The Jewish pageant of Hanukkah is synonymous with many issues nonedible: the menorah, spinning dreidels, the quantity eight, iconic people songs, unusually long-burning oil, and, after all, the rededication of the Second Temple at Jerusalem throughout the Maccabean rebellion towards a Hellenistic empire.
However for a lot of Jews, it’s all in regards to the meals.
Apart from the standard vacation staples like matzo ball soup, brisket, roasted rooster, and challah bread, Hanukkah prominently options oily fried treats—most famously the deliciously crispy potato latke.
It’d as properly be hard-wired into Ashkenazi Jewish genes that each household should have its personal latke recipe. Some make the dish like a crispy hash brown patty, others (like mine) go for extra of a pancake-like consistency; some use russet potatoes, others use Yukon gold; some fry in vegetable oils, others insist upon schmaltz (rendered poultry fats); some season with salt and pepper, others get artistic by including sugar and spice (or an much more radical thought: Sichuan peppercorn).
Attempt as all of us may, few latkes are as constantly golden brown and crispy-as-all-get-out however delightfully chewy as these made by Ben’s Deli, a sequence of kosher-style eating places that can quickly enter its fiftieth yr slinging consolation meals for ravenous New Yorkers.
However Ben’s traditional tackle the potato pancake isn’t primarily based on some centuries-old, misty-eyed familial hyperlink to the outdated nation.
“I wasn’t pleased with the best way the potato latkes had been being made,” Ben’s Deli founder and proprietor Ronnie Dragoon defined to me. “So, this was no long-lost recipe nor was it my late mom’s recipe however, somewhat, I wished it to be one of the best industrial potato latkes.”
In the event you’re a Jewish individual (or only a deli fanatic) with roots in New York, or extra particularly, the Lengthy Island suburbs, odds are that Ben’s holds a nostalgic place in your life.
The chain’s signature neon pink brand, art-deco eating rooms, caricature art work of Dragoon, and gag items (e.g., a T-shirt with a Ben’s beef salami stick, captioned “The Longer It Hangs… The Better It Tastes”) have graced its many areas all through the world. The chain’s heaping platters of sliced deli meats, rye bread, pickles, and coleslaw have been served at many a bris, child naming, shiva, synagogue perform, or miscellaneous social gathering.
When Ben’s first opened it was a fixture amongst first- or second-generation Jewish American households within the space, serving as a dependable meet-up spot after shul on the weekends. “Folks would transfer to different tables to say hello to different congregants,” Dragoon reminisced.
However as time went on and as meals developments continued to maneuver away from the salty or fried, traditional Jewish-style delis typically have grow to be extra like a novelty. Or worse: many of those have institutions have closed, following the unhappy destiny of the tri-state area’s vanishing diners.
“Each technology faraway from the immigrant expertise is much less loyal to the kosher deli,” Dragoon lamented. “There was once one to 2 kosher delis in each Jewish city on Lengthy Island. Now, you may’t discover them.”
Ben’s Deli has, certainly, misplaced just a few areas over time—together with its founding spot on the South Shore—however on the half-century mark, it nonetheless dots the island with three areas, along with a Manhattan spot that changed Garment District institution Lou G. Siegel’s deli after an eight-decade run, a Queens eating room, and an outpost in Boca Raton, the place many loyal patrons of yesteryear have made their migratory retirement.
However Ben’s has carried on, Dragoon mentioned, and it could be thanks partially to the model’s relentless efforts to adapt. Of explicit delight to the Ben’s Deli proprietor in our dialog was the addition of his plant-based and dietary menus. And over time, the family-owned chain has additionally launched a collection of new paninis, wraps, specialty burgers and the vacation choice to have your latkes made with some “more healthy” flavors like spinach or candy potato.
However the stars of the Ben’s Deli present are—and endlessly can be—the Jewish must-haves. The matzo ball soup. The home-cured meats like corned beef, tongue, and pastrami. The “Jewish peasant dishes,” as Dragoon described them: beef flanken within the pot (a kitchen sink rooster soup with matzo ball, kreplach, peas, carrots, and boiled fall-off-the-bone fatty brief rib; additionally my go-to order since I used to be teen), stuffed derma (a savory animal fat-and-matzo-meal sausage-like concoction), conventional goulash, baked potato knish, chopped liver, kasha varnishkes (buckwheat groats with bowtie noodles, typically served with gravy), and gefilte fish (should you don’t already know, you in all probability gained’t need to know).
And, after all, the latkes.
Dragoon mentioned he has constantly toyed with the recipe over time, together with utilizing month-to-month deli managers’ conferences to “make sure we’re doing one of the best of the breed,” tweaking the method primarily based on a person deli’s enhancements on the standard.
Whereas Ben’s latkes is probably not primarily based on a particular household recipe, their genesis is rooted in mimicking the selfmade strategies—however tailored to scale. When self-described “younger pup” Dragoon based his first restaurant in 1972, he recalled, his Jewish deli friends had been working their potatoes by way of a big grinder. “Potato pancakes needs to be shredded on the ‘knuckle buster,’” he mentioned, referring to each house prepare dinner’s expertise with bloodied arms whereas scraping the final nub of a potato on a surprisingly sharp old-school field grater. “And so I bought a machine that did that. As a result of the potato taste, whenever you grind it, will not be the identical taste as whenever you shred it.”
And in order that’s what made the latkes a hit, Dragoon mentioned—one which has drawn the eye of different esteemed delicatessens.
“The house owners of the world-famous Carnegie Deli referred to as me and mentioned Ben’s potato latkes had been higher than theirs, so might I do them a favor and present them. And present them I did, and so they had been ecstatic,” he boasted. “I by no means minded spreading the gospel of excellence, even to opponents!”
INGREDIENTS
- 3 lb (9 medium) White all-purpose potatoes, peeled
- .5 lb (1 giant) Yellow onion
- 3 Massive eggs
- 1.74 tsp Kosher salt
- .25 tsp Floor nutmeg
- .25 tsp Floor white pepper
- 1 cup Flour
- Oil
- Apple sauce, for dipping
DIRECTIONS
- Shred the potatoes and place them in a bowl full of chilly water. Shred the onion. Add the potatoes and onions to a colander and drain properly, urgent to launch all of the liquid.
- In a big bowl, whisk collectively the eggs, salt, nutmeg and pepper. Add the potatoes and onion to the egg combination. Stir to mix. Add the flour and stir to mix properly.
- Warmth 1 inch deep of oil in a big heavy skillet. Utilizing an ice cream scoop, scoop a beneficiant half cup of the potato combination into the new oil. Utilizing the again aspect of the ice cream scoop, flatten the potato combination to a few quarters of an inch thick. Prepare dinner, turning the latke over midway by way of the prepare dinner time, till golden brown on each side and cooked within the heart.
- Take away the latke and place on paper towel to take away the surplus oil. Serve with applesauce.
- Makes 10 servings.
