Chanukah isn’t over yet! There is still time to post some of the Chanukah goodies I made.
It was the first night of Chanukah. I felt obliged to do something in the spirit of the holiday. The big kid isn’t a huge potato fan though. I didn’t want to smell up the house with hot oil and then have to figure out more dinner for the rest of the family. I thought back to the time when the big kid was just a weed toddler and loved the cottage cheese latkes I made. I think I made them just that one time, about 8 years ago. The bonus is that they seem like more of a complete dinner than the regular potato latke.
Lo and behold, both kids loved them!
Cottage Cheese Latkes
Ingredients
1 lb. small curd cottage cheese (medium container)
2 extra large eggs
1/4 cup flour (gluten free flour works too)
salt and pepper
garlic powder
vegetable oil
Mix everything up in a bowl. Yes, it’s that easy.
Take out a fry pan and heat up some vegetable oil.
Take a big spoon of the batter and drop in to the pan. I like them to be around 2-3 inches wide. Don’t mess with the latke until you are sure it is ready to flip. The cheese latke should be a little brown on the edges before you flip it. It will also flip easier when it’s done on that side. The melty cheese will stick to the pan before it’s ready. Cook another 2-3 minutes once flipped. Drain on a plate covered with paper towels.
Enjoy!
Cottage Cheese Latkes
December 28, 2011 · by ·
Vegetarian Spring Rolls
January 15, 2009 · by ·
Sunday night’s dinner was pad thai. What better to go with than a spring roll.
I have never made spring rolls before. I made egg rolls once a few years ago, but egg roll wrappers are easier to work with. I have had the spring roll wrappers sitting in my house for a while, just waited to be played with. I don’t like frying things and I was a bit fearful. I charged ahead.
While it wasn’t too complicated to prepare and they were tasty, I do need to make some tweaks next time. I need to use larger wrappers or less filling, and I need to fry in more oil than I used.
Vegetarian Spring Rolls – (10 spring rolls)
Ingredients:
Spring Roll Wrappers – rice papers
Bean Thread Noodles or Rice Noodles (Vermicelli) – 1 small “bun”
1 cup of shredded cabbage
1/2 cup of shredded carrots
1/2 cup of shredded carrots
2 scallions, chopped
5 cloves of garlic, chopped
2 tablespoons chopped ginger
2 tablespoons of bamboo shoots, chopped
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons chopped ginger
2 tablespoons of bamboo shoots, chopped
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon fish sauce (optional)
Vegetable Oil
Vegetable Oil
Begin by soaking your noodles in boiling water for 10 minutes. Drain.
In a tablespoon of oil, sautee the garlic and ginger. Add in the carrots and cabbage. Saute until soft. Add in the bean sprouts, bamboo shoots and scallions. Saute a few more minutes. Season with the soy sauce, sesame oil, and fish sauce.
Soak your rice papers in a shallow bowl of warm water.
Lay out the softened rice paper.
Put 1 tablespoon of the noodles and one tablespoon of the veggie mixture on the rice paper. Place the mixture on the edge closer to you. Wrap the edge in. Fold in the sides, then finish rolling up.
Fry in oil. Drain on paper towels.
Just a reminder that my spring rolls didn’t look so perfect this time. They were damn good though.
Eat. Yum
Sufganiyot
December 22, 2008 · by ·
I don’t usually deep fry anything, so the idea of homemade sufganiyot (jelly doughnuts) is a bit daunting to me. Last year I attempted to make zeppolis on chanukah by using the premade Trader Joes pizza dough. It didn’t quite come out right.
Tonight I used the recipe from Claudia Roden’s The Book of Jewish Food. If you ever wanted to buy a Jewish cookbook, this is the cookbook you must buy. More useful than the well-thumbed “purple cookbook,” Spice and Spirit , tastier and better stories than any of Joan Nathan’s treasures.
Here is her recipe
Soufganioth by Claudia Roden, The Book of Jewish Food: An Odyssey from Samarkand to New York
Ingredients:
1 tsp. dried yeast
1/4 c. lukewarm milk or water
1/4 c. lukewarm milk or water
2 tbsp. sugar
1 whole egg
1 whole egg
1 egg yolk
3 tbsp. sour cream or oil
A pinch of salt
2 or 3 drops vailla extract
1 2/3 c. flour, plus more if necessary
Oil for deep-frying – **cringe**
Apricot, red-currant, or raspberry jam
A pinch of salt
2 or 3 drops vailla extract
1 2/3 c. flour, plus more if necessary
Oil for deep-frying – **cringe**
Apricot, red-currant, or raspberry jam
Confectioner’s sugar for sprinkling
Dissolve the yeast in warm water or milk with 1 tsp of sugar and leave for 10 minutes or until it froths.
Beat the rest of the sugar with the egg and the yolk. Add the sour crem or oil, the salt, vanilla, and the yeast mixture, and beat very well. Fold in the flour gradually, and continue beating until you have a soft, smooth, and elastic dough, adding more flour if necessary. Then knead for 5 minutes, sprinkling with a flour if it is too sticky. Coat the dough with oil by pouring a drop in the bowl and turning the dough in it.
Cover the bowl with and leave in a warm place to rise for about 2 hours, or until doubled in bulk.
Knead the dough again for a few minutes, then roll out on a floured surface with a floured rolling pin to 1/4 inch thickness. Cut 2 inch rounds….Put a teaspoon of jam in the center of the dough round. Brush the rim with a little water to make it sticky and cover with another round. Press the edges together to seal. Continue with the rest of the rounds and arrange them on a floured tray. Leave them to rise for about 30 minutes.
Heat 1-1/2 inches of oil in a saucepan to medium hot. Drop in the doughnuts, a few at a time. Fry in the oil for 3-4 minutes with the lid, until brown, then turn and fry the other side 1 minute more. Drain on paper towels. Sprinkle with the confectioners’ sugar.
Eat them while they are still warm.
The variation on this, is to fry a thicker round of plain dough – about a 1/2 inch thick – when it is cool enough to handle, cut a small slit and inject the jam into the doughnut.
I tried both methods. I preferred the jam-injected donut to the 2-piece donut. I do need to play around with dough thickness and cooking time. All in all, it was an easy recipe and a good start…
Sufganiyot
Author: Hindy Garfinkel
Ingredients
- 1 tsp. dried yeast
- ¼ c. lukewarm milk or water
- 2 tbsp. sugar
- 1 whole egg
- 1 egg yolk
- 3 tbsp. sour cream or oil
- A pinch of salt
- 2 or 3 drops vailla extract
- 1⅔ c. flour, plus more if necessary
- Oil for deep-frying
- Apricot, red-currant, raspberry jam or other favorite filling
- Confectioner's sugar for sprinkling
Instructions
- Dissolve the yeast in warm water or milk with 1 tsp of sugar and leave for 10 minutes or until it froths.
- Beat the rest of the sugar with the egg and the yolk. Add the sour cream or oil, the salt, vanilla, and the yeast mixture, and beat very well. Fold in the flour gradually, and continue beating until you have a soft, smooth, and elastic dough, adding more flour if necessary. Then knead for 5 minutes, sprinkling with a flour if it is too sticky. Coat the dough with oil by pouring a drop in the bowl and turning the dough in it.
- Cover the bowl with a towel and leave in a warm place to rise for about 2 hours, or until doubled in bulk.
- Knead the dough again for a few minutes, then roll out on a floured surface with a floured rolling pin to ¼ inch thickness.
- Cut in to 2 inch rounds
- Put a teaspoon of jam in the center of the dough round. Brush the rim with a little water to make it sticky and cover with another round.
- Press the edges together to seal.
- Continue with the rest of the rounds and arrange them on a floured tray. L
- eave them to rise for about 30 minutes.
- Another option is to inject the jam in to the fried donute. Fry a thicker round of plain dough - about a ½ inch thick - when it is cool enough to handle, cut a small slit and inject with a pastry bag.
- I like the injecting method.
Basic Latkes
December 22, 2008 · by ·
Happy Chanukah/Hanukkah! Make it a happy one, whichever way you choose to spell it.
During the holiday, we usually make latkes twice. Each year we do the basic recipe, and then later in the week, we try and come up with a unique “gourmet” version. Stay tuned for the gourmet flavor.
Tonight, we made and enjoyed our basic, easy latke recipe. I will not say it’s a “no-fail” latke, because anyone can mess up, but it’s pretty good. Even my picky 7-year-old partook in the latke joy tonight.
LatkesIngredients:
4 largeish yukon gold potatoes
1 onion
1/4 cup of flour
1 onion
1/4 cup of flour
2-3 eggs
salt and pepper
salt and pepper
vegetable oil
Peel and quarter your onion and potatoes.
In a food processor, grate the onions and potatoes together, using the grating blade. If you are deficient in nice kitchen appliances, use a hand grater.
Pour the grated goodness into a tea towel. Squeeze out the starchy water from the mixture into a sink. This keeps the latkes from getting a starchy brown color. This brown is a greyer color than the fried brown color. If your latke mixture is too starchy and moist, it can fall apart and have a pastey consistency.
Dump the squeezed out potatoes and onions into a mixing bowl. Mix in the eggs, flour, salt, and pepper.
Heat up a fry pan with around an inch of vegetable oil.
Plop the potato mixture using a tablespoon in to the fry pan. Flip over when you see the edges begin to brown.
Drain on a cookie sheet covered in paper towels.
Serve the latkes hot with sour cream and/or applesauce. We prefer sour cream in our house. Never use ketchup or mayonaisse on your latkes.
If you plan to serve them at a later time, reheat on a cookie sheet at 200 degrees.
