Three Basic Chanukah Recipes

Is that time of the year when the oil is frying hot, the candles for the 8 nights are ready and the presents for children are wrapped and ready to be given. And so are the usual Chanukah stories told around the burning candles. First time after the birth of the baby, I was finally able to be full time in the kitchen, trying various classical recipes, to whom I gave, as usual, some special tasty flavor.

As for now, I recommend three easy recipes that can be prepared in less than one hour, that will bring you the full (oily) taste of Chanukah. A great company for the Hanukkah lights.

For all recipes, be ready to have some extra reserves of cooking oil - canola and sunflower are both fine - as well as special kitchen paper towels for absorbing the extra oil from the latkes and the sufganiyot. Also, keeping a baby carrot in the frying pan would prevent the burning of rests to get together.

Cheesy potato latkes

Ingredients
4 medium size potatoes - grated
100 gr. Grana Padana grated cheese
2 medium size eggs, beatem
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 cup margarine
2 tablespoon white flour
250 ml. or more cooking oil

Directions

Heat the oil at 250C, at least 10 minutes before starting the frying. Add each of the ingredients, one by one, while mixing slowly until a compact mix is created. Usually, I take out the extra liquid from the potatoes, but this time it was not in excess therefore it get along well with the other ingredients. Made by hand small balls of latkes and drop in the oil. I fried only 3 latkes at a time, for allowing enough space and energy consumption for frying well. Be sure that you turn them from one side to the other every 3 minutes or so. 

To be served together with cold sour cream.

Serves: 19

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Cooking time: 15 minutes

Apple Latkes

This recipe I instantly fell in love with. It is the sweet equivalent of the potato latkes and goes along very well as a dessert to finish the Hanukkah table or as a morning nosh. 

Ingredients

4 red medium size potatoes, grated. I prefered to not peel them, as it gives a special aroma, which is a matter of choice.

2/3 cup white flour

1/4 brown sugar

1 tablespoon vanilla sugar

2 medium size eggs, beaten

250 ml. or more cooking oil

Directions

Heat the oil at 250C at least 10 minutes before starting the frying. Mix well the ingredients, by adding them one by one until a compact paste is created. You can eventually take the liquid from the apples out, otherwise it is too watery. Create small croquettes by hand and put them in the frying oil. Turn from one side to the other as often as necessary for frying properly on both sides. 

Serves: 19

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Cooking time: 30 minutes

Sufganiyot (doughnuts)

For me, this is the hardest part, because it has to do with dough, and my relationship with dough is rather problematic. There may be cases when everything goes perfectly smoothly and me and the dough, we are a match made in heaven, with a perfect communication and outstanding results. But it can be also that although I am doing everything perfectly right, I still fail when it comes to the final results.

In this case, it was first time in a long time since I made some relatively complicated dough, and the results were just fine. Meaning, the dough raised and the sufganiyot fried well. My only problem was that I cut too bigger balls of dough, therefore, I needed to cover them in oil, in order to be sure that everything is deeply fried, in the heart of the sufganiya.

Ingredients
1/4 cup warm water
1 tablespoon dry yeast
1/3 cup oil for the dough, and another 250 ml. or more cooking oil for the frying
3 medium size eggs
1/3 cup white sugar
2 tablespoon vanilla sugar
1/4 tablespoon sea salt
4 cups and more of white flour
You may need some confectionary sugar for decorations

Directions

Add the yeast to the water and wait until bubbling. Add one by one: the eggs, the sugar, the vanilla sugar, the oil, the salt and the flour. Mix all well and knit for a little bit. Leave the dough in the fridge over night, or at least for 3 hours. Knit the dough a couple of time more, to be sure that everything mixes well. With the top of a cup, separate the dough in small balls. 

Heat the oil at least 15 minutes before starting the frying. Add the balls, 2 or 3 at a time. And turn on both sides as often as possible. It might be that the doughnut looks very burned on outside - especially after a couple of batches - but the inside is in fact still raw. You need to add more oil and wait more. After that, this holiday is - when it comes to food - everything about fried oil, isn't it?

Serves: 17

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Cooking time: 30 minutes

All being said - and eaten - I might be back with some interesting Chanukah recipes soon, but at least I've got you the basics covered. 

Wishing all my Jewish readers a meaninful Chag Chanukah Sameah!

Easy latkes recipe

To latkes or not to latkes...this was my question Saturday evening on the first day of Hanukkah - Jewish holidays start in the evening -, when I knew that for the next days all the food stores are closed and thus, most probably I cannot prepare a great deal of food for the next days. Relying on the welcoming invitations from friends is a great solution too, but I am stubborn enough to not accept that my Hanukkah will be latkes-less. Thus, yesterday morning, the cooking fever finally returned into my life and I decided that, among other recipes that I did - more updates in my next posts - I should also prepare for the lunch with baby D. and me some latkes. I made a short tour of my pantry and realized that, in fact, I had enough ingredients for a fresh portion of latkes. Because the baby D. is still quite sensitive to spices, I eliminated garlic or onions from the recipe, and had the following combination of ingredients:

7 small and medium potatoes, peeled and finelly grated
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 pinch of za'atar
2 small eggs beaten - one was enough also
15 gr. baking powder - it make the composition fluffy but it might leave a taste so you can easily forget about it
1 tablespoon margarine for a milky creamy taste and appearance
Mix well everything. Try to pour the extra water out by using a strainer.
Meanwhile, pour generously oil in the pan and wait to get warmer at around 250C. I used peanut oil because I tried to see how the final result comes out in terms of taste but it was not a big deal.

I preferred to fry in batches of three, leaving more space in the pan. The warm is easier distributed when there are not too many items frying. It resulted 9 small latkes, that I left to rest and get the oil out of it on a parchment paper. 

The entire preparation and frying process lasted around 45 minutes and although baby D. wasn't too keen to taste it - and it seems is his problem with latkes in general - I enjoyed my portion and the spirit of the holidays. 

Now, I wonder if I am brave enough to try some sufganiyot too. Why not? Given my passion for home made cook, a final - positive - decision may be only a matter of days, or rather hours.

Latkes ideas, all round the year

Hanukkah ended up almost one month ago, and as for everyone in the house it was quite a complicated time of the year for various reasons, I did not have too much time to browse recipes or to think which menu to prepare. I insisted to have a basic traditional menu that needed to be prepared in less than 5 hours. Under such circumstances, the easiest solution was to try a heimishe recipe and did not be too creative, but the ingredients in the closet were inspiring me somehow to divert my thoughts from the daily problems to the creation of some original recipes.

Some were unexpected successful - the apple latkes were so good that I couldn't have enough of more and more - some were disgusting. Note to self: Never use mushrooms in fried combinations, not only the smell was very unattractive 24 hours after the preparation, but also the taste was very close to that of the liver, which is enough for me to never ever try such cooking creations ever again. Only thinking about it right now, I feel again the disgusting taste in my mouth. 

Anyway, we live to learn and my failure wasn't completely for nothing.

I listed right now the successful recipes:

Carrot and potatoes latkes

15 portions

preparation time: 1 hour

6 big potatoes - grated; don't forget to drain the water out of it

2 big carrots - grated

5 tablespoon flour

garlic finely chopped, on taste

1/4 tablespoon Cayenne pepper

2 beaten eggs

Sweet apple latkes

17-18 big portions

preparation time: 1 hour

7 South Tirol apples - grated; don't forget to drain the water out of it

3 beaten eggs

6 tablespoon flour

2 tablespoon sugar

1/4 tablespoon cinnamon

1 saffron backing powder

In both cases, keep some extra oil for the frying. 

I am not a big fan of mixing up recipes out season - I never want to hamentashen when it's not Purim etc. - but probably the next year I will do a bit of rehearsal a couple of weeks before Hanukkah to be sure that I will do the right thing. This goes especially for sufganiyot that are a long - not always successful story. 

For those who are tempted to try latkes soon

Bon Appétit!