Whole lotta LATKES!

I have a little dreidel

I made it out of clay

And when it's dry and ready

Then dreidel I shall play!

OK, we're gearing up for the holidays! Both Christmas and Hanukkah are right around the corner. What could be better than to try out our favorite yummy stuff?

Well, to tell you the truth, I have to admit that trying this recipe, although I have been thinking about it for a while, was a born out of necessity. As you may already have read in other portions of this blog, I have a great love of frozen fruit and vegetables. Why? Well, because they are the next best thing to fresh, they're right there when you need them, they're usually pre-chopped, and you can portion them out as your heart tells you. Little one wants peaches in the middle of winter? Grab the resealable bag from the freezer, defrost a handful, and instant happy (and fed) child. No need to whip out the can opener or open one of the travel containers of fruit you should be saving for the road. Same with a handful of peas or green beans to add color and vitamins to the overall meal.

But, silly me, I forgot to put away the bag of frozen chopped onions last night.  Not only did they melt and make a sticky mess on the counter, but I feared they'd been rendered useless.  Luckily, they were still usable... but needed to be, stat!  Mind clicking into gear: onions.  breakfast. ... must involve potatoes.  what about hash browns?  nah... what about ~ potato pancakes?  e voila:  LATKES!

I've had so many lovely, light as air, non-soggy latkes in my day, but I've always had horrible luck.  Mine turn out soggy: potato juice everywhere while cooking, and thick as mud while eating.  Luckily, I've been reading up on them in prep for the holiday season. 

What's the key? The secret? 

Squeeze all the extra juice out of the potatoes and onions after you shred them.  Seriously, it's that simple!  It makes for some mighty crispy, tasty latkes.

Potato Latkes

2 medium sized potatoes

1 medium onion

1 egg

2 T gluten free flour

1 t baking powder

Oil for frying

1. Shred the potatoes and onions, then lay them flat on either a clean tea towel or a paper towel.  Roll them up jelly-roll style, and over a bowl, squeeze them to your heart's content.

2. Scramble the egg, add the flour and baking powder, and stir. 

3. Add the potatoes and onions into the egg/flour mixture and stir. 

4. Fry them up!   Drain on paper towels

Rousing choruses of Dreidel dreidel are recommended but not necessary. 

Variations on a Pancake: Banana Edition

If you have lemons, make lemonade. If you have ripe bananas, make banana pancakes! OK you could also make banana bread, but we'll get to that later.

Basically, this is an add-on recipe to illustrate another way to make pancakes.  Pictured on the left are the ingredients.  Note on the left side that a toddler-sized helper is essential to the process. 

Recipe: same as regular pancakes, but add a chopped banana to the batter.  If you want to get fancy here, bananas always go with: a dash or cinnamon or cardamom powder.  The other alternative is adding about 1/2 cup crumbled bacon, but you didn't hear that from me. 

Socca! It's so... Nice

I know I just did another post about pancakes. But this, my friends, is a special pancake.  Imagine yourself strolling along the boardwalk in the South of France.  You spy a street cart with what looks like a large pizza pan next to a stove... he's pouring batter into a the pan and an eager line is gathering.

are they crepes?  no!  they're socca!

Socca are garbanzo flour pancakes.  In Nice, France, they're thin and crispy.  Across the border in Italy, a slightly thicker version of the same thing is called Farinata. 

It's one of those simple foods that people revel in, and whose recipes lend themselves to infinite variation:  soak sifted garbanzo bean flour in water with a little oil mixed in, at least an hour but overnight is apparently better.  Heat a huge flat pan with a lot of good quality olive oil in a hot oven for a few minutes.  Pour the batter into the heated pan and return it to the oven for 10-15 minutes.

Traditionally, a large quantity of fresh ground pepper is added to the top of the socca.  Once cooked, either flake off the pan in crispy yummy bits or cut in wedges like pizza.  Simple, n'est pas?

Why socca?  Well, I've been looking for recipes that use new and different flours ... the ones I see in the Asian groceries with inscrutable uses.  Sure, rice flour is pretty obvious, but gram flour? besan?  mung bean?  sorghum?  tapioca? huh?  I have often seen some of these in gluten free flour blends, but they are a bit expensive.  Why not go to a local Asian market and buy them for far less and make my own stuff from scratch?  

So I went to my favorite Indian market and stood in the flour aisle for a while.  There were many flours based on lentils, rice, corn.  Gram flour, also known as Besan, it appears, is really just another name for garbanzo bean flour. 

When I Googled garbanzo bean flour, I found many results for spicy pakoras (i.e. deep-fried veggies, Indian style), which looked enticing.  But a word kept coming up in the results: Socca.  Recently returned tourists from France and Monaco waxed poetic about the flaky, crispy treat covered with black pepper and olive oil.  The New York Times had even blogged about it in their Minimalist food blog... heck, it had to be good!

Back at the store, since none of the gram/besan/garbanzo bean flours claimed to be allergen-free, I looked for one that didn't say it was manufactured on machinery where allergens were processed.  I comprimised on a flour that said it was ground in the same factory but not on the same machinery... and one that was made in Flushing, Queens, NY... not overseas where standards are a bit different in terms of cross-contamination and full disclosure of ingredients: Laxmi brand Gram Flour.  With images of palm trees and the Meditteranean Sea in my head, I drove home intending to make an exotic treat!

I based my recipe on the one at the link to the NYT Minimalist blog, missing that I should include the onions in the batter.  I also made the mistake of not whisking the flour and water together and ended up with clumps that I didn't ever really get incorporated well.  And yes, it does take a little while for the water to soak in.  But these are nuances... generally, this is a pretty failsafe dish! 

Note, the following is clipped from the New York Times (see link above)

"...Sift the chickpea flour into your bowl, so it doesn't lump, and use a whisk to combine it with water. Do not skimp on black pepper or olive oil; the pepper should really hit you when you take a bite. Preheat your skillet or pan in the oven. When the socca is done, put the pan on the table, cut it into random shapes, hand out napkins and have at it. If more than six people are present, get started making another.

Socca (Farinata)
Time: 45 minutes

1 cup chickpea flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon, at least, ground black pepper
4 to 6 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 large onion, thinly sliced, optional
1 tablespoon fresh rosemary leaves, optional.

1. Heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a well-seasoned or nonstick 12-inch pizza pan or cast-iron skillet in oven. Sift chickpea flour into a bowl; add salt and pepper; then slowly add 1 cup lukewarm water, whisking to eliminate lumps. Stir in 2 tablespoons olive oil. Cover, and let sit while oven heats, or as long as 12 hours. Batter should be about the consistency of heavy cream.
2. If using onion and rosemary, stir them into batter. Pour 2 tablespoons oil into heated pan, and swirl to cover pan evenly. Pour in batter, and bake 12 to 15 minutes, or until pancake is firm and edges set. Heat broiler, and brush top of socca with 1 or 2 tablespoons of oil if it looks dry.
3. Set socca a few inches away from broiler for a few minutes, just long enough to brown it spottily. Cut it into wedges, and serve hot, or at least warm.

Yield: 4 to 6 appetizer servings. "

So the result?   Delicious.  Basic, straightfoward and wonderful.   My son gobbled, grabbed, scarfed it down!  The garbanzo bean flour has a nutty, tangy and rich flavor all at once.  The crispy edges surround a thick, almost baked-egg tortilla consistency inside.  Dense, satisfying and light all at the same time.  

I can imagine a million flavor combinations:  add different spices (rosemary and pepper are traditional ... but what about basil, tarragon, cumin, smoked paprika? or go sweet with cinnamon, cardamom, sugar?)   Add thinly sliced veggies inside (like onion, zucchini, carrots, asparagus).  Another whole dimension would be adding toppings, a la pizza!  Now... if I could just get some soy, nut and dairy free cheese! (anyone?)  Here's an exploration of socca experiments that I have to really delve into...

The downside: 

As much as my son LOVED the socca, he had a reaction.  Nothing horrific or ER-trip inducing, but some facial spots and itching.  My best guess is that buying the flour while crossing my fingers that cross-contamination wouldn't be a problem was a bad idea.  I though I could get away with buying inexpensive flours in exotic stores that make me pine for globe trotting... but you know what?  It's just not worth it.  

I will be adding socca to the regular rotation of yumminess, but I will also be making sure that the flour comes from a confirmed allergy-free source.  Bob's Red Mill, I might as well buy stock in you right now. 

Pancakes!

Here we have a full contact, participation sport for your enjoyment: making pancakes!



Sweet Pea helping.  He loves to stir!

Delicious, fun, bite-sized if you want it, and super easy. Q loves these things. Absolutely adores them.

And there are so many ways to make them!

Many times I've just straight-up translated my mom's pancake recipe, which of course came from the 1953 Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook - a time capsule of mid-century food I enjoy as much as watching an episode of Mad Men! That's easy: just use GF flour, Rice Milk, and everything else is pretty much the same:

 

BH & G 1950's "Griddle Cakes" - adapted version... this is how I remember it, at least!

1 cup of flour*

1 tablespoon of sugar - I like brown here, but have used splenda or white sugar in a pinch

1 teaspoon of baking powder

1 cup of milk**

1 egg

1 tablespoon of oil***

1 teaspoon of vanilla if you like

Mix dry ingredients together. Mix wet ingredients together, whisk them so the eggs are scrambled. Mix wet and dry together in the same bowl. Use a hot oiled skillet to make silver dollars for the kids and large ones for the adults. Flip when you see a bubble toward the center pop and leave a slightly open hole without coming back together. That's when you know it's golden brown on the bottom! My grandmother taught my mom to never flip pancakes more than once, since it makes them sad. I flip them several times, G*d rest my Grandmother's sweet heart.


Have a plate ready with a paper towel on it to keep stacking them, and assume you will have trolling family members eating the pancakes before they hit the table. Serve with maple syrup.

* assume it's Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free all-purpose flour unless I mention something else
** do your thing here. I use Rice Dream ricemilk because, (can you believe it?) many other rice milks have soy in them? sheesh!
*** I use olive oil but canola works too

Those are delicious. But... since my gluten free mama days, I fell in love with Corn Masa Flour. And one day, when I went to make pancakes and found myself down to 1/2 cup of GF Bob's Red Mill all-purpose, I had to punt. It's the same basic recipe with a few twists, but... the results were amazing!

Another option is to add Enjoy Life chocolate chips (these are dairy, nut and soy free! or... wait until Passover comes along as most kosher for Passover chocolate has removed soy too... a reason to stock up, that's for sure!)

Horchata Pancakes
note: Horchata is a hot, delicious drink made of milk, cinnamon and vanilla that comes in various forms from all over Spain and Latin America. I love the flavor of vanilla and cinnamon together... hence:



1/2 cup of regular gluten free flour

1/2 cup of corn masa flour

1 tablespoon of sugar
1 teaspoon of baking powder -- plus a smidge more since the masa flour is a little dense
1 cup of milk (I like to use the vanilla flavored rice milk in this recipe)
1 egg
1 tablespoon of oil
1 teaspoon of vanilla

1 teaspoon of cinnamon

Mix dry ingredients together. Mix wet ingredients together, whisk them so the eggs are scrambled. Mix wet and dry together in the same bowl. Use a hot oiled skillet to make silver dollars for the kids and large ones for the adults. Flip when you see a bubble toward the center pop and leave a slightly open hole without coming back together. That's when you know it's golden brown on the bottom!

These have a sweet, nutty flavor from the corn and crispier edges in general. The cinnamon and vanilla will make your house smell like heaven. You barely need maple syrup, but if you're like my son you will need some for dipping.

More Please!