Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeart Radio, Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff, Lauren Vogelbaum. Here on the surface, latcas might
Speaker 1: look like any other pan fried potato cake, but these
Speaker 1: traditional holiday treats are so much more than a starchy
Speaker 1: comfort food. Laticas have been a Honkah staple for at
Speaker 1: least two hundred years and have roots dating back millennia,
Speaker 1: but it took us a while to get here. Hanka,
Speaker 1: of course, is the Jewish festival celebrating the miracle of
Speaker 1: the Oil that lasted eight days. The story goes that
Speaker 1: over two thousand years ago, after a small rebel squad
Speaker 1: led by Judith mccabee drove religious oppressors from their land,
Speaker 1: they went to rededicate their temple, but most of the
Speaker 1: holy oil for their lamps had been desecrated. As miraculous
Speaker 1: as their victory was, this one day's worth of oil
Speaker 1: lasted eight Eating oily or fried foods to celebrate. The
Speaker 1: holiday goes back to the eighth dred Ce at least,
Speaker 1: but potatoes are native to the America's They wouldn't arrive
Speaker 1: in Europe until the fifteen hundreds, and they weren't really
Speaker 1: popular there until the seventeen hundreds, when a French dude
Speaker 1: who practically lived on them during his stint in a
Speaker 1: Bavarian prison promoted them as an inexpensive and hardy sustenance food.
Speaker 1: So what were lucas made with until then? It turns
Speaker 1: out ricotta and other cheeses. Okay. This is because sometime
Speaker 1: around the twelve or thirteen hundreds, rabbinic discourse started linking
Speaker 1: the victory of Judah over his oppressors with the fictional
Speaker 1: tale of Judith's victory over her oppressors led by Holofernes.
Speaker 1: She fed him salty cheese so that he had drink
Speaker 1: too much and she could behead him. Lots of art
Speaker 1: depicts the scene. It's pretty metal. Um So cheese was
Speaker 1: becoming a traditional hannock of food around that time, and
Speaker 1: then in the late fourteen hundreds, Spanish rulers in Sicily
Speaker 1: expelled the Jewish people living there. They fled to northern
Speaker 1: Italy and beyond and brought with them recipes for Southern
Speaker 1: Italian ricotta pancakes. It turned out to be the perfect
Speaker 1: cultural combination, and fried ricotto latcas were the norm in
Speaker 1: Eastern Europe through the eight hundreds. During that time, a
Speaker 1: couple of things happened that set the stage for potato latcas. First,
Speaker 1: in Eastern Europe, potatoes were being planted as a sustenance
Speaker 1: food where other crops were failing, so potatoes were cheap
Speaker 1: and plentiful, whereas cheese was more expensive. And Second, okay,
Speaker 1: we're gonna need to talk about Jewish dietary guidelines called
Speaker 1: kosher laws. They forbid eating dairy products and meat products
Speaker 1: during the same meal, or even cooking and serving them
Speaker 1: with the same kitchen and dining gear. So if you're
Speaker 1: making dairy based cheese latcas, that means you have to
Speaker 1: fry them in either butter or a neutral fat like
Speaker 1: a vegetable or olive oil. But butter was also expensive,
Speaker 1: and vegetable oils could be even pricier because they slee
Speaker 1: had to be imported. A popular cooking fat at that
Speaker 1: time and place was chicken fat or schmaltz. You can't
Speaker 1: cook cheese pancakes and schmaltz, but you can cooked potato
Speaker 1: pancakes in it. Through the nineteen hundreds, the potato became
Speaker 1: so synonymous with latka that you don't have to specify anymore,
Speaker 1: though you can find lots of different recipes made with
Speaker 1: different ingredients. The traditional kind today calls for grated potatoes,
Speaker 1: shredded onion, egg, salt and pepper, mots of meal or
Speaker 1: bread crumbs as a binder, and vegetable oil to cook
Speaker 1: them in. You stir the batter together, ladle small scoops
Speaker 1: into a hot pam about a quarter cup or sixty
Speaker 1: million liters per scoop. Then pan fry the pancakes until
Speaker 1: they're golden brown and lacy on the edges something like
Speaker 1: four inches or ten centimeters across. You might eat them
Speaker 1: with your hands in just a couple of bites, dipped
Speaker 1: in or topped with apple sauce, sour cream, or both,
Speaker 1: often as a side dish with Hanuka dinners. They're crispy
Speaker 1: on the outside and creamy soft on the side, salty
Speaker 1: and starchy and satisfying for the article of this episode
Speaker 1: is based on How Stuff Works. Spoke with cookbook author,
Speaker 1: blogger and latca expert Amy Kreitzer back in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1: She explained that the basic latka is always good, but
Speaker 1: that you can get creative. To quote, one of my
Speaker 1: favorite toppings is just a little bit of cream, cheese
Speaker 1: and locks and then some other bagel toppings like an
Speaker 1: everything bagel, spice or some red onion. I've also done
Speaker 1: a latca's eggs benedict for breakfast, and then recently I
Speaker 1: just did fried pickles latcas. She does have more traditional
Speaker 1: potato preferences, though her grandmother's go to the rest it.
Speaker 1: She said they're the starchiest, they're cheap, and I think
Speaker 1: they make the best Latka's. She would also use some
Speaker 1: grated with onion and would grade it with the potato,
Speaker 1: which helps keep them from browning. But to get your
Speaker 1: latcas too crisp up appropriately in the pan, we must
Speaker 1: turn to sign ants. You want to squeeze as much
Speaker 1: moisture from your grated potatoes as possible before you mix
Speaker 1: them with your other ingredients. Either press them between paper
Speaker 1: towels or ring them out in a cheese cloth. That way,
Speaker 1: when you put them in the hot oil in the pan,
Speaker 1: they don't steam. Okay, You want your oil to be
Speaker 1: up around three hundred and fifty degrees fahrenheit, that's one
Speaker 1: seventy seven celsius. Water, of course, boils all the way
Speaker 1: down at two hundred and twelve fahrenheit or one celsius.
Speaker 1: So when you put your latcas in the pan, the
Speaker 1: water in the potatoes will immediately start vaporizing into steam,
Speaker 1: which will create a barrier on the surface of the latkas,
Speaker 1: preventing the oil from browning them. The longer the latcas
Speaker 1: sit in the pan, the more oil they'll soak up,
Speaker 1: making them more soggy than crunchy. At the end, you
Speaker 1: squeeze out excess water from the potatoes so they'll crisp
Speaker 1: up nice and quick. It also helps to keep the
Speaker 1: pan hot by using a heavy pan that holds heat
Speaker 1: well like cast iron, and cooking in small batches. And
Speaker 1: one last lacca crisping trick, repurpose the potato starch that
Speaker 1: you squeezed out. Kretzer said. One thing I do now
Speaker 1: that I didn't do growing up is I saved the
Speaker 1: starch from the potatoes while shredding them. I squeeze out
Speaker 1: all the liquid, then let it sit for about ten minutes.
Speaker 1: Then when you drain off the water on the bottom,
Speaker 1: there's this white starch, which is actually potato starch. I
Speaker 1: add that back for my lacas, which helps them stay crispy.
Speaker 1: Today's episode is based on the article How lacas became
Speaker 1: Honaka's favorite food on how stuff works dot Com, written
Speaker 1: by Stephanie Vermillion. Brain Stuff is production of by Heart
Speaker 1: Radio and partnership with how stuff Works dot Com, and
Speaker 1: it's produced by Tyler Clang. Four more podcasts my heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
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