*Potato Latkes with Fig Chutney

This is a Starch Week Throwdown!!

After barely surviving the first week in the kitchen at school (also known as Carbohydrate Hell to those with figures to watch), the last thing I wanted to do was look at more starch… But I forgot the rest of the story! The story of Hanukkah!

This little story in the Mythology section of the Jewish library is a time-honored one. Every year, we gather around the Plaster Of Paris-filled coffee can full of decorated dead branches called a Hanukkah Bush and we are retold the story of long ago…

In the dark days, before LED merry Midget lights on a string, our parents had to use lamps filled with oil to find their way to the outhouse. Times were so bad that they had to walk to the outhouse barefoot, in the snow, uphill BOTH WAYS with only a hot, baked potato in each pocket to keep their hands warm.

One of the elders would prepare latkes, taking more potatoes and shredding them by hand, a finger or two going missing over the years in the process. The cooking oil supply dwindled and one of the smart children (destined to be a doctor, naturally) suggested using  one of the 55 gallon drums of lamp oil to fry the holiday latkes when the larder went bare. The oil was miraculous, lasting for one whole fifty pound bag of spuds- Eight nights of frying! That child today, the smart one, is now a retired plastic surgeon who specialized in reattaching fingers and applying skin grafts to knuckles at a prominent Jewish hospital on the west coast.

Fans, I bring you Latkes and my own Fig Chutney!

You’ll want to make this chutney ahead of time, so start two days beforehand.

24 dried Mission figs, stemmed and diced small

8 ounces ruby port

2 tablespoons sherry or red wine vinegar

1 large sweet onion, diced small

3 tablespoons clarified butter or canola oil

1 quart (approximately) of hot vegetable stock

1/4- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt to taste

1/8 teaspoon New Mexico chili powder (half hot, not as hot as Cayenne)

1 tablespoon brown sugar to taste

1-2 tablespoons lemon juice to taste

In a sachet, place the following:

10 peppercorns, cracked open but not made into powder

2 whole cloves

a strip of lemon zest, about 1/4″ X 2″

Get it done

Two days before you want to serve this, place the figs in a small nonreactive (stainless steel or nonstick) saucepan.  Add sachet, port wine and vinegar. Slowly let this cook down with only occasional stirring using a gentle hand- you want the figs to keep their shape. Let it reduce down until the liquid is a medium to heavy weight syrup. It should be able to re-coat the figs when they sit for a while, but not pool deeply.

While this is cooking, heat the stock in a saucepan on another small burner. In a stainless steel saute pan (yes, you need stainless, because you need the sticking action for this), heat the oil and saute the onions until they start to leave a light brown fond on the bottom and edges of the side of the pan. Make sure your heat is up enough- don’t be afraid of a little steam action, its good for your complexion.

Once you get some nice dark toasty color on the pan, ladle about one third of a normal soup ladle of hot stock in the pan, paying attention to drizzle over the brown stuff. Quickly, with a heatproof spatula, start to swirl the stock over the fond in a circular pattern with the spatula, releasing the fond. Work around the pan quickly, releasing all the fond you can find. Don’t add too much liquid at one time, and let it all evaporate over and over again until you are at Sexy stage with the onions, or you are out of stock and you are left with gorgeous carmelized stuff.

Okay, I usually let my figs and onions co-mingle  overnight in the same glass bowl. The next day, toss the sachet, reheat the good stuff gently and bring it to a simmer. Once it reaches a very low rumble, add the  sugar, chili powder and lemon juice. Salt  it to taste and don’t be a weenie with the salt, either. Its going to increase the volume of your chutney. It should balance the sweet of all the other ingredients. Let this simmer for about 10 minutes. Get it back into a glass bowl and let it get its freak on in the fridge overnight again.

The day of serving, gently heat it up again to a simmer and then get ready to dish it up!

Makin’ Latkes, baby!

Call the tissue bank ahead and reserve your knuckle grafts.

Heat up a cast iron skillet or two in a 350 degree oven, with no oil in them, while you get to work.

Put on some totally rude holiday music- like Brian’s favorite- South Park Dreidel Song.

2 pounds of Russet potatoes, washed and peeled

3 eggs, beaten

2 ounces of onion puree*

2 ounces all purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

Freshly ground white pepper

1 teaspoon kosher salt

Canola oil, about an inch deep in the pan, with more on the side

Get it done

Grate potatoes into a bowl of water, keeping them submerged to prevent discoloring. Put a large colander in the sink.  In another large bowl, sift the flour, baking powder and seasonings together. Pull  your skillet out of the oven and set it over medium heat.  Fill it with about an inch of oil.  Beat the eggs with the onion puree and then add it to the flour mixture.

Drain the potatoes in the colander and don’t worry about the starch at the bottom, let it go down the drain. Quickly add the drained potatoes to the egg mixture and fold until well incorporated. After you test the oil temperature with a sliver of spud, start slinging the hash! Use an ice cream scoop and then flatten the pancakes evenly, above oil level**  but even thickness. Let them cook until they are golden brown, not “boint” as my grampa used to say.

Turn them carefully and then once cooked, drain them on paper towel lined cookie racks.  Serve them with fig chutney and a dash of plain whipped cream.

Accompaniments:

Everyone knows applesauce and sour cream are traditional pairings for spud latkes. In my neck of the woods, there is so much damned good produce, its hard not to have a different pairing for every bite of the batch. Some of my favorites have been other food combinations,  too. Have a look…

Smoked salmon and whipped cream cheese

Pear Chardonnay sauce and toasted pecans

Anything with hot chiles in it

Sweet red pepper and smoked paprika coulis with creme fraiche

Glazed sauteed apples and diced bacon

Any of Raymondo’s chutneys- he is an animal, I tell ya!

*For onion puree- use a Microplane or your grater, but watch your skin, Baby! The puree will get you a better, more even dispersal of flavor with all the natural oils from the allium that you need to round out that latke flavor.

** Oil level is optimally one third to one half the way up the side of the item you are pan frying.