Today’s the first day of Hannukah, the Jewish holiday celebrating the rededication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem after the Maccabean revolt. If that makes it sound unfamiliar, consider it my mitzvah (a good deed), proof that I do indeed know what and why we’re celebrating. In my younger shallower days, the holiday’s
appeal may have had more to with the eight days of gifting than the eight days one day’s worth of oil burned in the Temple. And since my mother’s been known to read this, I should add that there was usually one big gift and many small–and of course, all the rituals: candlelighting, singing, and lots and lots of eating. The whole schmear.
Turns out neither she nor I had reason to worry. In my older age, it’s not the presents I remember. It’s the candles. The handmade menorahs. And the food. It isn’t Hannukah without the latkes.
Today I’m calling upon the grande dame of Jewish cooking, Joan Nathan, to help me make them. Nathan’s cookbooks are legendary, and the one I’m sharing here, the Jewish Holiday Cookbook, was issued on the 25th anniversary of the publication of her Jewish Holiday Kitchen. It includes recipes from that collection and 1997′s Jewish Holiday Baker. Nathan has an encyclopedic knowlege of Jewish cuisine and Jewish culture. (With the dietary rules of kashrut, in many ways they are one and the same.) The beauty of her cookbooks, however, is she makes the information and especially the recipes, accessible to everyone. The Hanukkah entry, for example, begins with a beautiful passage about the holiday from the book of Maccabees. Perfect for someone like me who enjoys cramming in a few uber-observant moments over the course of an otherwise borderline heathenish year around holiday time. But it is followed by this, for the less reverent, from a story by Sholem Aleichem, the Yiddush author and playwright:
Can you guess, children, which is the best of all holidays? Hanukkah, of course … You eat pancakes every day … Mother [is] in the kitchen (rendering goose fat, mixing batter for pancakes.
I may get adventurous and take a stab at making sweet potato latkes this year, but only as a complement to the original. Nathan’s recipe is easy and includes the sort of tips I imagine my grandma passed along while I was too busy noshing. (Draining the liquid from the potatoes is key. The difference between mush and magnificence. Who knew?) And it’s perfectly okay to fry ahead of time and freeze. Joan thinks it may even make them taste crispier!
Potato Latkes (serves 8-10)
10 mediun russet or baking potatoes
2 medium onions
2 large or 3 medium eggs
¼ cup unbleached all-purpose flour, bread crumbs, or matzah meal
Salt and white pepper
Vegetable oil
Peel the potatoes if the skin is coarse; otherwise, just clean them well. Keep them in cold water until ready to prepare the latkes.
Starting with the onions, alternately grate some of the onions on the large holes of the grater and some of the potatoes on the smallest holes. This will keep the potato mixture from blackening. Press out as much liquid as possible and reserve the starchy sediment at the bottom of the bowl. Return the sediment to the mixture.*
Blend the potato mixture with the eggs, flour, and salt and pepper to taste.
Heat 1 inch of oil in a frying pan. Drop about 1 tablespoon of mixture for each latke into the skillet and fry, turning once. When golden and crisp on both sides, drain on paper towels. Serve with yogurt, sour cream, sugar, or applesauce.
*The steel blade of a food processor or the grating blade are less painful ways of grating the potatoes and the onions. The blade makes a smooth consistency and the grater a crunchy one.
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