Interested in trying out a new holiday? Trying to be a better Jew on Hanukkah? Start by cooking and eating some seriously unhealthy food, says asap's ERIC CARVIN, who shares his grandfather's recipe for potato pancakes.
The latkenator: Simon Kaplan (AP Photo/Courtesy Eric Carvin)
You may not realize it if you're not Jewish, but Hanukkah is every warm-blooded American's dream: a stretch of eight days when you're expected to eat greasy food.
Before we focus on the noshing, a one-sentence history lesson: Hanukkah commemorates a military victory by Jews over their Syrian-Greek oppressors back in 165 B.C., along with the legend that a temple they were rededicating managed to stay lit for eight days on one day's worth of oil.
Oil. Lamp oil, cooking oil -- what's the difference? Somewhere along the way, someone decided that the miracle of the light in the temple meant Hanukkah should be a time for frying.
And it was good.
Enter the potato pancake -- or latke, as my family has always and exclusively called it. (You'll usually hear it pronounced LAHT-kah, although my family raised me to say LUT-kee -- apparently it's a New England thing.)
I know, some smart-ass will want to point out that latkes aren't even traditional Hanukkah cuisine in Israel, where they gorge on some kind of jelly doughnut each year when the holiday rolls around. That the potato pancake is as much Eastern European as it is Jewish. I don't care. I wouldn't care if the savory treats had been invented by Ore-Ida to lure Jewish consumers around the holidays. I want my latkes.
Specifically, I want my grandpa's latkes.
Born in Boston in 1912 to Lithuanian Jewish immigrants, Simon Kaplan never became a master chef, but he knew how to take the world's blandest vegetable and work a Hanukkah miracle.
Starting when I was old enough to eat solid food, I ate Grandpa's latkes every year -- ate as many as I could get my greedy little hands on. Somewhere along the way, I started helping out in the kitchen, savoring the sizzle I created when I pressed down a pancake with my spatula. Tssssssssss. The soundtrack to a growling stomach.
Grandpa was a man who believed in family traditions -- not so much the mechanical rites that go along with religious observance, but the little things that make life so enjoyable that they must be repeated. As for so many other things, we loved him for this, and after he died when I was 17 we made sure his latkes would outlive him.
My brother Andy -- the unofficial keeper of the recipe, mostly because I keep forgetting to write it down -- continued making Grandpa's recipe during the Hanukkah season. Some years I made them too, inviting friends over for latke parties in my New York apartment at least a couple of times. The tradition lives on, with new people and in different places.
But enough with the schmaltz -- something that didn't even make it into Grandpa's latke recipe. (Schmaltz, literally, means rendered chicken or goose fat. Since you asked.) Which reminds me why you're reading this: You want to make the world's greatest latkes in your own kitchen. Here's how.
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Grandpa Simon Kaplan's Hanukkah Latkes
(With special thanks to Andy Carvin for reminding me of the recipe, yet again.)
Makes: Dozens of latkes. So many you'll plotz.
Ingredients:
Twelve medium Idaho potatoes
Two eggs or egg substitute (yes, it works)
Oil
One large onion
Matzah meal
Salt and pepper
Applesauce or sour cream for dippin'
1. Peel the potatoes. Better yet, don't peel the potatoes -- you'll give it an earthier flavor, and more importantly, you'll be eating your latkes a few minutes sooner. But either way, it'll work. Just make sure you scrub the potatoes really well if you don't peel them.
2. Grate the potatoes into a bowl. Do NOT use a food processor. Yes, it would shave an enormous amount of time off the latke-making process, but it would also turn it into more of a hash brown-making process. Make hash browns on some other holiday.
Be careful with all this grating. If you get distracted after doing this for a while -- especially if you don't usually do much grating by hand -- you could easily find yourself adding a few bits of flesh to your latkes. This may or may not affect the flavor, texture or safety of your final product, but it's something to avoid.
As you grate, a lot of starchy liquid will accumulate in the bowl. After you've grated three or four potatoes, strain out the liquid through a fine colander or other strainer and discard it. Put the solid stuff in another bowl as you get back to grating more potatoes. Then keep at it -- grate, strain, grate, strain -- until they're all reduced to a mushy pile.
3. Add two eggs to the bowl of potatoes, breaking the yolk with a fork. (Or add two eggs' worth of egg substitute, if that's your bag.)
4. Grate the onion into the bowl, and add one tablespoon each of salt and pepper.
5. Blend with a large spoon or spatula. Again, resist the temptation to plug anything in -- an electric mixer, blender or food processor will send you speeding down the hash browns highway. (Don't get me wrong -- I love hash browns. Even that flat, elliptical patty that McDonald's dispenses in a cardboard sleeve. Crunchy and delicious. But keep your eye on the latke ball.)
6. Add about half a cup of matzah meal to the soupy mixture and blend. Keep adding and blending more, a teaspoon at a time, until the mixture is good and thick but not quite dry.
7. Put a little oil in a large pan and bring it to a medium-high heat.
8. Try making one latke to make sure you've got the seasonings right. Put a tablespoon-sized dollop of the mixture into the pan and fry it up until it's a golden brown on both sides. I recommend flattening it a bit with a spatula while you're cooking, though it's up to you what exact shape these things should end up. Thick or thin, they're delicious.
9. Pat your creation down a bit with a paper towel and give it a taste, being careful not to burn yourself. If it needs more salt or pepper, blend it into the mixture and try again.
10. Once you're happy with the taste, cook the rest of the batter: Fill the pan with however many latkes you can fit without them getting stuck to each other, fry 'em up, lay them out on paper towels and repeat the process, adding more oil as needed. Keep going until you're out of potatoey goop and staring at a towering pile of latkes.
11. Serve with applesauce, or, if you must, sour cream (not what my family did, but I hear it's very popular).
12. Eat a latke.
13. Repeat step 12 until you're physically ill.
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asap News Editor Eric Carvin wants some latkes and applesauce now. No matter when you're reading this. Now!
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