Live, Laugh, Latke Chapter 3: Latke Origins

Like all nebbishy Jewish boys since 1993, all I have ever wanted is to be Ian Malcolm.

And so, it brings me great pleasure to offer the following paraphrased thesis: I have spent so much time wondering what makes a great latke, I never stopped to consider: what makes a latke?

So I turned to the one true repository of this sort of knowledge: The Encyclopedia of Jewish Food by Gil Marks, a truly gargantuan tome which has a fantastically researched entry on just about every Jewish food you can think of and about 300 you've never heard of.

Of course, we are taught that latkes celebrate the oil from the miracle of the menorah - latke is Yiddish for "little oily pancake" and even more appropriately seems to descend from the Greek word for olive oil. That doesn't necessitate the potato or root vegetable shreds that have become ubiquitous to their construction. So what's the deal?

As with most good things in Ashkenazic Jewish cuisine, fried pancakes first appeared on the Italian Jewish scene before moving north (#sorrynotsorry). In the late 1200s, my new hero Rabbi Kalonymus ben Kalonymus included pancakes fried in oil as an ideal food to serve at both Purim and Hanukkah. When the Inquisition expelled the Jews from Sicily in the late 1400s, they brought the pancakes they had been making, which included ricotta cheese, to northern Jewry, and they became the norm.

The further north the recipe traveled, however, they ran into a few problems: during the winter months (aka Hannukah time) in northern Europe, cheese and butter become luxury items. Further, the olive oil used to fry the ricotta pancakes was not in nearly the same wide supply, and the common cooking fat, schmaltz, would not work with a dairy dish. So substitutions needed to be found.

The first attempts were rye, buckwheat pancakes that ended up morphing into blintzes and crepe variations over time. Potatoes, which can be grown in poor conditions, grow in abundance in a short cycle, and can be stored through the winter - were seen as a poor-person alternative. It wasn't until the late 1800s, due to a number of crop failures and economic depressions, that the potato latke gained widespread acceptance.

I cannot recommend The Encyclopedia of Jewish Food highly enough; I have never read a section that did not give me new and fascinating insight into Jewish cuisine. And so I set out to make the latke of our forefathers.

Ashkenazic Cheese Pancakes, from the Encyclopedia of Jewish Food

Ingredients

• 2 cups (16 oz) drained ricotta cheese

• 4 large eggs

• ¾ cup all-purpose flour

• 2 Tbsp. sugar

• ½ tsp. vanilla extract

• 1 tsp. kosher salt

• Oil for frying

Instructions

1. In a large bowl, whisk together all ingredients.

2. Heat a thin layer of oil (no more than 1/8th of an inch) in a large skillet or griddle over medium heat.

3. In batches, drop heaping tablespoons of batter into the skillet and fry until top is set and the bottom is lightly browned, about 3 minutes.

4. Turn and fry until golden, approximately 2 more minutes.

5. Serve immediately.

The Review

Belly Score: 8/10
Lokshen Kugel in pancake form, which is not something I realized I needed in my life until they were melting in my mouth. Soft, pillowy, full of flavor. The best bits are the crispy caramelized edges of the pancake that offer a perfect crunchy counterpoint to the softness of the cheesy center. That said, if someone said they were making me latkes and handed me these, I might be a bit confused. Does the central DNA of being a fried pancake hold enough identification to carry such a wide range of food items under a singular banner? A more rabbinical blogger than me might suggest that the variance offers a poignant metaphor of the wide-ranging experience of Jews in the world and our need to accept all comers. I will simply enjoy these contentedly and see what Mrs. Belly has to say.

Mrs. Belly Score: 8/10
”Really good. Not a latke.”

Well then.

Baby Belly: N/A

Giggled as he ripped his apart and threw them to our dog (The Canine Belly). Only agreed to eat bananas and Cheerios. Giggled some more.

Live Laugh Latke - Topping Tuesday: Spicy Apple Ginger Butter

Argument is an essential part of Judaism: the famous axiom of "two Jews, three opinions" did not grow legs for no reason. Even God famously laughs in approval at rabbis who claim to know better than the Almighty in the Talmud.

And so, for latke toppings, the schools of applesauce versus sour cream stand at eternal opposition, forever dividing families and giving single Jews a good opening question on JDate come December.

The problem with this dichotomy, to my eyes, is that applesauce is not the best representative of the "mashed apple" division of topping. The extra juice that the applesauce lives in within the jar inevitably makes what otherwise might be crispy latkes soggy and sad when heaped upon them.

What's worse still is that the obvious answer to this issue is right there, staring us in the face: apple butter. Apple butter is apples stewed in apple cider until soft, blended together and strained through fine mesh, and cooked again until the liquid is gone and the mixture has attained a dreamy smooth consistency and mild caramelization.

So I set out to make a perfect apple butter accompaniment for latkes. In thinking about ideal toppings for latkes, we mourn ketchup, which would theoretically be a good fit, but the inclusion on the Hanukkah plate inadvertently might allow a simpleton to confuse holy latkes with mundane hash brown patties.

But ketchup is a good starting place; like applesauce, ketchup leans into the sweetness in tomatoes. The other element that ketchup adds is acidity, which we achieve here with a few splashes of apple cider vinegar. Feeling as though my recipe was still lacking, I borrowed an element from Texas staple fast food chain Whataburger's spicy ketchup - while that is achieved through cayenne, we achieve our low spice by stewing candied and fresh ginger in with our apples. Feel free to adjust the ginger to your preferred level of spiciness - the called-for two inches will certainly add a noticeable zip.

Spicy Apple Ginger Butter

Ingredients

• 3 lb Gala apples, peeled, cored and chopped into small pieces

• 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar

• 2 tablespoons crystallized ginger

• 2" fresh ginger root, peeled and chopped into small pieces

• 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar

• 2 cups apple cider, or enough to cover the apples in your pot

• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Recipe

1. Add all ingredients to a pot that seems too large for the combination (unless you are okay with cleaning burned apple caramel off of your stove.)

2. Bring to boil, then lower heat to just above simmer. Cook for 1 hour, or until apples are soft and a dark brown.

3. Uncover; cook on medium heat 1 to 2 hours longer, stirring occasionally, until mixture has thickened. Turn off heat; let cool 15 minutes.

4. In blender or food processor, puree mixture (in batches, if needed) until smooth. For extra smooth butter, push apple butter through a mesh sieve.

5. If there is still water in your apple butter, return to stove and cook on medium-high heat, stirring regularly, until remaining water has dissipated.

6. Cool completely. Transfer apple butter to jars; seal tightly. Store in refrigerator.e butter to jars; seal tightly. Store in refrigerator.

Live, Laugh, Latke Chapter One: The Secret Recipe

In 1997, it snowed twelve inches on the evening of December 27th in Rochester, New York. I did have to look up the exact height and date of that snowfall, but I remember the actual storm vividly. My mother, driven crazy by the endless smell of frying generated by the hundreds of latkes my dad and I would cook for our annual giant Hanukkah party (in conjunction with our total lack of vent hood), had banished us to propane burners in the garage, and wek woke to find the 20 or so feet between the back door and our makeshift kitchen was blanketed by wet, heavy snow covering icy sidewalks.

After bargaining and pleading with my mother to let us cook inside to no avail, I got to work shoveling the path, and once we were up and running I also got assigned the dangerous task of balancing the latkes over the skating rink walkway into the house and back.

I note all of the above to simply establish my bona fides as a lover of cooking and consuming latkes from way back. Over the next few weeks, I am going to try a few recipes to find my ideal latke. Because no man is an island, my wife and almost-one-year-old will comprise a blue-ribbon tasting panel with me.

Malke's Secret Recipe

Pictured: The Finished Product of Malke’s secret recipe latkes, with the book Malke’s Secret Recipe by David Adler

I figured as good a place as any to start was the recipe found in the back of my favorite childhood Hanukkah story, Malke's Secret Recipe. Like many of my favorite childhood stories, it is a tale from Chelm, a fictionalized version of a real town in Poland which, in legend, is full of dummies. In the story, a well-meaning shoemaker named Berel tries to learn the secret of his neighbor Malke's secret recipe by spying on her. When he returns home having learned her secrets, his wife dismisses each of the secret ingredients and techniques Malke uses to make her latkes "as light as a cloud," and Berel acquiesces to her criticism and adjusts accordingly as he tries to copy Malke’s recipe. The story ends with them trying "Malke's" recipe, and Berel is perplexed to discover that it tastes just the same as the latkes they always make.

In retrospect, I think Malke's recipe at the back of the book is the first time I had ever considered that there were different methods of cooking the same food. So this seems as good a place as any to start. I have adapted the recipe slightly to improve clarity.

The Recipe

Ingredients

• 2.5 lbs russet potatoes, skins on

• 6 scallions, chopped into large pieces, roots removed

• 3 Tbsp. flour

• 2 large eggs

• 1 tsp. salt

• 1/4 tsp. black pepper

• 1 tsp. lemon juice

• 1 tbsp. chopped parsley

• Vegetable oil for frying

Recipe

1. Scrub potatoes and grate or shred in food processor.

2. Add shreds and rest of ingredients into a food processor and blend until just combined.

3. Heat oil in large skillet. Carefully drop spoonfuls of the potato mixture into the oil and brown on both sides until crisp.

4. Remove to a paper towel-lined plate to wick off excess grease. Serve immediately.

The Review

• Belly Score: 6/10 - The recipe absolutely comes through on the promise of the book that these latkes are considerably "lighter" feeling than what I would think of as classic latkes, likely a result of not being weighed down by the onion that sneaks into the cracks of traditional latkes. I was struck, as I ate them, by a realization that "lighter" is not something I have ever really desired in a latke. The scallions and parsley added a pleasant herbal flavor, but for classic latkes, these left me wanting.

• Mrs. Belly Score - 3/10 - Mrs. Belly was not at all shy with her displeasure at these latkes. The fact that the shreds had been processed into a more uniform mush and the green tinge of the latkes drew her ire in equal measure. “I’m glad this is where we are starting and not where we are ending" - direct quote.

• Baby Belly - N/A. Baby Belly had an ear infection that caused him to throw his latkes on the ground. Or possibly he heard his mom's review and opted out. Either way, no review.

Baking Challah With Pride

When my synagogue reached out to ask me to bake rainbow challot for our Pride Shabbat last year, I have to admit I felt some trepidation. As a bisexual cis-gender man in a long-term committed hetero relationship, I often feel anxious about expressions of my personal queerness feeling performative and touristy in queer spaces. I have the privilege of only expressing my sexuality on my own terms, “passing” when it makes life easier. In moments of self doubt, I often think about myself as the “wicked” child in the Passover midrash - reduced to asking my queer community “what does all of this mean to you?” instead of feeling confident to take my place standing among them. 

In truth, the broad spectrum of the modern LGBTQ+ experience is certainly wide enough to accept and embrace my story. Bi erasure is enough of an issue without me erasing myself out of anxiety about doing the wrong thing. The queer community does not and should not bear the burden of my feelings of guilt or the ignorance and lack of empathy displayed by allowing myself to simply sidestep uncomfortable moments. I must acknowledge my shortcomings, acknowledge that I will not always act perfectly, educate myself better, and take my place in the fight. When I worry about where I stand in the queer community I miss the real point: where I stand is on the side of justice, love, and empathy for all people. Everything else, as Rav Hillel might say, is commentary.

I’ve been conscious of the cultural dialogue around Pride’s association with glitter and rainbows and neon colors and the like - symbols that have the power to act as another buffer zone of inaction, a branding opportunity that otherwise does little to further the cause of justice for the LGBTQ+ community at a moment where moral victories are simply not enough. It isn’t hard to make rainbow challah; take a standard challah recipe, add food dye, braid, bake, done. The difference between slapping a rainbow onto a corporate logo versus creating a rainbow challah lies in the centrality of challot to our collective Jewish experience. The interwoven colors act as a radical and vibrant beacon of welcome and acceptance for all people into our Jewish community. The rainbow that God showed Noah after the flood served as a covenant; more than a simple object of beauty, it symbolized an ongoing promise between god and human kind. In making rainbow challot, we make a promise of our own: that we as a people will continue to do everything in our power to educate ourselves and others, that we will continue to fight for justice for every community, that we will meet people where they are and embrace them there.

A quick guide to making rainbow challah is below.  Three other things we all can do right now to cause real change:

1. Donate! There are countless worthy charities doing excellent work in this space, so let me just highlight one that I found incredibly meaningful recently, The Okra Project - “The Okra Project is a collective that seeks to address the global crisis faced by Black Trans people by bringing home-cooked, healthy, and culturally specific meals and resources to Black Trans People wherever we can reach them.”  They also have established free cooking schools and grocery and mental health assistance funds for trans people. It’s impossible to read through their mission without the bold imperative from Passover ringing in our heads: “All who are hungry, let them come and eat.”

2. Check out the Human Rights Campaign’s congressional scorecard to make yourself aware of how you are being represented on a federal level, and then write a letter to your congressperson thanking them for their support and/or vocalizing the need to do better. HRC and the ACLU both offer more granular guidance and education on state and local politics as well.

3. Educate yourself - The New York Public Library put together an incredible list of books written by trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming authors about a multitude of the many facets of the queer experience. MTV’s “Look Different” campaign is an easy and accessible place to begin the long journey of examining and reshaping your own biases and policing your own microaggressions. The need to educate carries a heavy emotional burden for every queer community member - even if you don’t feel comfortable educating others, do your part to educate yourself.

To Make Rainbow Challot

To start, we need to make challah dough.  As opposed to my attempts to make the greatest challah of all time, we want a dough that is simple and resilient, able to withstand a second kneading without becoming overly dense. I’ve found Deb Perlman’s recipe from Smitten Kitchen (which itself is an adaptation of a Joan Nathan recipe) is excellent for this purpose. 

Regardless of which recipe you use, start by just preparing the dough as normal.  After the dough has been allowed to rise, divide the dough into 6 equal balls (highly recommend weighing the balls vs. eyeballing it).  You’re now going to work the colors into the individual balls. 

Traditional food coloring is not strong enough to create the vibrant colors we are going for, so I use food dye in its place, which is simply food coloring that has been concentrated into a gel.  It’s quite powerful so I highly recommend getting yourself some disposable gloves to use through the process if you don’t want your hands to be tie-dyed at the end. I use Wilton brand dyes because they’re kosher parve and easily accessible at Michael’s and Amazon, but truly any food dyes would work.  The six braids of the challah allow us to hit all but one of the standard rainbow colors, and I never much cared for indigo anyway.

So you will knead each dye into the different dough balls until each one is completely uniform in its color. In my experience, one of those small bottles provides enough coloration for around 25 challot, so you should start with around ⅛ tsp and adjust upward as you want. The finished dough balls will look like play dough, which is totally awesome.

From here I’ll point you to Tori Avey’s excellent guide to 6-strand challah braiding, which does a better job than I ever could of making the seemingly complex task of 6-braiding very very simple. Allow your formed loaves to rise for an hour before you put them in the oven. 

Chocolate Pecan Babka

Yotam Ottolenghi’s Chocolate Babka (aka Chocolate Krantz Cakes) from Jerusalem: A Cookbook

Makes 2 loaves

FOR THE DOUGH

4 cups (530 grams) all-purpose flour, plus extra for dusting
1/2 cups (100 g) sugar
2 teaspoons fast-rising active dry yeast
Grated zest of 1 small lemon
3 large free-range eggs
1/2 cup (120 milliliters) water
1/2 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup (150 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature, cut into 3/4-inch cubes plus extra butter for greasing

FOR THE CHOCOLATE FILLINGScant 1/2 cup (50 grams) confectioners’ (powdered) sugar
1/3 cup (30 grams) good quality cocoa powder
4 1/2 ounces (130 grams) good quality dark chocolate (~72%), melted
1/2 cup (120 grams) unsalted butter, melted
1 cup (100 grams) pecans, coarsely chopped
2 tablespoons sugar

FOR THE SYRUP130 grams sugar
180 milliliters water

Place the flour, sugar, yeast, and lemon zest in a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook. Add the eggs and water and mix on low speed for a few seconds, then increase the speed to medium and mix for 3 minutes, until the dough comes together.

Add the salt and then start adding the butter, a few cubes at a time, mixing until it is incorporated into the dough. Continue mixing for about 10 minutes on medium speed, until the dough is completely smooth, elastic, and shiny.

Place the dough in a large, lightly oiled bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

Grease two (2 1⁄4-pound) loaf pans (9 by 4 inches) with butter and line the bottom of each pan with parchment paper. Divide the dough in half and keep one-half covered in the fridge.

Make the filling by mixing together the confectioners’ sugar, cocoa powder, melted chocolate, and melted butter.

Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface into a rectangle measuring approximately 15 by 11 inches. Using an offset spatula, spread half the chocolate mixture over the rectangle, leaving a 3⁄4-inch border all around. Sprinkle half the pecans on top of the chocolate, then sprinkle with 1 tablespoon of sugar.

Brush a little bit of water along the long end farthest away from you. Use both hands to roll up the rectangle, starting from the long side that is closest to you and ending at the other long end. Press to seal the dampened end. Place seam side down.

With a serrated knife, trim about 3⁄4-inch of dough from both ends and discard. With the same knife, cut the roll into half lengthwise. Place each piece next to each other, cut side up. Intertwine the two pieces, by placing one piece on top of the other and repeating until you get to the end. Gently pinch each end to seal.

Carefully lift the cake into the prepared loaf pan. Cover the pan with a clean, damp tea towel. Repeat the whole process to make the second cake. Let rise in a warm place for 1 to 1 1⁄2 hours. The cakes will rise by 10 to 20 percent.

Preheat the oven to 375F.

Remove the tea towels, place the cakes on the middle rack of the oven, and bake for about 30 to 35 minutes, until a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean.

While the cakes are in the oven, make the syrup. Combine the water and sugar in a saucepan, place over medium heat, and bring to a boil. As soon as the sugar dissolves, remove from the heat and leave to cool down. As soon as the cakes come out of the oven, brush the syrup over the cakes.

Leave the cakes until they are just warm, then remove them from the pans and let cool completely before serving.

A Hamantaschen Tutorial

From Tori Avey’

Ingredients

• 2 large eggs

• 2/3 cup sugar

• 1/4 cup canola oil

• 1 tsp orange zest

• 1 tsp vanilla

• 2 1/4 cups flour

• 1 tsp baking powder

• 1/4 tsp salt

• 1-5 tsp water (if needed)

• Nonstick cooking oil spray

Instructions

1. Before you begin making the hamantaschen, choose and make your filling and have it on hand to work with. This dough will dry out quickly if left to rest too long, so it's best to have everything ready to assemble when you start.

2. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. In a mixing bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugar, canola oil, orange zest and vanilla.

3. In another bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

4. Slowly stir the dry ingredients into the wet, using a large wooden spoon and using circular motions till a crumbly dough begins to form.

5. Knead until smooth and slightly tacky to the touch. Try not to overwork the dough, only knead till the dough is the right consistency. If the crumbles are too dry to form a smooth dough, add water slowly, 1 teaspoon at a time, using your hands to knead the liquid into the dough. Knead and add liquid until the dough is smooth and slightly tacky to the touch (not sticky), with a consistency that is right for rolling out. It can easily go from the right consistency to too wet/sticky, so add water very slowly. If the dough seems too wet, knead in a little flour till it reaches the right texture.

6. Lightly flour a smooth, clean surface. Use a rolling pin to roll the dough out to 1/4 inch thick. Scrape the dough up with a pastry scraper, lightly reflour the surface, and flip the dough over. Continue rolling the dough out very thin (less than 1/8 of an inch thick). The thinner you roll the dough, the more delicate and crisp the cookies will turn out-- just make sure that the dough is still thick enough to hold the filling and its shape! If you prefer a thicker, more doughy texture to your cookies (less delicate), keep the dough closer to 1/4 inch thick. Lightly flour the rolling pin occasionally to prevent sticking, if you need to.

7. Use a 3-inch cookie cutter (not smaller) or the 3-inch rim of a glass to cut circles out of the dough, cutting as many as you can from the dough.

8. Gather the scraps and roll them out again. Cut circles. Repeat process again if needed until you've cut as many circles as you can from the dough. You should end up with around 35 circles.

9. Place a teaspoon of filling (whichever filling you choose) into the center of each circle. Do not use more than a teaspoon of filling, or you run the risk of your hamantaschen opening and filling spilling out during baking. Cover unused circles with a lightly damp towel to prevent them from drying out while you are filling.

10. Assemble the hamantaschen in three steps. First, grasp the left side of the circle and fold it towards the center to make a flap that covers the left third of the circle.

11. Grasp the right side of the circle and fold it towards the center, overlapping the upper part of the left side flap to create a triangular tip at the top of the circle. A small triangle of filling should still be visible in the center.

12. Grasp the bottom part of the circle and fold it upward to create a third flap and complete the triangle. When you fold this flap up, be sure to tuck the left side of this new flap underneath the left side of the triangle, while letting the right side of this new flap overlap the right side of the triangle. This way, each side of your triangle has a corner that folds over and a corner that folds under-- it creates a "pinwheel" effect. This method if folding is not only pretty-- it will help to keep the cookies from opening while they bake.

13. Pinch each corner of the triangle gently but firmly to secure the shape.

14. Repeat this process for the remaining circles.

15. When all of your hamantaschen have been filled, place them on a lightly greased baking sheet, evenly spaced. You can fit about 20 on one sheet... they don't need to be very spaced out because they shouldn't expand much during baking.

The Quest for Perfect Challah, Volume 1

When I was a kid I read a (fictional) book that implied that if I mixed the right ingredients in a specific order I could make myself a giant. I spent hours (and what must have been hundreds of dollars worth of ingredients) making truly horrific concoctions and attempting to cajole neighborhood children and my parents into being test subjects. While I insisted that the recipes were highly scientific, the complete lack of measurements, recipes, or note-taking of any kind indicated the opposite.

This is just to say that I fall firmly on the art/cooking side of the cooking/baking-art/science divide. I am comforted to know I come by this honestly; there isn’t a good Ashkenazi Jewish grandmother-recipe in the world that doesn’t include a least one measurement of “a bissel,” which loosely translates to “an unspecified small amount of the item, which if you ask me to measure I will dismissively reply ‘feh’ and continue with what I’m doing.”

Nowhere are the results of the generations of Jewish culinary entropy more evident than in Challah, that most ubiquitous sweet egg bread central to both Friday evening ritual practice and excellent French toast. As I began to attempt to perfect my version of challah, I went to my collection of Jewish cookbooks (I have an addiction that I’m working on). Unsurprisingly, while all thirteen recipes I looked at contained the same 7-8 ingredients, none were identical.

Book	Flour	Sugar	Yeast	Salt	Honey	Eggs	Water	Oil
Artisan Jewish Deli at Home	7 Cups	5 tbsp brown	6 tsp	2.25 tsp	.5 cup	3	1 cup	6 tbsp.
Cederville Community School Cookbook	6 cups	4 tbsp	4.5 tsp	2 tsp	3 tbsp	4	1 cup
Jewish Cooking in America	8 cups	.5 cup	6 tsp	1 tsp		2	2 cups	.5 cup
Joy of Cooking	6 cups bread flour	6 tbsp	4.5 tsp	2.5 tsp		4 + 4 yolks	1 cup	6 tbsp.
Let my People Eat 1	8 cups	2 tbsp.	2.25 tsp	1 tbsp.		2	2.25 cups	.25 cup
Let My People Eat 2	6 Cups	.5 cup white	4.5 tsp	1.5 tsp			.25 cup	.5 cup
Modern Jewish Cooking	5.5 cups	.33 cup	3 tsp	2 tsp	.25 cup	4	1 cup	.5 cup
Sababa	7 Cups	.5 cup white	5 tsp	1 tbsp.	.33 cup	3	1.75 cups	.33 cup
The Family Digest	8 cups	4 tsp. White	4.5 tsp	2 tsp		4	2 cups
The Mench Chef	4.5 cups		2.25 tsp	1 tbsp.	.25 cup	2	1 Cup	.25 cup
Website	Flour	Sugar	Yeast	Salt	Honey	Eggs	Water	Oil
Serious Eats	8 cups	.25 cup	4 tsp	1.5 tbsp	.33 cup	6+15 yolks	.75 cup	.5 cup
Smitten Kitchen	8 cups	.5 cup	3.75 tsp	1 tbsp.		5	1.75 cup	.5 cup
Tori Avey	9 cups	2 tsp	4.5 tsp	4 tsp	.66 honey	2+6 yolks	3 cups	.25 cup

It should be noted that these recipes are built to create two Challot. The tradition of baking two challahs is inspired by the Israelites wandering in the desert, who on Fridays received a double portion of manna to eat on Shabbos. In modern practice, the second challah is often a perk of hosting - the first challah is demolished in the early moments of the dinner by your guests, the second is for your more relaxed enjoyment over the rest of the weekend.

So anyway I’ve been working on my challah, with the end goal nothing short of creating the best challah in the world. The recipe below represents the most recent evolution of a creative process that has involved an amount of iteration and note taking my younger self would be aghast at. I made a bunch of them on Friday and sent them home with my crack squad of taste testers (aka my coworkers), attached to a sheet with a rudimentary challah quality grading system. I've begun to evaluate the first bits of feedback and have already started to formulate small improvements. I’m excited to share the process with you.

World’s Best Challah, Iteration 14

Ingredients

• 3 3/4 teaspoons active dry yeast (about 1 1/2 packages or 11 grams)

• 1 tablespoon (13 grams) granulated sugar

• 1 3/4 cups lukewarm water (98-105F)

• 1/2 cup vegetable oil, plus more for greasing the bowl

• 4 large eggs + 3 egg yolks (plus additional for eggwash)

• 3/4 cup (150 grams) granulated sugar

• 3 tablespoons honey

• 1 tablespoon (14 grams) table salt

• 8 to 8 1/2 cups (1000 to 1063 grams) all-purpose flour

Procedure

1. In a large bowl, dissolve yeast and the first tablespoon of sugar in the lukewarm water; set aside for 5 minutes until the yeast’s foam reaction is visible.

2. Whisk oil into yeast, then beat in the eggs and yolks, with the remaining sugar and salt. Gradually add flour. When dough holds together, you should move to kneading it, either by had or by a stand mixer with a dough hook. Knead until smooth.

3. Clean out bowl and grease it, then return dough to bowl. Cover with plastic wrap, and let rise in a warm place for 1 hour, until almost doubled in size. Punch down dough, cover again with plastic wrap and let rise for another half-hour in the same warm place.

4. To braid the challah: (I would direct you to Tori Avey’s Challah Braiding Guide, which this borrows from heavily) Create three equal-size strands. Lay the three strands side-by-side. Grab the center of the right strand and cross it over the middle strand. The right strand is now your middle strand. Grab your left strand and cross it over the middle strand. The left strand becomes your middle strand. Repeat that process until you have braided your challah to the very end. Pinch the three strands together at the end. Grab the challah in the center and flip it towards you so the challah is now upside down and the unbraided strands are facing downward. Continue braiding by grabbing the left strand and crossing it over the middle strand. The left strand becomes your middle strand. Grab the right strand and cross it over the middle strand, drop it in the center. The right strand is now your middle strand. Repeat That process until your challah is fully braided. Pinch the ends of the loose strands together and tuck both the top and bottom tips of the challah under to create a nice rounded shape

5. Brush eggwash on loaves. Allow the dough to rise another hour in their loaves. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

6. Bake in middle of oven for 30 to 40 minutes, until the crust is golden and an instant read thermometer reads 190 degrees. Cool loaves on a rack.

Cooking Jewish: Putting the Kitsch in Kitchen

I wouldn’t be a good Chopped contestant.

I mean, I’m above average in the kitchen, sure. I’ve put in my Malcolm Gladwell 10,000 hours and then some. My struggles lie more in the “origin story” department – you know, those minute-and-a-half long stories about an ethnic grandmother or similar stand-in who taught the chef in question to love the kitchen and also coincidentally the recipe for this appropriately old-timey and/or ethnic dish.  Just don’t really have those! It’s an odd feeling as a chef.  And because I’m Jewish, it also makes me feel guilty.

It’s weird! My family had large dinner parties, we made quarterly pilgrimages to extended family meals, we were active at our temple. Somehow, I didn’t realize what a matzo ball was made of until I was 18.  I could not have positively identified any deli meat other than turkey.  I routinely confused babka and rugelach.  You get the idea.

Ok, I found some pictures of me doing Jewish food stuff as a kid, which may or may not run counter to the argument laid out above.

Whatever, I’m going with it. I’m on the right, my friend Nick is on the left. The Challah dough is inexplicably on the floor.

And then I lived in Israel for a while, and then New York City for a lot longer after that. A particularly good friend practically dragged me to Katz’s for my first time. He shoved a pastrami Ruben sandwich into my hands. The rest is history. The exhilaration and joy I felt when eating that sandwich is a feeling I can only compare to when I met my wife, or to when she said yes to marrying me. All I’m saying is that when I eventually get married to sandwiches, my friend who took me to Katz’s will give a toast. (I’d apologize to my wife for placing her into a hypothetical polyamorous relationship with a food product, but she knows who she married.)

To find food that was both spectacular and also belonged to my culture, to a thing that was already a deep part of who i was - it was like discovering that the team you root for won the championship last week and somehow you missed it, but now you get to go on the victory parade.

Less than three months after that, I started my first job cooking professionally. I’ve spent the last eight years cooking and learning at several restaurants of varying cuisines – I’ve gotten a lot of enjoyment from learning new cultures through their food and executing their institutional culinary vision, but I have always had a fantasy of working at a Jewish deli, perfecting my recipes for bialys and blintzes. 

And now I get to be the Executive Chef at the Dallas Jewish Community Center! Life is wild. When I was a kid, I would play floor hockey at the JCC in Rochester, New York. Before the games I would buy a cookie and a Coke from the deli there and wait for my friends to show up.  Hey! That’s almost a Chopped story.  If only I had munched on a knish instead.

So, my mission seems clear. I have been a chef that is Jewish, and I want to become a Jewish chef. I want to explore the full breadth of Jewish food, I want to learn everything I can about every element of my culinary culture, and I want to push myself to continue this amazing tradition I have been handed with intention and honor.

By the wildly talented Jennifer Truong

Below I’ve put together a basic inventory of the items I want to learn about, partially in the hopes that in the coming weeks and months, I’ll turn this page into a table of contents of blog posts about lessons learned and delicious food made.  I hope you’ll join me for the journey - if you’d like to help, look over the list below - what have I left off that I need to get to?

 1.      Bread

• Sourdough Starter

• Rye

• Marble Rye

• Pumpernickel

• Rolls

• Bagels

• Bialys

• Pretzels

• Challah

2.      Meats

• Corned Beef

• Pastrami

• Roast Beef

• Smoked Turkey

• Montreal Smoked Meat

• Knockwurst

• Brisket

• Roast Chicken and Potatoes

• Smoked Salmon

3.      Soups

• Matzo Ball

• Mushroom Barley

• Split Pea

• Red Pepper and Corn Chowder

• Chicken Noodle

• Tomato

4.      Brunch

• Matzo Brei

• Latkes

• Blintzes

• Challah French Toast

• Noodle Kugel

• Potato Kugel

• Corned Beef Hash

• Shakshouka

5.      Salads

• Potato Salad

• Macaroni Salad

• Israeli Salad

• Beet Salad

• Egg Salad

• Whitefish Salad

• Chicken Salad

• Tuna Salad

6.   Sides/One-Offs

• Dill Pickles

• Sour Pickles

• Cucumber Relish

• Knishes

• Kreplach

• Chopped Liver

• Gefilte Fish

• Pierogi

• Kasha Varnishkas

• Falafel

• Hummus

• Tehini

7.      Desserts

• Rugelach

• Sticky Buns

• Babka

• Chocolate Matzo Bark

• Black and White Cookies

• Macaroons

• Hamentaschen

• Honey Cake

• Mandlebrot