Kartoffelpuffer, Latkes, or whatever else you like to call 'em

Potatoes are a wonderful food source.  They're one of the largest food crops in the world (along with rice, wheat and corn).  They're pretty easy to cultivate (I managed to grow a potato plant in a dorm room), filling, and tasty.  Although native to the Americas, they feature in cuisines from around the world. 

I ate a lot of potatoes when I lived in Germany.  Germans, although more famous for their beer and sausage, do a lot of potato-eating.  One of my favorite ways to eat them was as a pancake.  My family always called them "Kartoffelpuffer" ("Kartoffel" being the word for "potato"), although they were also commonly referred to as "Reibekuchen" (literally: "grated cakes").  The first time we made them, I bit into mine and said, "Oh!  It's a latke!" because the only time I'd ever had them previously had been during a Chanukah thing.  Technically, a latke can be made without potatoes (they've been around a lot longer than potatoes have been available to Jewish communities), but most people really like fried potatoes, and, as I said above, they're a great food source, so why not?

Kartoffelpuffer

~1 lb potatoes 

1 small onion, diced

1 large egg

~2 Tbsp bread crumbs 

Salt and Pepper

Oil (for cooking)

Peel and grate the potatoes.  If you prefer to leave the skin on your potatoes, feel free to do so; just be sure that all the skin gets grated and you aren't left with large sections of it.  Combine with the other ingredients, stirring it to mix thoroughly.  Here's the tricky bit: you have to wait.  I am an impatient cook, so I always mix everything together, look at it, and freak out.  When first combined, everything is loose, resembling a salad more than a batter.  Give it some time to sit though, and liquid will be pulled out of the potatoes.  Stir periodically until you start to notice a batter-like, cohesive consistency (shown at right).  In the mean time, heat your oil/pan/griddle.  My recipe says to cook them like pancakes, but when I'm making pancakes, I use a lot less oil.  Grease your pan or griddle generously; you can even shallow-fry these (which is more in keeping with the Jewish latke tradition).  

Scoop a portion of the potato mixture into the oil.  If you need to, spread it to about 1/2 uniform thickness.  Fry/cook over medium heat until the edges are set and slightly browned; flip the latkes and cook until both sides are browned. Be aware of how much oil the pancakes absorb-- you may need to re-grease the pan when you flip.  Work in batches until all the potato batter is used up.  Serve while warm (fresh out of the pan is best).  My family in Germany eats them with applesauce; they're also delightful with sour cream, cottage cheese, apple butter, or any combination thereof.  

Notes:  If you are terribly impatient like me, you might add a 2nd egg to get to batter-like consistency faster ("It's too dry!").  If you opt to do this, be prepared to add more bread crumbs or flour as the liquid is drawn out of the potatoes.  Even without adding an extra egg, you may find it useful to have flour around-- potatoes hold a lot of water.

When greasing the pan, I used about 1 Tbsp of bacon fat and 2 Tbsp of canola oil at the beginning of each batch.  Bacon fat just gives such a lovely hint of flavor.

If you're having trouble with the pancake deforming as you try to scoop it up and flip it, that's probably it's way of saying that it is not done cooking on that side.  If it breaks, then it is sticking to the pan.  But I found that usually it seemed sticky because it was under-cooked.  No worries if you realize the problem after flipping.  Just let it finish cooking on the 2nd side, and flip it back to the first side.  And try to be more patient next time.  It's hard, I know.

These are oily.  That's why they're eaten at Chanukah-- it's all about the oil.  I recommend draining them, though, if you aren't going to immediately devour them.  Crumple some old newspaper and cover it with a clean paper towel, and place the pancakes on that to dry.  (See photo, left)  Newspaper soaks up the oil nicely, and it's a bit cheaper than a roll of paper towels.

 

 

Moroccan Style Chicken

I found this recipe in my local newspaper.  I like the idea that when I make it I'm getting a little taste of Casablanca.  I like the flavors used in it, warm spices that mingle with the smoke flavors from the grill.  The use of yogurt is also fantastic, taking advantage of the enzymes and bacteria (friendly bacteria) present in yogurt to make the meat tender and moist.
By itself, the chicken is also a great recipe for people who come home and don't necessarily have time to prep a meal.  Because the chicken has to sit for a long time in the yogurt, it's best prepped in the morning, and then you can just come home and cook it, which takes maybe 15 minutes.
To accompany it, I made a lentil salad, inspired in part by a recipe I came across a while back for an Egyptian bean salad, which used similar flavors.

Moroccan-style Chicken Breasts
3 large boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1/3 C plain nonfat yogurt
1/3 C chopped fresh cilantro
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp minced garlic (~2 cloves)
1 tsp sweet paprika
1 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper

Combine the yogurt, cilantro, oil, garlic, paprika, cumin, salt, and pepper, and smear the mixture over both sides of the chicken.  Place the chicken in a dish and cover it, placing it in the refrigerator and allowing it to sit for 6 to 10 hours.
Preheat a gas grill to high, or prepare a charcoal fire.  Grill the chicken until cooked through, about 5 minutes/side.

I used culantro rather than cilantro (see my blog on Enchiladas for a brief discussion of these herbs), because I have some growing in my garden, and it lends itself particularly well to marinades.  While this yogurt mixture is not a typical marinade, it is largely cooked (burnt or melted, I guess) off during the grilling process, so I wasn't stuck with a bunch of culantro leaves poking my gums and tongue as I ate (a less than pleasant sensation).
Generally, I don't go for non-fat yogurt, but this time it just so happened that that was all my grocery store had.  I was less than thrilled; I'm sure the recipe would work just fine with regular yogurt.

Lentil Salad
1 C dried Lentils
1/4 C chopped onion
1 clove garlic, minced
1 kosher dill pickle, chopped
1/2 C plain nonfat yogurt
paprika, cumin, salt, and pepper

Rinse the lentils and place in a pot with about three times as much water as lentils.  Bring to a boil, and reduce to a simmer.  Allow the lentils to simmer for ~25 minutes until soft, but not mushy.  Drain any excess water, and add the onions and garlic while the lentils are still hot.  After allowing them to cool a bit, add the pickle and yogurt, and season to taste.

I will admit, this salad is not the most attractive thing that has come out of my kitchen.  But it is wonderfully flavorful.  Is served it alongside the chicken.  The onion and pickle gave it a little distinction flavor-wise from the chicken, which was good.  Although I use the same spices, I do want different flavors in my food.  Just not competing ones. 
Leftover lentil salad and chicken can be combined to make an excellent chicken salad for a sandwich or wrap (see photo, left).  I recommend it with some feta cheese.

Chicken Diable

I did it again-- found an irresistible cookbook.  Somewhere, there is a publisher gloating over people like me.  This time it was Essential Pepin, a collection of recipes from Jacques Pépin, who had a cooking show on PBS (I may also have received DVDs of his show as a gift...).  So when I decided I was going to cook chicken, I flipped through until I found a recipe that looked doable (meaning that I had all the ingredients for it-- French food is often surprisingly simple).  The winner: an intriguingly-named recipe Chicken Diable.  I don't speak French, but I was able to guess (and later confirm) that "diable" means either "devil" or "diabolical".  So, Chicken with a kick?  Well, yes and no.  French folks aren't much for heat, so this isn't spicy by most standards (not even mine), but it does have a great tang, and you ramp up the amount of Tabasco you put in if you want a bit more heat.  You could also think of it as devilish because of the vinegar-- that stuff fumes!  Below is my adaptation of this delicious dish.

Chicken Diable

3 large boneless, skinless chicken breasts

3/4 tsp each of salt and pepper

1 Tbsp each of olive oil and butter

4 garlic cloves, crushed and finely chopped (or about 1 Tbsp)

1/4 C red wine vinegar 

3/4 C tomato sauce

1 tsp Tabasco sauce

1/2 Tbsp mustard

Sprinkle the salt and pepper over the chicken, and rub it in for good measure.  Heat the oil and butter in a large, heavy skillet until hot.  Add the chicken, cover, and cook over medium-high heat for about 5 minutes.  Turn the chicken over and allow to cook (covered again) until it is cooked through.  Set the chicken aside and keep warm.

Using the same pan (which should now have chicken-y goodness all over), cook the garlic for about 30 seconds-- don't brown it, but soften the flavor a tiny bit.  Pour the vinegar into the pan swirling it around so that all the good stuff stuck on the pan gets loosened--"deglazing".  A quick word of advice: don't stand directly over the pan with your eyes wide open unless you want to cry.  Also, make sure you've got some sort of ventilation.  I've set off a fire alarm with vinegar fumes.  After 1-2 minutes of cooking, most of the vinegar should have evaporated.  Add the water and tomato sauce, bring to a boil, and cover.  Keep boiling over high heat for about a minute.  Add the Tabasco and mustard, and season to taste with salt and pepper.  I also added some more vinegar.
Serve the chicken with with sauce on top, garnished, if you like, with fresh tarragon or parsley.

Pépin suggested serving this alongside a salad.  I took him up on that-- after all, the sauce ingredients are rather reminiscent of a vinaigrette.  I mixed together some balsamic vinegar, olive oil, tomato sauce, mustard, garlic salt, pepper, and a pinch of sugar to make a fantastic dressing.  If you chill it, the olive oil sorta solidifies, so any leftover dressing makes an excellent cold spread.

Notes:  I didn't actually have red wine vinegar.  I used a combination of balsamic and cider vinegar that would probably send Mr. Pépin screaming off into the night.  (I also at one point grabbed the wrong bottle and started to shake in some raspberry vinegar-- the point here is that it's fairly forgiving.)  
     If you're interested in using a whole chicken, or assorted pieces of chicken, you're in luck-- that's usually how this is made.  You just need to cook the dark meat a bit longer than you do the breasts.  

I really liked this sauce.  I loved how tangy the vinegar made it, which is why I added more at the end.  It's not a very spicy dish, but it is quite flavorful, and simple to make.