Taste Memories

An Ode to Latkes

 

I feel so cheated. I'm (half) Jewish, and yet somehow have totally missed out on the bliss that is latkes until now. How is this even possible? How could the universe be so cruel and withholding as to deprive poor unwitting me of my culinary birthright? Well, universe, I'm pleased to announce that the worm has turned.

 

This small but important revelation occurred last Friday night, when Daniel eyed the contents of our pantry and shyly requested that I make us a certain something from his past. He's not one to ask for such favors too often, and his culinary needs are touchingly modest. He's the sort to patiently attack the mounting pile of dirty dishes while I whip up some ridiculously indulgent and complicated dinner that won't be ready until bedtime, when he'd be just as happy with pasta and broccoli. (At most, he occasionally suggests politely that using a fresh spoon for tasting the sauce each time might be a slight oversight on my part). So, when he asked me to make latkes, I was happy to oblige. And he got that same misty-eyed look when he talked about latkes that he gets when he talks about brisket or bagels. I think of it as the 'next year in Poland' look.

 

And now I believe I understand it. There is something distinctive about the pleasure of making and relishing food that one's ancestors have been gnoshing on for generations. And you know what? I think there must be a latke gene. Because even though we set out without the aid of a reliable recipe, we muddled along just fine, between what Daniel could remember and I could surmise. I have to say that, untraditional as it may be, I think the addition of a little grated apple to the batter was an inspired touch. All in all, this was the most delicious supper we've had in ages.

 

 

Potato-Apple Latkes

 

Ingredients:

 

For the batter:

2 ½ lb potatoes, peeled and coarsely grated (by hand) – we used Yukon gold, which I hear are excellent for latkes

2 granny smith apples, peeled and coarsely grated (again, by hand is probably best)

1 small onion, peeled and finely chopped

2 eggs

½ cup applesauce

½ cup flour

1 tbsp salt

 

Butter and oil, for frying

Sour cream and extra applesauce, for serving

 

Method:

 

Dry out the potato and apple as thoroughly as possible by wringing it in a tea towel.

 

Combine all the batter ingredients in a large bowl.

 

Place a large skillet over medium-high heat, and add a goodly amount of oil and butter to the pan (enough for a thinnish but even coating).

 

Fry dollops of the latke batter in batches until they are golden, delicious, and cooked through. Drain on paper towels and gobble with dollops of sour cream and extra applesauce.

 

Makes about 10 big ones.

Smoked

I am a sucker for all things smoked. Over just the past few months, I've devoured smoked salmon (cold-smoked and hot-smoked), smoked trout, smoked scallops, smoked oysters, smoked chicken, smoked duck, smoked turkey, and smoked chiles (chipotles). My goodness! It's a wonder my gullet isn't ashen by now. But my favorite of all these delicious comestibles is smoked mackerel. Its dank, buttery flesh deserves widspread recognition, but I've never seen it on a menu anywhere. A strange state of affairs, methinks: deplorable, even. Thus, I offer you this homely but delicious smoked mackerel salad. Wrapped up in sprightly young butter lettuce leaves, it makes a perfect light lunch or snack.

Smoked Mackerel Salad

Ingredients:

6oz smoked mackerel, de-skinned and flaked
2 tbsp mayonnaise
1 tsp dijon mustard
1 tsp chardonnay vinegar
1 tbsp capers
1 rib celery, finely chopped
1 scallion, finely chopped
1 tbsp dill, snipped

Butter lettuce leaves, for serving

Method:

Mix all the salad ingredients together, and then deposit small clumps of the resulting mixture on the lettuce leaves.

Serves 2 as a light lunch.

P.S. This salad also makes a tasty sandwich filling, preferably on dark rye.

Public Service Announcement

Oh dear. Dear oh dear. Dear dear dear. I could go on.

What a disappointing week in cooking it has been! The silence around these parts for the last week is due to the string of (barely) so-so meals that I've been cobbling together. I have lost my cooking mojo, it seems. Picture me hunched in a corner of my kitchen, flagellating myself with a cast iron skillet. I've been so bad.

Last Friday night, for example, I set about making a waldorf slaw to accompany hangar steak. Now doesn't that sound promising? But then I forgot the grated granny smith apples and the walnuts, and the result was bland and soggy and completely forgettable. Also, I soaked my raisins for hours, but they didn't plump up enough, causing me to pout.

No harm, no foul, I thought: until Saturday night, whereupon I failed to get my roast carrot and orange soup right for the second time running (the first time I made it, it was too orangey; this time, it was too insipid). The idea is too delicious to let go of; but the right formula continues to elude me. Next time, I'm roasting the carrots with harissa, and then adding the orange juice when I blend the soup (be warned: do not roast carrots with orange juice and no oil unless you want to spend your Sunday afternoon scrubbing a baking pan. All right, so I may have delegated the task to Daniel. Nonetheless, I feel a change of strategy is in order, if only for the sake of marital harmony).

Finally, I made some sesame-peanut-ginger-cucumber soba noodles on Sunday afternoon. Again, doesn't that sound fabulous? But somehow it managed not to be. The noodles were chewy and chalky, and the sauce was unsubtle and kinda dry (notwithstanding the generous splash of sesame oil in it, I might add). I might try again with better quality soy sauce; then again, perhaps not. Why did I think I would even like sesame-peanut noodles? I am no longer sure. Oh, and I tried putting some pan-seared tempeh in it, which was about as appetizing as wet woodchips. 

Ah well. After such a string of failures, there was nothing for it on Monday but to make the most comforting dish on earth - vegemite toast with a poached egg. I include the above photo as an illustration of how to do vegemite. Please note the generous buttering of the toast in comparison to the tiny uneven smear of the glorious thick yeasty stuff that is Australian ambrosia. For you Americans who think you don't like vegemite, you've been laying it on too thick. Try it again in the illustrated manner, and I dare you not to swoon. 

War: what is it good for?

I declared a war on cereal last month. This month I’m whistling a slightly different tune. Does that make me a hypocrite, or – still worse – a whistling hypocrite? Say what you will, but I prefer to think of myself as flexible, adaptable, pliable even. (I hear Daniel hooting with laughter in the background. Admittedly, I get into a snit when our three remote controls are not positioned just so on the coffee table, but whatever. I shall continue to (a) contradict myself, (b) eat multitudes of granola, and (c) misappropriate Walt Whitman. Still more, I shall do so blithely.)

To return to the (now rather distant) point, I made granola last weekend. It all started when a friend of mine who just moved from Australia to the States asked me why American muesli is so damn sweet (and why the coffee is so bad, but that’s another story). Actually, I’ve found these to be the two complaints most frequently made by Australian expats about this fine land. Anyway, after pointing my friend in the direction of Orangette's three tempting recipes for homemade granola, I began to salivate. I decided, notwithstanding my better judgment, to give granola a go. However, I had to tweak the recipes quite a bit to come up with something that suited my exacting specifications.

 

For one thing, I have an (admittedly rather hippy-dippy) aversion to sugar, so I wanted to see how powdered fructose and agave syrup (which are low-glycemic and all-natural, la la la) would fare in place of sugar and honey (brilliantly, as it turns out). (Let's resist making the inevitable joke about 'being granola,' shall we? Good show.) For another thing, I wanted more nuts than oats in the granola, so as to ensure that the finished product had plenty of protein. Finally, I am strongly against the indiscriminate use of cinnamon (another real problem in American cuisine, I find). So I decided to flavor the granola with ginger and orange, which I declare a delicious combination.

This granola is fragrant, subtle, and almost unreasonably good. The war may not be over yet, but if there was ever grounds for a détente, this is it.

Ginger-Orange Granola (inspired by Orangette's three aforementioned recipes)

 

Ingredients:

Dry ingredients:

3 cups old-fashioned oats

5 cups unsalted nuts (I used an equal amount of whole raw almonds, flaked blanched almonds, whole pecans, and walnut pieces)

1 cup seeds (I used flax)

½ cup fructose (you could also use ¾ cup sugar)

1 tbsp ground ginger

¼ cup ginger nibs (finely chopped crystallized ginger would also work, I’m sure)

a large pinch of salt

zest of 1 orange

Wet ingredients:

1 tbsp orange flower water (optional; you could also replace this with a few drops of orange extract or vanilla extract, if desired)

¾ cup unsweetened apple sauce

½ cup agave nectar (you could also use the same amount of honey)

2 tbsp flavorless oil (I used safflower)

Post-baking additions:

1 ½ cups chopped dried fruit (I used cherries, cranberries, prunes, apples, and apricots)

1 ½ cups unsweetened flaked coconut

Method:

Preheat the oven to 300˚F.

Mix the dry ingredients together in a large bowl, and then combine the wet ingredients in a small one. Now add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, and mix thoroughly (I used my hands for this, which I’ve read helps in creating nubbly little granola clumps).

Spread the granola mixture over two large baking sheets or pans. Now bake for about 30 minutes, checking and stirring every 10 minutes or so (Nuts burn very quickly, so keep a careful eye on it, especially if you suspect your oven runs hot). You want the granola to be crunchy but not too dark.

Cool the granola thoroughly, and then add the dried fruit and coconut.

This makes a huge amount, about 12 cups. But my research indicates that you can keep homemade granola in an airtight container in the fridge for about a week, and in the freezer for a few months.

 

I like to serve the granola with a dollop of fage yoghurt (preferably whole milk, although the fat-free version works fine too), a tiny extra drizzle of agave syrup, and a side of fresh fruit.

Labne Balls, Three Ways

 

I had my first taste of labne back in college, at my friend Y’s house. Y and I had bonded over being the only Jewish girls at Melbourne University (OK, not really, but there isn’t a big Jewish population in Australia, at least not compared to the States. People used to assume we were sisters, even though we looked nothing alike. This amused us no end).

 

Anyway, Y was Israeli, whereas I am (half) Ashkenazi, descended from German and Polish stock on my Father’s side. So, although I wasn’t raised Jewish (or anything else for that matter), I’d noshed on gefilte fish and suchlike from time to time. But I’d never had the chance to taste Israeli food before that one fateful afternoon at Y’s house in the dreary Melbourne suburbs. I remember her casually laying out some homemade labne with crackers for an afternoon snack. I was floored by its deliciousness. Indeed, the taste stuck with me long after my friendship with Y had dissolved (over some silly boy, predictably enough).

 

How can I describe labne? Subtle but intense; unctuous but tangy; and with a texture like silly putty, which is much more appealing than it sounds. It’s also ridiculously easy to make.

 

So, you might ask, why haven’t I made it during the last seven years? The problem is that, in order to make it, you need cheesecloth. Cheesecloth, people, cheesecloth. And – for reasons I shall shortly explain – cheesecloth is just not something I feel comfortable buying at the grocery store.

 

A revelation came to me though, one afternoon, when I was browsing the internet, searching for orange blossom water. I could buy cheesecloth online! A few clicks later, the deed was done. When a nondescript package arrived for me at the house a week or so later, Daniel was curious, and suggested I open it. I did so sheepishly. When out came the cheesecloth, he raised a puzzled eyebrow. ‘We buy our cheesecloth online now?’ he inquired. I shrugged, blushed a delightful shade of fuchsia, and mumbled that it wasn’t available anywhere local.

 

I lied. You see, I just can’t bring myself to walk into Wholefoods, slip a packet of cheesecloth into my cart, and casually add it to my purchases on the conveyor belt. I mean, what if someone saw? For, although I freely admit that I’m pretty domesticated, buying cheesecloth is surely one (potentially ruinous) step too far in the Martha Stewart direction. Buying cheesecloth seems of a piece, to me, with ironing sheets, strategically positioning throw cushions, tucking lavender sachets into impeccably organized sock drawers, and other frightening acts of middle class domiciliary perfectionism. Indeed, just having cheesecloth in the house feels close to a betrayal of my feminist principles, and sort of makes me want to shriek.

 

So, if I were ever to buy cheesecloth in person, I would want it to be stashed behind the counter, so that I could point to it discretely and wordlessly. I would want the cashier to wrap it in a brown paper parcel so I could stow it surreptitiously under my raincoat as I stole into the street, eyes cast firmly downward. Perhaps under those circumstances, I could bring myself to buy cheesecloth at a store.

 

In the meantime, thank goodness for amazon. 

 

Labne Balls, Three Ways

 

Ingredients:

 

200g Greek yoghurt (I used Fage 0% fat, which was fine)

½ tsp salt

A handful of mint, minced

3-5 sprigs thyme, minced

1 tbsp grains of paradise (or cracked black pepper, if you don’t have it)

Zest from 1 lemon

Special equipment: cheesecloth

 

Method:

 

Line a strainer with the dreaded cheesecloth, and set it over a large bowl.

 

Mix the yoghurt and salt together, and put it in the strainer. Cover it loosely in plastic wrap, and leave it to strain in the fridge for about 2 days. By this time, the yoghurt mixture will be very thick.

 

Mix together the mint and thyme; pound the grains of paradise in a mortar and pestle until they are coarsely ground.

 

Now, take about a teaspoon of the yoghurt mixture at a time, and roll it into about 12 balls. Roll four balls in the lemon zest, four balls in the mint and thyme mixture, and four balls in the grains of paradise.

 

Enjoy on whole wheat crackers or with pita bread, for an elegant appetizer or snack. (So elegant, in fact, that I reckon Martha herself would approve.)

Weekend Eats, in Pictures

Heirloom tomatoes, basil, and squash blossoms from Union Square Farmer's Market.

Heirloom tomato closeup: green zebras, stripy Russians, Italian Genovese, and cherry tomatoes.

Assorted (but unpictured) treats: battered squash blossoms stuffed with ricotta and agave nectar; peaches with Greek yoghurt, honey, and pistachio dust; corn picked that very morning; beef bourguignon and mash; edamame succotash (recipe below).

What a weekend.

Edamame Succotash

Ingredients:

 

½ cup shucked edamame, cooked and cooled

½ avocado, sliced

1 corn cob’s worth of corn kernels (I like to take mine off a leftover grilled cob so as to add a smoky punch to the salad; but boiled would be fine too)

A handful of cherry tomatoes, halved

A handful of cilantro

A handful of mint

For the dressing:

Juice of 2 limes

1 tbsp good extra virgin olive oil

2 scallions, minced

A pinch of good salt

Method:

 

Combine the salad ingredients attractively in a bowl; whisk up the dressing and pour it over them, making sure to get plenty on the avocado (the lime juice will stop it from browning). Toss gently to combine.

 

P.S. As the ingredient list suggests, this salad is basically a deconstructed guacamole. Thus, if I have any leftovers, I often blitz them in a blender and enjoy the results as a dip.