EATFREAK

I hate making Latkes more than anything in the whole freaking world.  Years ago I vowed to never ever do it again.  If you enjoy shredding your knuckles to bloody stumps, third degree oil burns, and slaving over a steaming pile of burning death for hours on end, then stop reading now.  If that sounds like less than a great time – read on – I’ve come up with a pretty awesome solution.

I am not jewish.  I married into a jewish family.  I didn’t convert or anything, but I still retain a sort of honorary jew status.  The most prominent piece of this status being that Chanukah has now been held at my house for two straight years – and it’s looking like it’s going to stay that way for a long time.  What that means for me is – Food Challenge – which suits me just fine.

I intend to enjoy fucking around with the Classic Chanukah meal, while attempting to maintain enough integrity as to not insult or disrespect tradition.  This year we had a full meal including some very classic pieces and some really really untraditional stuff.  This post will serve as the first piece in a series, delivering to you four courses of this years Chanukah meal titled – The Hand That Rocks The Dradle.

Part 1:  The Latke

As I said before – making Latkes blows balls.  I’d rather be a dead person than make them in the traditional way.  That said, they are a crucial part of the Chanukah meal.  I had to come up with a solution.  Latkes are little shredded potato pancake type thingies.  The idea is – you shred potatoes, mix them with some flavorful things like onions and herbs, bind them with some sort of bindy thing like eggs or whatever, then fry them in oil until they are awesome.  One batch yields like a dozen hand sized fried tasty things and years worth of misery and pain.  Potatoes, onions, eggs.  hm.  I’ve been making a Tortilla Espanola since I was 14 years old about 4 times a year.  A Tortilla Espanola or Tortilla De Papas is a fried potato pie type thing with onions and eggs that is sort of the “my dick is bigger than your dick” of the Tapas world.

Long story short – I decided to marry the two dishes and make a sort of Latke Espanola, or Latke Torta – whatever the hell you want to call it – it rules.

Make no  mistake – this is not an easy recipe.  There are parts of it that are quite difficult.  But nothing in this recipe compares to the raw frustration and pointless bullshit that comes with normal Latkes – and this is way way cooler.

2 Lbs. Yukon Gold Potatoes (4 – 6 depending on size)
1 onion  – chopped big
1 egg
4 (ish) scallions  – green parts chopped up
1 small fistful of italian parsley – chopped
Kosher Salt and Fresh Ground Pepper  – some
Oil for cooking – Vegetable would be traditional – Olive Oil would be rad (that’s wat I used)  Peanut Oil would be cool.   I’ve been having fun with Sunflower oil recently ….. so whatever.

Prep is key here – get your shit together before you dive in.  Get your food processor ready (or blender or whatever)  chop up the onions and stuff – do everything you can in advance.  That means if you’re actually gonna follow my recipe – read through once and gather all the gear – read through again and gather all the ingredients and prepare them for use.  Don’t overcook the tortilla while you’re rummaging around looking for another pan.  Ok – Here you go.

1.  Peel and Grate the Potatoes.  If you have a grater attachment on that food processor you can use that – I don’t so I didn’t.  Put half of the grates potatoes in the finest strainer you have – preferably a fine mesh sieve – over a large bowl.  Press a bit and start letting the liquid all fall into the bowl.

2.  Chuck the rest of the grated potato and the onion into the food processor.  Pulse like 5ish times for about 3 seconds each.  get it mushy, but not loose and too drippy.  Throw that mush in with the grated potatoes in the sieve.  Mix and press liquid out the bottom.  let sit for a bit.

3.  Now.  The stuff in the bowl will have separated into a starchy paste and a fine liquid.  carefully pour off the liquid and discard – keeping the paste.  Beat the egg into the paste.  Now mix in the Scallion and the Parsley.  Now mix in the potato mush.  Now give it some Salt and Pepper.  let that sit for a few minutes.

4.  Now it gets tricky.  If you have two equally sized nonstick pans, use those.  Or two cast iron skillets of the same size – but you better be in good freaking shape or it’ll get really difficult later.  If you don’t have two pans of the same size, use one, and have a plate and some dish towels ready that you aren’t afraid to fuck up.  heat about 1/8 to 1/4 inch of the oil in the pan.  when its hot, slide in the mixture and flatten it out evenly.  Season lightly with Salt and Pepper.  keep shake/spinning the pan every few minutes to stop it from sticking.

after about 3 – 5 minutes comes the hard part.  If you have the equal sized pans – heat the second pan over high heat on another burner for about a minute.  take the hot pans over to the sink.  Place the empty pan upside down over the hot one so you’ve made a little cave in there.  Now in one swift, smooth motion, flip them both over, so the tortilla flips into the second pan.  place pan no. 2 on the burner and keep going.   3 – 5 more minutes should do it.  after five minutes, flip again, if the crust seems a little blackened in places and has started to get a little gold in color – you’re good.  Every time you flip that puppy, season with Salt and Pepper.

If you don’t have that second pan ….  Take the tortilla pan over to he sink.  Lay a plate (larger than the pan) upside down on top of the pan.  Lay a towel on that.  Place your hand on top of the towel.  Now very quickly, but smoothly, and safely – flip the tortilla over onto the plate.  Then slide the tortilla back into the pan – back on the burner and keep going.

5.  Once it’s done – if you have a wire rack – flip it on to the rack and let it sit for 15 minutes – then flip it onto a plate for serving.  If no wire rack, just go straight to the plate, but let it sit for a bit.

OK.  so I know that last part with all the flipping is crazy.  I freaked out the first couple of times – but it’s not that hard really, and once you get it down you can totally impress everyone you know.  The most important thing is to be careful about the oil.  That’s what the towels are for.  If you drop a pan, drop the tortilla, break a plate – who gives a shit – but don’t burn the crap out of yourself with hot oil.  (you’ll notice I’m not using the towels in the picture – I’ve been doing this for 15 years – use the towels)

And there you have it!!  slice it up into thin wedges to serve.  Beautiful right?  Looks cooler than normal latkes.  You can control the consistency of awesome flavor more because you’re not dealing with a bunch of different little things cooking and different times and temperatures and resting for different times.  I pretty much think this recipe rules.  Great for leftovers – awesome breakfast – it’s just as good hot as it is cold.

For those of you who think this recipe is too much of a pain in the ass – think again.  See in my house, once you’ve don all that – you’ve gotta clean everything in the whole damn kitchen, and then do it again. I had 9 people this year – it took two of them to make everyone happy.  We had two slices left.  So one serves like 5 (ish).

Enjoy.  It’s really really tasty.  That’s part one.  Stay tuned for The Hand That Rocks The Dradle pt. 2.  Fried Chicken    (not exactly you’re grandma’s Chanukah offering)

ok bye

p.s.  yeah i know i totally disappeared for a while.  sorry.  my bad. ok i’m really going now.