#Recipe 1: Perennial Latkes
Sizzling oil and browning potatoes
“Herman heard the sound of sizzling oil and smelled the browning potatoes,” writes Isaac Bashevis-Singer in Enemies: A Love Story, a novel set in post-war New York City and centred around holocaust survivor Herman Broder, a man caught in a morass, pulled in different directions by lust, love, the scourge of obligation, and the darkness of the past. The sensuality of food is constantly humming in the background of Bashevis-Singer’s novel – a quiet thread of life and hope, and a subtle symbol of continuity. There are a lot of fried potatoes, constantly pacing life’s beats; too many, in fact, to be reduced to mere festive moments of the calendar, which serves as an apt metaphor for why I’ve decided my first recipe for the newsletter should be a fried potato dish that ought to be perennial.
Still, a few words on latke’s festive association are necessary. Despite the Judean setting of the Hanukkah story, which relates to the Maccabean revolt of 167-141 BCE and the rededication of the temple, latkes came almost two millennia later. The word latke comes from the Slavic oladka, meaning a small fried pancake, and this comes from the Greek elaion, meaning olive oil. They are a linguistic mongrel with little culinary connection to Judea, though fried foods at Hanukkah are meant to symbolise the miracle of a small flask of oil lighting up the Jerusalem temple’s menorah for seven days more than should have been possible; eight days in total.
Gil Marks tells us In The Encyclopedia of Jewish Food that the first connection between fried foods and Hanukkah was made by the Italian rabbi Kalonymus ben Kalonymus, who lived from 1286-1328, and spoke of “levivot large and round, the whole size of the frying pan.” Marks also suggests Ricotta cheese pancakes were a dominant festive dish for centuries, spreading from Italy to other Jewish communities in Europe. Potato latkes became popularised amongst Ashkenazi Jews centuries later, as the Kingdom of Poland began planting easy-to-grow-and-store potatoes en masse after a series of crop failures in the 1830s.
They are one of the most delicious things to have come out of the Ashkenazi kitchen, and have become one of the core dishes of the American-Jewish deli canon, alongside matzo ball soup, Reuben sandwiches, and bagels with lox & schmear. I’ve made them every Hanukkah for the last few years, and offering my version here is as much a kick up my own ass to make them more regularly as it is to push you to give them a go. They are traditionally served with applesauce as well as sour cream, but as I use onions — not all latke recipes do — I feel the latkes already have enough sweetness. I think serving them with trout roe a la Russ & Daughters is a great idea, but I had no luck finding any the last time I made latkes.
Ingredients
Makes around 8 latkes:
1kg Maris Piper potatoes, peeled.
3 medium-sized white onions
Sunflower oil
1 egg
1 tbsp Maldon sea salt, plus a few flakes to garnish.
1 tsp white pepper
A small pot of sour cream
A few sprigs of dill
Trout roe (optional)
Method
Grate your potatoes and onions. I’ve never used a food processor, though it would definitely be less work than a hand grater. I like my latkes somewhat rustic, but they’d likely be more evenly cut too. You can keep the grated potato in a bowl of cold water to avoid oxidation, or start with the onion if you want to skip that.
Squeeze them through a cheesecloth or tea towel relentlessly until there’s no more liquid coming through.
Beat the egg and then mix with the potatoes and onions. Season with salt and pepper.
Mold them into patties. You’ll see a lot of flat-looking latkes, too flat, in my humble opinion, to offer that satisfying contrast between crisp exterior and soft interior. So aim for around 3.5-4 inches wide, and 0.75-1 inch deep.
Heat a layer of sunflower oil or any neutral oil in the pan, and shallow fry on each side until russet. The oil should be 178°c if you want to be precise and have a kitchen thermometer to hand.
Place them on a plate lined with paper towel to remove excess oil.
They’re now hot and crispy and ready to eat so plate them up immediately with a dollop of sour cream on top, some sprigs of dill, a sprinkling of Maldon, and about 1/2 tsp of trout roe on each, if using. Serve with a bowl of extra sour cream on the side.