|
As i understand, this whole "Pumpkin Spice everything" craze began with the Pumpkin Spice Latte becoming popular. So I thought I'd do a variant on that. But what kind of variation should it be? As anyone who knows me IRL can attest, I'm big on puns and dad jokes, so hopefully you can appreciate that my mind went not to changing the recipe for a Pumpkin Spice Latte, but to changing one letter that makes all the difference. So I hereby present to you all the... PUMPKIN SPICE LATKE Latkes are a traditional Jewish dish, typically served around Hanukkah, and are basically a potato pancake or fritter. They're also plainly seasoned, usually just with salt and maybe pepper. Time to change that. Ingredients are pretty simple:  2 potatoes 1 onion 2 eggs 3/4 c. matzo meal 1 T. kosher salt 2 t. pumpkin spice There's also neutral oil for frying, and traditional toppings of applesauce, sour cream, and chives.  I'm using Badia Pimpkin Pie Spice mainly because it was cheaper than a smaller canister of McCormick's equivalent blend (the only other option at my nearest grocery), and because McCormick's uses allspice instead of cloves, a substitution I simply cannot abide. Mainly on principle, mind you; I'm sure it tastes fine. Prep begins by measuring out the matzo meal and beating the eggs:    Next, I peel the potatoes and onion and shred them using the grating disc on my food processor:   After that, we want to squeeze as much liquid out of the shredded potatoes and onion as we can. Ideally, this would be done using using cheesecloth, which I was certain I had on hand but did not. I ended up squeezing/pushing them down over a fine mesh skimmer. Potatoes and onions are both very watery vegetables, so even using a substandard method, I still managed to extract a lot of liquid:  Nest we pour off the excess liquid, reserving the potato starch which settles on the bottom of the bowl. It's thick, viscous, scummy stuff:  We pour it on the potatoes, followed by the salt and spices:  Regarding the amount of pumpkin spice to use, I settled on two teaspoons, figuring that the flavor afforded by one teaspoon might get lost among the larger volume of vegetables, but a whole tablespoon would probably overpower everything else. Next thing is to toss the vegetables with the salt, starch and spices. This takes some effort as the vegetables tend to clump together a bit, making it more difficult to get the seasonings distributed evenly:  Next, add the eggs and matzo in gradually, alternating each addition and mizing until we finally get a thick, slightly sticky batter:  Now that the batter is done, I begin heating up the oil in a cast iron skillet; meanwhile I form the batter into fairly small patties. I figure my pan can cook four at a time, so that's how many I form at first:  Once the oil is ready, I put in the formed patties. Loks like I miscalculated, though--my pan can only hold three!  The oil is just deep enough to mostly cover the patties as they cook. I give three minutes a side, which is enough to cook them golden brown:  While each batch cooks, I prepare the next batch of three. While the final three are cooking, I take the time to mince about a tablespoon of chives:   Finally, all the latkes are cooked. The recipe made an even dozen:  Now, I'm not Jewish, and i've never acutally made even plain latkes before, so I don't know which toppings I prefer. As stated above, I know that applesauce, sour cream, and chives are the traditional ones, so I got all three ready here. I figured the applesauce would likely best complement the pumpkin spice flavorings, given that apples generally take the same spices. At any rate, I tried three right away: one wth just applesauce, one with sour cream and chives, and one with all three:  The verdict: I personally thought topping the latkes with all three gave the best result. The one with just applesauce was a little bland--I used unsweetened applesauce because to my palate even unsweetened applesauce is still pretty sweet. Here, however, none of the flavors really stand out; it seems like the sweet and savory flavors cancel each other out. somehow. The sour cream and chives was better, but lacked the mouthfeel provided by the applesauce, and surprisingly the onion was the strongest flavor that came out in it. The one topped with all three was the best IMO. I was worried the flavors of the sour cream, chives, and applesauce would clash horribly with each other, but as it turns out they went fine together. Maybe the spice flavorings helped offset the clashing flavor profiles or something, I dunno.  Anyways, all in all it wasn't too bad. As I see it, we tend to think of pumpkin spice as being a sweet flavoring, given its predominant use in sweet applications. I though it was interesting to see how the flavors fared in a more savory dish. They were defiunintely there, I could pick out the pungency in the finished cakes. That was the main impression I had of how the sipces affeced the dish: it added pungency. I do think I used an appropriate amount of the spices, and my initial judgment was correct: less would have been too little, and more would have been too much. With two teaspoons, the flavors were noticeable but not overpowering, and nicely set off the astringency of the sour cream. Maybe next time I should either make plain latkes to see what they're supposed to taste like normally, or use sweetened applesauce to see if the flavor holds up better against the flavorings in the cakes themselves. Now, I know I pretty regularly enter ICSA competitions, and have been a runner up once and gotten a side prize recently, so if my entry isn't valid for this competition, that's fine. I just wanted to have some fun and put this out there.
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2023 06:02
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 12, 2024 18:53 |
|
|
Off season latkes are the best! The sweetness of the applesauce really helps offset the oily-saltiness of a traditional latkes, but I usually use sour cream or eat them plain. The underrepresented part of the toppings is the temp differential. If you get a nice hot latke with some cold sour cream on top, it is fantastic. But those look great, I wonder if I can sneak some pumpkin spice into some of my batch of latkes this channukah serruptiously?
|
|
#
?
Oct 16, 2023 13:17
|
|
|
if i had all the time in the world i'd try making these with sweet potaters and caramelised onion instead of regular potatoes and onions, but i do not, so i will just say that i think sage pairs fantastically with pumpkin spice AND potatoes and would probably work awesome in these
|
|
#
?
Oct 18, 2023 00:03
|
|
