Fear of Frying

How many times have you eaten a soggy, mushy latke? Or one that was burnt on the outside and raw on the inside? Or heated up frozen latkes because the idea of frying was just too much for you? Well, I can assure you that frying is not difficult, need not be messy, and once you’ve mastered it, you will never reach for a bag of Kineret latkes again.

Successful latke frying is not a secret, and will work if you follow these basic rules:

Quantity of Oil: There should be about three-quarters of an inch of oil in your frying pan. Really. Take a ruler and see how deep that is. If you fry at the correct temperature (keep reading), you will find that most of the oil will still be in the pan when you’re done. The oil should be deep enough to cook the entire bottom of the latke.

Temperature: If the oil is not hot enough, the latke batter will soak up lots of oil while frying but if the oil is too hot, the outside of the latkes will start to burn before the inside has had a chance to cook through. So how do you know if it’s hot enough? Test it! Generally, the burner should be on medium high, and you should give the oil sufficient time to heat up (about five minutes). When the surface of the oil starts to shimmer and seems to be sliding around, start testing.

Testing: Start testing by dropping one teaspoon of latke batter in the oil. The oil should bubble up around it, and the latke should seem to be nearly floating in the oil. The bottom should be browned in about four minutes, then flip and cook the other side, which should take three more minutes. If the test latke looks burnt, lower the heat, wait a few minutes for the oil to cool down a bit and test again. If the latke never browns well, turn the heat up a bit, wait a few minutes and test again.

Forming the Latkes: For each latke, stir the latke batter, and using a rounded serving spoon, scoop up some batter, lightly tap the spoon on the side of the bowl to compress the batter, and slide the “formed” latke into the oil. Don’t drop the batter into the oil!

Several latkes can be fried at the same time, but don’t overcrowd the pan; leave at least an inch in between the latkes as they’re frying. Don’t press on, push around, or otherwise disturb the latke until the edges look golden brown. Once the sides look golden brown, gently flip the latke. Using both a spatula and tongs will make it easier. Place the cooked latkes on paper towels to drain for a minute, and then put in a single layer in a 300 degree oven to keep warm (if they’re not eaten immediately). Once one batch is done, give the oil 30 seconds to reheat before starting again, and always start the next batch by stirring the batter.

Deb’s Latkes

2 1/2 pounds russet potatoes

1 small onions (or a larger one, to taste)

1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

3 eggs

1/3 cup matzoh meal or potato starch

Oil

Cheesecloth or thin tea towel

In large bowl, lightly beat eggs. Peel or scrub potatoes and cut into quarters. Trim and peel onions and cut into quarters. With shredding blade of food processor, shred potatoes and onions. Using doubled layer of cheesecloth or tea towel, squeeze excess water out of potatoes/onions a few handfuls at a time. Add 2/3 of shredded potatoes/onions to eggs. Put the remaining 1/3 of the shredded potatoes/onions back into the food processor with the chopping blade and pulse a few times to lightly chop the potatoes. Add to the bowl with the eggs. Stir well. Add the salt, pepper and matzoh meal or potato starch. Allow to sit 15 minutes before frying.

Note: This recipe doubles well, but after frying the first half, start with fresh oil for frying.

Thanksgiving Wrap Up - Part 1

Thanksgiving was just lovely. Notwithstanding having to get up at 7 to start cooking, my time line worked perfectly (discussions about time lines to follow in later posts), and we sat down to a beautiful meal nearly on time - the oven roasted turkey took a bit longer than we thought, but the mini hot dogs kept people happy while waiting.

The grilled turkey was a bit of a challenge to start off. I used a drip pan as suggested, which caught fire from the grease drippings, so I took it out. What I finally found worked was to have indirect heat. The two outside burners were on medium, and the turkey was in the middle. The edges of the wings got a little overdone, but the skin was crisp, deep brown, slightly charred and the meat was moist and delicious. The grilled turkey is in the second and third pictures.

The last picture is of the oven roasted turkey, which came out perfectly!

I bought myself a gift this year - a small countertop oven. It's much bigger than a toaster, but neither so huge that there isn't room, nor so heavy, that I can't store it in the basement if I want, and that made preparation so much easier! With the turkey taking up most of the oven, all of the side dishes either had to be made on the stove, or made ahead and reheated once the turkey comes out of the oven.

Next week I will write about quantities, leftovers and timelines... For now, I'm going downstairs to put up chicken soup for a nice, quiet shabbat dinner - I'm making a simple meal to follow up the Thanksgiving excess - and will save the thanksgiving leftovers for a yummy shabbat lunch.

Shabbat Shalom and happy leftovers to all!

Thanksgiving Menu 2009

Menus are not created in a vacuum. A holiday's menu is prepared by starting with menus with their notes from prior years, as well as all the notes hints, ideas and links I collect throughout the year. And though each holiday has it's required, traditional dishes, I always like to add one or two new dishes to keep it interesting. And just as I am always learning new recipes and techniques in the kitchen, I am also learning more about blogging.... please note that several of the dishes below have links to their recipes.

Enjoy and be thankful!

Portabella Mushroom Soup or Butternut Squash Soup served with

Corn Squash Muffins

Roasted Turkey õ Gravy

Barbequed Turkey

Sweet and Sour Tongue

Roasted Autumn Vegetables Vegetables õ Chestnut Stuffing

Grandma’s Sweet Potatoes õ Mashed Potatoes

Arugula Salad with Pomegranate and Toasted Walnuts

Harvest Bread

Cranberry Sauce õ Pickles and Olives

And they were all happy! Teriyaki Meatball Success

Well readers, the title of this post says it all. Combining a few recipes and my own taste buds produced a batch of meatballs that are going to become a new standard! They're easy, you likely have the ingredients in your kitchen and everyone will love them!

Teriyaki Meatballs

1/3 cups Soy sauce

4 tbsp Sugar

1/3 cups water

1 Small onion, grated

1 tsp Fresh Ginger, grated

2 lbs ground beef

2 cups Breadcrumbs

1 cups Brown sugar, packed

1 1/2 cups water

2 cups ketchup

1/3 cups White Vinegar

1/2 cups Soy sauce

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Combine soy sauce, sugar, water, grated onion, and grated ginger. Allow to sit for 10 minutes. Combine with beef and bread crumbs. Roll into walnut sized meatballs.

Heat 2 tablespoons oil in frying pan. Lightly brown meatballs.

Combine brown sugar, water, ketchup, vinegar and soy sauce. Pour over meatballs and bake about 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

Serve over rice or noodles, or terrific as a first course.

Makes about 60 meatballs.

Shabbat Lunch - Aiming to please everyone

There's an email joke that pops up in my inbox few months..

If, according to the Jewish calendar, the year is 5764, and, according to the Chinese calendar, the year is 5724, what did the Jews eat for forty years?

I'm not sure why, but Jews stereotypically love Chinese food. And stereotypes notwithstanding, the Jews I feed on a regular basis really love Chinese food, whether authentic from a restaurant or my homemade vaguely Asian inspired recipes.

This week I only need to prepare Shabbat lunch at home, though from an earlier post youknow I'm preparing Shabbat dinner for 100 at the shul. Because I will be in the shul kitchen most of the day Friday, and Shabbat is so early, I need to prep all the food for Shabbat tonight - and I'm not in a fancy mood. As I was considering a menu this morning, the wind was howling, the sky was grey and I only wanted to think of foods that we would find comforting. Then I thought of a recipe I saw earlier this week on kosher.com - Teriyaki Meatballs - and from that start, a menu came to life.

By the way, unless I have a lot of company for lunch, I've found it's much more enjoyable to do without a first course. By putting a wide variety of foods on the table, people can help themselves, there's no bouncing up and down after kiddush and motzi, and there's also less to clean up!

Shabbat Lunch

Teriyaki Meatballs

Soy Sauce Chicken

Jasmine Rice

Sauteed Mixed Vegetables

Sesame Eggplant Salad

Edamame with Dipping Sauce

Dessert will NOT be Asian inspired, but simply what the season is screaming "Apple Pie" and, as always, some kind of chocolate cookies.

Shabbat Shalom!

Shabbat Dinner for 100

There's an old saying "If you want something done, ask a busy person" - which seems to be a saying about me. From my standpoint though, it's great that I can keep up with everything, that people know they can rely on me, and that my schedule stays busy. Relaxing is NOT my favorite activity (though with recent help, I'm learning).

To that end, in addition to chairing the high school dinner in January, co-chairing the shul dinner in March, hosting Thanksgiving (as a group effort), and taking one small trip in December and one long trip in January, I agreed to run a Friday night dinner at the shul. And being just a bit compulsive, I decided to help the shul out by preparing the appetizer, dessert and kid's meals to save money. The main course and side dishes are being delivered by Main Event (Thanks HannahLee!). So this is the menu for this Friday Night:

Appetizer:

Family Style on each table: Hummos, Pita, Pickles and Olives

Plated at each seat:

Mesclun Salad with Cranberries and Glazed Nuts with Vidalia Dressing

Served with one toast with Smoked Salmon and one toast with Bruschetta

Main Course:

Served Buffet Style

Fried chicken

Honey Orange Roasted Chicken

Yellow Rice Pilaf

Herb Roasted Potatoes

Melange of Steamed Vegetables

Dessert:

Brownies, Chocolate Chip Bars, Meringues

Kids:

Pasta with Sauce

Chicken Nuggets

French Fries

Steamed Broccoli

I hope all will enjoy - I baked the brownies and chocolate chip bars last night - great for building arm strength - I stirred and octet batch (that's 8!) of brownies, then a quadruple batch of chocolate chips. The meringues I'll bake fresh on Friday morning.

Shabbat Shalom!

Challah - Nearly got it!

With many thanks to my reader Debbie, who commented on one of my challah posts with her Challah recipe, I made challah last week that came out great, and was just as simple as anything I'd tried earlier. I tweaked her recipe just a bit and will tweak the recipe one more time and make it a bit sweeter (my personal preference), but it was just terrific! I shaped the dough into two huge challahs, and a gang of teenagers ate 1 3/4 of them Friday night in addition to Chicken Soup, Roast Beef, etc etc etc

Deb’s Challah

1 kilo bread flour

2 tablespoons dried yeast,

3/4 c. sugar

1 tablespoon salt

3 eggs

2 cups warm water

1/3 cup oil

1/4 cup honey

In mixer bowl, mix dry ingredients. Using dough hook, add eggs, water, oil and honey; blend well till smooth dough forms. Knead in mixer five minutes.

Turn dough into oiled bowl and turn over. Cover with clean dishcloth. Put in a warm spot in the kitchen and let rise four hours. Punch down, and let rise one hour. Punch down, shape into 2 large, 3 medium or 4 small challahs. Let rise one hour.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Brush challahs with egg wash, sprinkle with seeds.

Bake for 25-30 minutes till golden brown.