Latke Party!

Latkes with apple sauce and creme fraiche

Hey hey! Happy Hanukkah everyone! I must admit this year it totally snuck up on me - it's already the third day of Hanukkah! Normally I'm totally on top of the major Jewish holidays, remembering to SMS my Jewish friends Chag Sameach during Passover or L'Shanah Tovah on Rosh Hashanah. But this year, I only realised it was Hanukkah yesterday when I saw loads of tweets saying "Happy Thanksgivukkah" and posts on Facebook about latkes. Whoops! It reminded me that I had these photos of latkes sitting in my drafts folder, and what better time to share them?

As you may already know, Hanukkah is the Jewish Festival of Lights, which, just quietly, I first learnt about from watching The Nanny as a kid, haha! (Don't judge me!) From a purely culinary perspective, it is celebrated by eating fried food like latkes, fritters and sufganiyot (donuts). My hero, Nigella Lawson, describes the festival as a "divine ordinance to eat fried food" - one of the many reasons I think she is The Best.

Today at work, a coworker of mine brought in sufganiyot to share - there were salted caramel, chocolate and jam ones. I went traditional and chose a jam one. Super yum!

Sufganiyot

But back to the topic at hand - latkes! Last year during Hanukkah, my friend Jess invited us over for a little latke party! We sat around, gossipping and grating potatoes...

Grating potatoes

... squeezing out the excess water, and mixing the little potato shards with flour, egg and some salt.

Latke mixture

We then fried tablespoons of the mixture in hot oil until cooked through and crispy.

Latkes frying

These were so good! This is Jess' mum's "recipe", but really she just makes it by eye, adding enough flour and egg until it looks right. I like them better than Nigella's latkes (from How to Eat) which have onion in them and I find a little strongly flavoured. I much prefer these plain ones - just potato, bound with egg and flour. We had them with creme fraiche and apple sauce, but I think they'd be good with cream cheese and smoked salmon too!

Latkes

We decided to make dessert latkes too - one type of latke is a meal, two types of latke is a party - using this recipe for apple latkes from Smitten Kitchen. (We eschewed the apple caramel sauce in the recipe, and just had them with creme fraiche and sugar).

Grated apple

Apple latke mixture

Apple latkes frying

Apple latkes

They were, unsurprisingly, less crisp than the potato latkes, but wonderfully juicy and sweet - almost like fried apple sauce. They were pretty much all apple, with only a tiny amount of flour and eggs to hold them together. Love!

Apple latkes with creme fraiche

Apple latkes

Jess and I have been friends for almost nine years now, and as we sat down to eat these crisp fried little patties of deliciousness, we wondered why we waited so long to start this tradition. Obviously, we are frantically trying to schedule another latke party to celebrate this year's Hanukkah!

And remember, Hanukkah goes for eight days, so there's a good week left to make latkes! (Not that you need an excuse). Enjoy!

Latkes with apple sauce and creme fraiche

Hey hey! Happy Hanukkah everyone! I must admit this year it totally snuck up on me - it's already the third day of Hanukkah! Normally I'm totally on top of the major Jewish holidays, remembering to SMS my Jewish friends Chag Sameach during Passover or L'Shanah Tovah on Rosh Hashanah. But this year, I only realised it was Hanukkah yesterday when I saw loads of tweets saying "Happy Thanksgivukkah" and posts on Facebook about latkes. Whoops! It reminded me that I had these photos of latkes sitting in my drafts folder, and what better time to share them?

As you may already know, Hanukkah is the Jewish Festival of Lights, which, just quietly, I first learnt about from watching The Nanny as a kid, haha! (Don't judge me!) From a purely culinary perspective, it is celebrated by eating fried food like latkes, fritters and sufganiyot (donuts). My hero, Nigella Lawson, describes the festival as a "divine ordinance to eat fried food" - one of the many reasons I think she is The Best.

Today at work, a coworker of mine brought in sufganiyot to share - there were salted caramel, chocolate and jam ones. I went traditional and chose a jam one. Super yum!

Sufganiyot

But back to the topic at hand - latkes! Last year during Hanukkah, my friend Jess invited us over for a little latke party! We sat around, gossipping and grating potatoes...

Grating potatoes

... squeezing out the excess water, and mixing the little potato shards with flour, egg and some salt.

Latke mixture

We then fried tablespoons of the mixture in hot oil until cooked through and crispy.

Latkes frying

These were so good! This is Jess' mum's "recipe", but really she just makes it by eye, adding enough flour and egg until it looks right. I like them better than Nigella's latkes (from How to Eat) which have onion in them and I find a little strongly flavoured. I much prefer these plain ones - just potato, bound with egg and flour. We had them with creme fraiche and apple sauce, but I think they'd be good with cream cheese and smoked salmon too!

Latkes

We decided to make dessert latkes too - one type of latke is a meal, two types of latke is a party - using this recipe for apple latkes from Smitten Kitchen. (We eschewed the apple caramel sauce in the recipe, and just had them with creme fraiche and sugar).

Grated apple

Apple latke mixture

Apple latkes frying

Apple latkes

They were, unsurprisingly, less crisp than the potato latkes, but wonderfully juicy and sweet - almost like fried apple sauce. They were pretty much all apple, with only a tiny amount of flour and eggs to hold them together. Love!

Apple latkes with creme fraiche

Apple latkes

Jess and I have been friends for almost nine years now, and as we sat down to eat these crisp fried little patties of deliciousness, we wondered why we waited so long to start this tradition. Obviously, we are frantically trying to schedule another latke party to celebrate this year's Hanukkah!

And remember, Hanukkah goes for eight days, so there's a good week left to make latkes! (Not that you need an excuse). Enjoy!