I love family traditions. Something about doing something the same way every year calms and excites me at the same time.
Here in Israel we are in the midst of celebrating Chanukah, a holiday that commemorates the miracle of light. Every night we light another candle in the Menorah, for eight nights.
But for our family, the preparations start the night before. We light the menorah on a side table near the window so people outside can see, so we need to move around a lot of furniture to make that happen. The big empty space by the wall where the side table usually stands can only mean one thing - It's Chanukah.
Maybe it's that wintery smell, or the rain that won't stop -
something is making me nostalgic. With the holidays coming soon, I'm
especially nostalgic for Holiday customs. And you know when I say
customs - I mean food:)
So this post will bring you a family
recipe with a shot of the view from my house, along with a recipe by my
amazing and talented friend Tamar who just moved up North, and the views
from her house.
In my house, lighting Hanukkah candles is always
done with a burnt aroma lingering in the background. The smell is not
from the candles, but from the Potatoe Latkes my Mother makes.
I've
tasted many a Latke - and I always feel so bad for those poor souls
still eating plump fluffy wet Latkes. If there is one thing I learned
from my mother, it's that you can never really burn a potato. My Mothers
Latkes are juicy on the inside, and crispy on the outside. Our favorite
part of her Latkes are those little crispy fringes surrounding them.
Poor other peoples fringless Latkes, they do not know what they're
missing.
For this recipe, you'll need about 8 large peeled
potatoes, a medium-small sized onion. Grade them finely together in your
food processor, then comes the most important part. Take a clean bowl,
pick up a handful of potato-onion mush and squeeze out all of the water
over the food processor. Then transfer the waterless mush into the clean
bowl. Repeat for all of the mixture, so you're left with a bowl full of
the dry-ish potato-onion. This part is what makes the Latkes crispy on
the outside.
Add two heaped tablespoons of flour, two eggs, some salt and pepper. Mix it all up - I admit I use my hands. And it's squishy.
Heat
some oil (Olive or Canola is fine) in a frying pan. It should not
completely cover the Latke, but rather reach halfway. Take small handful
off the mixture, squeeze it again to get rid of liquids and make it
flat. You can pull out a couple of potato strings, for the crispy fringe
part. Put the Latke in the oil, flip when one side is brown, the take
it out as soon as the other side is brown - and transfer to a plate. (I
put some paper towels under the Latkes for the oil to drip out)
You can now enjoy them!
