Latkes for All

As you know, the Holiday Season™ is upon us, which in our family kicked off a bit early with Diwali at the beginning of November. Then Thanksgiving came around at the end of November. Honestly, Thanksgiving is always a let down for me. I am just used to the Thanksgivings of my childhood, where we'd go to my grandma's and there'd be twenty aunts and uncles and forty cousins and so much cigarette smoke you couldn't smell the turkey in the oven, or even breathe for that matter. How I miss those days. I say that with not even a touch of sarcasm. It really was a better time we lived in back then.

Anyway, last week as I was wallowing in post-Thanksgiving self pity, looking ahead toward Christmas, my four-year-old approached me demanding to know when we were going to celebrate Hanukkah. "But honey," I tried to explain, "see, we don't celebrate Hanukkah because we're not Jewish."

The child stared at us for a moment, then repeated in a much louder voice, "WHEN ARE WE GOING TO CELEBRATE HANUKKAH?"

So I figured, what the heck? Why not? Maybe it'll cheer me up to make some latkes. And it actually did cheer me up. It's amazing what the lack of expectations and pressure will do to lighten the holiday mood. Even better, some Jewish friends heard about my daughter's determination to celebrate Hanukkah, and thought that was a great excuse for them to hold their own latke party. So we got to have latkes two nights in one week. Ironically, my girl wouldn't touch the latkes with a ten-foot pole. (Of course, she did eat the applesauce.) Thank goodness I can count on the six-year-old to eat anything, so I can blame the perversity of genetics and not my lack of parenting skills.

Now the four-year-old wants to celebrate Kwanzaa, as well as Bahala, which as far as I know is a holiday she made up completely on her own. I have a feeling we've created a monster.

Latkes (How I Made Them)
Latkes are, as you may already know, nothing more than potato pancakes. This is how I made them, and I thought they were quite tasty. It seems everyone has a different way of making them, and I am sure they are all quite tasty. It's hard to go wrong with potatoes and onions fried in lots of oil, is my thinking.

I based my recipe on Joan Nathan's recipe in The Children's Jewish Holiday Kitchen. Ms. Nathan's variation called for zucchini and carrots in addition to potatoes. I decided to go with just carrots and potatoes. The carrots added an attractive touch of color, and stayed a little crunchier for added texture. But I did something else that was even more unorthodox, and purely my own inspiration: Instead of adding matzo meal or flour, I used pulverized yellow corn tortilla chips. Please don't hate me if you're a purist. Just use matzo meal or flour. But the tortilla chips did taste good. I didn't intend to make my latkes that way. I had intended to use matzo meal. But the first store I went to had no matzo meal, and for some bizarre reason only light sour cream. (Yes, I know, what is this world coming to? I mean, if you're that afraid of the fat just don't eat the sour cream. Don't force the abomination known as "light" sour cream on us, with its modified corn starch, guar gum, carrageenan, locust bean gum, gelatin, etc. Have you no decency?) The second store I went to had normal sour cream, but still no matzo meal. Don't ask me why. It was the first day of Hanukkah, so I thought it'd be easier. I really didn't have the time to visit a third store, so I called it quits on the matzo meal. I'm sure flour would have worked just as well, but you know me. Once I thought of using the tortilla chips, I had to see what would happen.

One more thing: Our friends included baking powder in their latkes. Some recipes call for baking powder, some don't. It makes for a fluffier latke, so feel free to add a couple teaspoons of baking powder if you like fluffiness.

Traditionally, latkes are served with sour cream and applesauce. (I'm not going to tell you to serve them with salsa and black beans. Wink, wink.)

3 medium sized russet potatoes, peeled
3 medium sized carrots, peeled
1 onion
3 eggs, beaten
1/2 to one teaspoon salt
pepper
3/4 cup corn tortilla chips, pulverized in food processor (or same amount of matzo meal, or flour)
oil for frying

Grate potatoes, carrots, and onion together into a large bowl. Gather the grated vegetables into a clean cotton towel and squeeze all excess liquid out, then return the vegetables to the bowl.  Add the eggs, salt, and pepper, and combine. Add the pulverized tortilla chips and combine.

Heat several tablespoons of oil in a skillet, and heat. Form 3-inch wide patties with the potato mixture, and fry a few minutes until deep brown on one side. Flip, and fry the other side until deep brown. Serve immediately, with applesauce and sour cream.