Chanuka, it's Chanukah, the Potato Pancake Season!

O.K., so in my head, I sang the title of this post to the tune of Oh Christmas Tree.  Try it, it works!

Unlike last year, we didn't attempt to make latkes every night of Chanukah; however, we have made them three nights out of four.

We made traditional latkes for the first night.  We don't have any pictures of them, but here's the recipe we used if you'd like to make them:

Ingredients

·         4 medium Potatoes, peeled

·         1/2 lrg Sweet Onion, diced into 1/4″ pieces

·         3 cloves Garlic, crushed or finely minced

·         3/4 T Sea Salt

·         fresh cracked Black Pepper, to taste

·         2 large Eggs, beaten

·         2 teaspoons potato starch

·         1/4 c + Oil for frying

Directions

1. Line a bowl with several paper towels, then grate potatoes into bowl. We used the fine side of a box shredder, but you can use the larger side if you'd like.  Your potato pancakes will just be more like hashbrowns instead of pancakes.  Using more paper towels, squeeze out as much water from the potatoes as you can. After potatoes are as dry as you can get them, discard paper towels.

2.  Add the onion, garlic, flour, salt, pepper, and eggs then stir to combine.

3.  Heat a saute pan over medium to med.-high heat, add oil, then when oil is hot place large spoonfuls of potato mix into the pan. Flatten each pancake to approx. 1/2″thick.  Cook to a golden brown on one side (approx. 2-3 min.) then brown the other side. Remove and place on a warming rack over a cookie sheet to allow excess oil to drain off and keep them crisp.  Keep warm in a 300° oven.

4.  As you cook each batch, stir the potato mix before spooning into pan and add more oil to pan if needed. Serve warm topped with sour cream and/or applesauce.

On the second night we made sweet potato latkes to go with our Thanksgiving meal.  You can find the recipe for them on the takepart website.  You can see it tucked away in the corner of Sam's plate.

We didn't eat any latkes on the third night.  Instead we ate burgers and went to see a show called Boeing Boeing at our local theater.

On the fourth night of Chanukah we decided to make latkes with a Mexcian flare since we were using some leftover lentils to make tacos for dinner.  See below for all of the recipes for the various components.

For the lentil taco filling, here are the ingredients and directions:

1 cup cooked black lentils

1 can low salt black beans

1/3 cup grilled onions

1 tsp. cumin

1 tsp. smoked paprika

1 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. black pepper

1 clove garlic

olive oil. 

1. Put the lentils, onions, cumin, paprika, pepper, and salt in a food processor and run until you have a chunky paste. 
2. Put 1 1/2 tablespoons of olive oil in a frying pan and add the garlic. Cook on medium until garlic is crunchy and golden brown. 
3. Add the can of black beans, including the liquid from the can. 
4. Add the blended lentils mixture and stir until most of the lentils are incorporated. 
5. Use a potato masher to mash the black beans and finish mixing in the lentil mixture. You should end up with a fairly thick, chunky filling. 
6. If it's too runny, simply cook until enough liquid has been cooked off.

Warm your tortillas, place a generous portion of lentil taco filling in the center, and then top with your favorite cheese (we used cheddar), lettuce, diced tomatoes, salsa, or whatever else you'd normally put on your taco.

I got inspiration for the Mexican style latkes from the blog What Jew Wanna Eat.  Check it out for some yummy food.  

I used my basic potato latke recipe from above, added 1/2 cup of corn and 1 1/2 teaspoons of ground chipotle chile.  Fry them up in the usual latke frying manner.

Finally, the recipe for the avocado crema came directly from the What Jew Wanna Eat website.  Go here for the recipe.  We used the crema to top of our latkes.

These were yummy!  We rewarmed the leftovers for breakfast the next day and put them on our egg sandwich.  They added a nice crunchy layer to the sandwich.