potatoes and onions. You will not achieve crispy latkes.
Save the liquid you squeeze from the potatoes and onions. Let it sit for a few minutes and then pour off the liquid. The gunk you see at the bottom of the bowl is potato starch. Mix it with the eggs and add it to your potato mixture. That potato starch is a magic ingredient in keeping your latkes from falling apart.
Reheat latkes on a wire rack, set over a baking sheet. The wire rack allows the air to circulate so the bottom of your latkes don’t get soggy.
I have been blogging since May 19 2009. This year will be the 13th Chanukah post I will be writing. If your family is anything like mine, they want the same classic potato latkes every year. Your idea of the ultimate latke very much depends on what you grew up with.
It’s beginning to smell and sound a lot like Chanukah around here as I test latke recipes. Check out the video.
My childhood memory of latkes is bittersweet. My mom made the most delicious latkes. Thin, lacy and very crispy at the edges, they were held together with the bare minimum of egg and matzoh meal. She served them with apple sauce and sour cream. That’s the sweet part of my childhood memory. The bitter part is related to my mom’s very keen sense of smell. She was offended by the lingering scent of frying oil. Almost immediately after making latkes, she would perform an exorcism to cleanse the house of the offending odour. She used her secret blend of cleaning agents, a potent, lethal combination of Joy and Ajax. Do not try this at home unless you are wearing a gas mask.
My husband, on the other hand, grew up with thick and creamy latkes. The potatoes were chopped quite fine and then fried, almost like a potato cake. They were served with ketchup. 😱 For a few years I made compromise latkes. Eventually, I won him over to the thin and lacy style. but he still eats them with ketchup.
As a blogger, I feel pressured to present something new and innovative every year. But the truth is, while my family smiled and nodded politely when I presented them with Sweet Potato and Brussels Sprouts Latkes one year, they just want traditional latkes.
A while ago, I came across a recipe for Apple-Potato Latkes with Cinnamon Sour Cream, from Melissa Clarke. I was intrigued with the addition of apples. We always eat latkes with applesauce, so adding apples to the batter wasn’t such a radical idea. While they were delicious, they strayed too far from my ideal latke. She added 3 eggs and 2/3 cup of flour to the batter. They held together beautifully, but they were too eggy and cake-like for me.
I played around with the ratios and came up with a more traditional latke. The apple remained as a subtle hum in the background, but the predominant flavour is potato. The key to making latkes is muscle power. You need to rid the potatoes, and apples in this case, of all their excess moisture. About 80% of a potato is water. Apples contain 85% water. After shredding, gather up the mixture into a tea towel and squeeze out as much liquid as you can. Save the liquid that the apples and potatoes give up. After sitting for a few minutes, all the starch from the potato liquid will settle to the bottom of the bowl. Drain off the liquid, and scrape that potato starch into the shredded mixture. It really helps keep the latkes together.
These latkes offer a slight variation on the classic latke, that even the die-hard traditionalists in your house will approve.
Pro tip: for pretty pink applesauce, don’t peel your apples. Just quarter them and put them in a pot with a little water. Cover and cook over low heat until tender. Use a food mill to get rid of the skins and core. Flavour with a pinch of cinnamon if desired.
On the 6th night of Chanukah I made Sweet Potato and Brussels Sprouts Latkes. I could never make these on the first night of Chanukah. They would not be well received by my family. On the first night our family insists on traditional latkes. (I think it might actually written in Jewish Law somewhere!!). But feel free to let your freak flag fly and make these unorthodox latkes when Chanukah is almost over and everyone has had their fill of classic potato latkes.These latkes are based on a Japanese savory pancake called Okonomiyaki. I learned about them in the November 2016 issue of Bon Appetit magazine. As I read the recipe I was inspired to adapt it and create latkes using these ingredients.The Brussels sprouts must be thinly sliced. The thin slicing blade of the food processor will do the job quickly. A sharp knife will also work. The sweet potatoes need to be cut into 1/8 inch thin matchstick pieces. A mandoline will do this quickly. If you don’t have one, cut the potatoes to fit the feed tube of the food processor and thinly slice potatoes first. Then stack them up and cut across with a sharp knife into matchsticks.
Eggs and flour act as the glue to hold everything together. Fry until deeply golden brown and crispy. Serve them with some chipotle mayo and a squeeze of lime or go traditional and top with applesauce. Savory, deeply crispy and very delicious, these latkes are sure to please even the most die-hard traditionalists.
I realize that Chanukah ended last week and I’m a little late to the party, but you may forgive me when you find out that I am sharing the ultimate latke recipe with you. So, if you only make latkes once a year, do yourself a favour and bookmark these for next December. You will thank me!
The first time I posted about potato latkes on this blog Taylor Swift was dating Jake Gyllenhaal. The second time, a month later, Taylor and Jake were still being spotted canoodling in public. The third time I posted about latkes, Taylor was keeping company with Harry Styles. My final latke posting was last November and Taylor was trying to make Harry Styles jealous by stepping out with Douglas Booth.
From the above paragraph you might conclude that: a) For a woman over the age of 50, I have an inappropriate fascination with Taylor Swift. (Sadly true!), and, b) I also have an unhealthy love of potato latkes (also, sadly true).
I used to believe that I had the very best latke recipe. And then I tried the Cook’s Illustrated version and discovered that I was wrong! These latkes were light, not at all heavy or greasy. The outer crust was crunchy to the point of almost shatteringly crisp and insides were creamy, tender and pillowy soft. These are everything that all self respecting latkes aspire to be.
Leave it to Cook’s Illustrated to crack the code and perfect the latke. A typical tuber contains 80% water by weight! The secret, it seems, is to rid the potato of as much of it’s water content as possible. This means a little extra work to squeeze out all the moisture that potatoes exude, but trust me, the effort is worth it.
Russet potatoes are the best variety to use. Grating them by hand on a box grater will give you the best texture. Just scrub the potatoes. No need to even peel the potatoes, just scrub well.The grated potatoes are mixed with a small grated onion and some salt. The mixture is transferred to a tea towel and all the moisture is wrung out. Let the drained liquid sit for 5 minutes and all the potato starch will sink to the bottom of the bowl. Drain off the liquid and save the starch. This starch is what will hold your latkes together. No need to add any additional flour or matzoh meal.The potato mixture gets heated in the microwave for 2 minutes. This allows the potatoes to release even more moisture and assists in making the latkes crispier and prevents them from becoming greasy by absorbing too much oil.
It’s always a good day when I can learn a new word! Last week I learned the word Portmanteau. A portmanteau or portmanteau word is a combination of two or more words and their definitions, into one new word. For example; Bootylicious, from booty and delicious, chillax, from chill and relax and jeggings, from jeans and leggings. Jeggings by the way are not pants. Your booty must be covered if you insist on wearing them. (Sorry, just a little side rant!)
The newly coined portmanteau word of Thanksgivukkah was celebrated this past Thursday. I just love the fact that the word was actually coined by a Jewish mom, living in Boston. As you may have heard, this past Thursday, the American holiday of Thanksgiving collided with the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah. Sort of a secular-religious mashup. The last time this happened was in 1889. It will not occur again until 79811! In case you are wondering why this does not happen every year, it is not because Jews are poor timekeepers. The Huffington Post did a brilliant job of explaining.
“The reason for this year’s rare alignment has to do with quirks of two calendars, the Gregorian and Jewish calendars. Much of the world follows the Gregorian calendar, which has a 365-day year based on the Earth’s orbit around the sun, with leap years every four years. The Gregorian calendar was implemented by Pope Gregory to keep Easter in line with the season it was originally celebrated in.
But the Jewish calendar, which was created more than 2,000 years ago, follows the waxing and waning of the moon. That calendar has 12 months of roughly 30 days each, which works out to a bit more than 354 days in a year. As a result, the Jewish year creeps earlier and earlier relative to the Gregorian calendar. But many Jewish holidays, such as Passover, are tied to seasons such as spring.
To keep holidays in line with their seasons, the Jewish calendar includes an entire extra month in seven of every 19 years. This year is a leap year, so Hanukkah and all of the other Jewish holidays came especially early in 2013. And Thanksgiving, which falls on the fourth Thursday in November, happened to come extra late this year, allowing for the convergence.”
I actually had to read that explanation 3 times before I understood it, but not to worry, this is not the main focus of this post. I wanted to spend a little time writing about the difference between Canadian and American Thanksgiving.
Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving on the second Monday in October. Americans celebrate it on the fourth Thursday in November. When I was growing up, our family, and most of the other Jewish families I knew did not even celebrate Thanksgiving. It was just a welcome day off school and work. I’m not sure why we never celebrated it. Perhaps because it was usually so close to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and by the time it rolled around, we were holidayed out.
Canadian Thanksgiving is based on European harvest celebrations. It is our way of saying thanks for the the bounty of the harvest and giving us enough food to last through the cold winter. American Thanksgiving is based on a tradition of remembering and paying tribute to the pilgrims.
While Americans may celebrate louder and larger, Canadians were actually the first to celebrate Thanksgiving. English explorer Martin Frobisher is widely credited with hosting the first Canadian Thanksgiving. In 1578, he and his crew were out at sea searching for the Northwest Passage to the Orient. Although they did not find it on this particular journey, (they arrived instead in Newfoundland) they celebrated their safe arrival to the New World. And no one can celebrate like Newfoundlanders! After all, they invented screech. The first American Thanksgiving (1621 in Plymouth, Massachusetts) was not celebrated until 43 years after the first Canadian celebration.
I do believe that both Canadians and Americans experience simmering cranberry sauce and emotions over their respective holiday weekends. There is nothing like an extended family gathering to bring out all kinds of feelings and arguments over pie and other such nonsense.
My husband and I had planned to be in Florida for American Thanksgiving this year. Our oldest son and daughter decided to join us for the weekend. About a month before the holiday my daughter sent me this link. We started planning how we would celebrate our first Thanksgivukkah. Since we were not arriving in Florida until 1:00 pm on Thursday afternoon, shopping and cooking an entire dinner from scratch was out of the question. We ordered Turkey dinner and all the fixings from Whole Foods and decided to supplement with homemade sweet potato latkes.
As I am still in a cast and using crutches, the cooking fell to my husband, daughter and son. My daughter was in awe that applesauce was so simple to make. Basically, apples and a bit of water get cooked in a covered pot until soft and then mashed with a fork. You could get fancy and add cinnamon and other spices but we kept it basic.We started off making straight sweet potato latkes, but because they exude very little starch, they did not hold together very well. We then moved on to a hybrid latke, using a combo of starchy baking potatoes and sweet potatoes. We mixed in some grated onion, a couple of beaten eggs, a bit of flour and some salt and pepper. With all the extra hands on deck, the peeling and grating went quickly and we only had one grated knuckle mishap.Once the potatoes have been grated, it is important to squeeze out all the excess liquid and then let the liquid sit for about 5 minutes. All the potato starch will sink to the bottom of the bowl. Drain off the liquid and scrape that starch into the latke mixture. It will help to hold them together.At last, latke perfection was achieved. Crispy on the outside and creamy and soft within. We did not set a fancy table and sit down to eat. We just gobbled up the latkes as they came out of the hot oil. One of my family members performed the sacrilgious act of dousing the latke with ketchup!! (Apparently an Ottawa tradition). Others kept it old school and slathered them with applesauce the way God intended them to be. I will admit that by the time the latkes were cooked and eaten, we had little room and interest in eating the turkey, stuffing and gravy. There were lots of leftovers the next day, which I suspect may be the whole point of Thanksgiving anyways. Inspired by Thanksgivukkuh, we made latke sandwiches the next day. Turkey and cranberry sauce sandwiched between two sweet potato latkes. New traditions don’t get much better than this.
I seem to be a bit out of synch with my Chanukah posts this year. I posted about latkes (with fried eggs and roasted tomatoes) on November 23, almost a full month before the first night of Chanukah. And now, here I am, bringing you latkes with roasted applesauce, on the last night of Chanukah! I meant to bring you this fantastic applesauce recipe a week ago but, I’ve been a bit distracted with this view. so forgive my tardiness!
We are here on a little island, off the coast of Antigua, in the Caribbean. We have rented a house on the ocean for 9 days for a little family holiday. It is so wonderful to have all my children together under the same roof for an extended period of time. It makes me feel contented and complete. My husband’s sister and her family have also come and rented the house 2 doors down from us so all the cousins are together for a mini-family reunion. I say mini, because in addition to a sister, my husband also has 4 brothers. Sadly, they were unable to come down with their families.
There are no cars allowed on the island. The major methods of transportation include bicycles, golf carts and walking. The older kids are loving the golf carts, but my 16-year-old niece is annoyed that she is not allowed to drive the golf carts, as you require a valid driver’s licence and she only has her learner’s permit. She was slightly appeased when she discovered that the legal drinking age on Antigua is 16.
We had a family Chanukah celebration over lunch a few days ago at my sister-in-law’s house. Her kitchen is way better equipped than mine. They had a Cuisinart to grate the potatoes and onions. We just had a box grater! The latke recipe can be found in my Nov 23 post.
The roasted applesauce recipe comes from Food 52. They featured it in their Genius recipes feature. It is the creation of Zuni Cafe owner, Judy Rodgers. I have always made applesauce by just steaming the apples in a pot with a little bit of water and then putting them through a food mill. This takes applesauce to a whole other dimension, by roasting them with a pinch of salt, sugar and butter. Then they are mashed up and finished with a splash of cider vinegar. Genius indeed!
With 17 of us for lunch, there were lots of potatoes to peel and grate. We had 3 frying pans going and within about an hour we had transformed 10 pounds of potatoes into a huge mound of crispy lacy latkes. My sister-in-law has an unusual, and dangerous, method for forming the latkes. She scoops up a small handful of the mixture with her hands, squeezes it to compact the mass and then gently places it in the hot oil! I prefer to use a large spoon, but I have to admit, hers stayed together a bit better than mine. She also had the patience to let them get really brown and crispy.
We had to send my brother-in-law out to forage for sour cream (apparently the way Torontonian’s favour their latkes) and ketchup (an Ottawa thing!). The roasted applesauce was a great unifier, loved by all.
I know it’s a little too early to start thinking about potato latkes, since the first night of Chanukah is not until December 20 this year. But I have a good reason for posting about them now. You see, ever since I saw Chuck Hughes make these on his show, “Chuck’s Day Off”, it’s all I could think about.
Now, before you continue reading any further, I must warn you that I am about to gush big time. So, if public displays of affection make you at all uncomfortable, perhaps you should stop reading this post right now. To be perfectly honest, Chuck’s been on my mind quite a bit lately. You may recall that I posted about Chuck in April, and then again at the beginning of this month. I guess you could say that I’m a bit smitten with him. For the record, I am happily married (not to Chuck!), but celebrity crushes are permitted. I think it’s actually healthy for our marriage.
For those not familiar with Chuck, check out this short video of him on YouTube, and you’ll see what I mean.
Chuck cooks on his day off for friends, family and his suppliers as a way of saying thanks. In one episode he made adobo pork shanks, fried rice and pineapple coconut pie for Edgardo and Burt, the father and son team that cleans his restaurant. How could you not love this guy?
He made these latkes for his pots and pans suppliers. He topped them off with a dollop of ricotta cheese and a fried egg. And on the side, he served roasted grape tomatoes and sautéed zucchini. The first time I tried the recipe, I made it exactly as Chuck did, but to be honest, the ricotta and the sautéed zucchini really muddied the flavours of the potato and egg. The roasted tomatoes, however, really brightened up the whole dish. Their acidity balanced the richness of the fried potato and egg.
Chuck’s latke method is more like the Swiss dish “röesti potatoes”, than traditional potato latkes. He parboils the potatoes first, then shreds them and mixed them with onion, chives, eggs, cayenne, salt and pepper. I gave his method a whirl but must admit, I like using grated raw potatoes. I find you get a crispier latke that way.
Grape tomatoes get a drizzle of olive oil, salt, pepper and some thyme.
After 45 minutes in the oven they come out all wrinkled and sweet. They can be made in advance and sit at room temperature while you make the latkes and fry the eggs.
