Potato Pancakes with Awesome Sides!!!!

Happy Hanukkah!!  Whatever holiday you celebrate, there is not a single person who can say they don’t like latkes! I mean come on, a delicious potato pancake served with awesome sides. While making them for this recipe we probably ate 10 of them, but made sure we had enough left to photograph. I am eating one as I type this, cold…because they are awesome hot or cold.

These are some straight forward delish potato latkes with some very amazing garnishes…cinnamon/pear/apricot jam, ponzu sour cream, and some jalapeno bacon jam! Though the bacon jam isn’t kosher….it’s wonderful!

This recipe makes about a dozen! Maybe more but you will have a dozen after you eat the ones right out the pan.

Ingredients:

Potato Pancakes:
1 bottle vegetable oil
7 Russet potatoes
1 large shallot
2 eggs
¾ cup wheat flour
Kosher Salt

Jalapeno Bacon Jam:
1 pack bacon
4 jalapenos
½ cup brown sugar
½ lemon

Cinnamon Pear Jam:
4 small apricots
2 large bosc pears
½ cup sugar
½ lemon
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Ponzu Sour Cream:
½ cup sour cream
2 Tablespoons Ponzu
2 teaspoons Siracha

 

Start by making garnishes so that you have them ready.

Jalapeno Bacon Jam:

Remove seeds from jalapenos and chop. Dice bacon as well. In a large skillet on a medium high heat, render bacon and jalapeno stirring every few minutes. Cook for about 15 minutes or until browned a bit.

Place in a food processor and blend slightly. Add back into the pan. Lower heat until medium and add a ¼ cup of water, cook until water has evaporated. Add another ¼ cup of water, the sugar, and squeeze the half lemon. Stir, and let cook for about  6 minutes.

Remove from heat, and let sit.

Cinnamon Pear Jam:

Chop up apricots and pears and place in small sauce pan on medium high heat. Using a masher, mash up fruit until mostly liquid with small pieces. Bring fruit to a boil.

Once boiling, squeeze the lemon half, and stir in sugar. Let that come to a boil for 2 minutes, and then lower heat to a simmer.

Let simmer and cook down, stirring every few minutes, for about 25 minutes.

Set aside and let cool.

Ponzu Sour Cream:

This one is very simple… simply mix all the ingredients together!

Potato Pancakes:

To make the pancakes peel all of the potatoes. You are going to be preparing the potatoes into three different ways, so basically into thirds. Cube two of the potatoes, and place in a pot of salted water, and bring to a boil. Let boil for 15 minutes.

In a large bowl, grate the remainder of the potatoes, with the large side of a grater. Press with a paper towel to get rid of excess moisture.

Now, chop up the shallot, and take half of the grated potatoes and place into a food processor with the shallot and pulse. Place back into the large bowl with the grated potatoes.

Once the boiling potatoes are tender, drain and mash up. Place those into the large bowl with the rest of the potatoes.

Using a large spoon mix all the potato mix together, with a large pinch of salt, two eggs, and the wheat flour. Now your mix is ready.

In a large skillet on medium heat, heat up about a ¼ inch of oil. When the oil is ready, plop in a spoonful of potato mix and push down. Place about 3 pancakes in. Cook for about 7 minutes, flipping halfway through. Place on a paper towel to drain excess oil, and sprinkle with salt.

Voila! Now serve with garnishes and enjoy!

 

Cinco de Mayo Savory and Sweet Empanadas!!

 

Happy Cinco de Mayo! Cinco de Mayo, as I wrote about in last year’s post, is a holiday celebrating the Battle of Puebla. It is celebrated as a holiday of Mexican heritage pride, and is widely celebrated in the United States, becoming more popular in mainstream American culture. So much of America is a huge melting pot of different cultures, that to celebrate a holiday that has been adopted and assimilated in American culture, we have made a dish that has been adopted and assimilated by many cultures; the empanada!

 

Empanadas origins are traced back to Spain and Portugal during the time of Moorish invasions, coming from the word empanar, meaning wrap or coat in bread. Through colonization, travel, and trade throughout the world, the empanada has moved to Latin America, Southern Europe, Southeast Asia, and parts of Southwest America; it is a truly universal food.

We made two kinds of empanadas, one savory and one sweet. The savory empanada is filled with potato, chorizo, and queso fresco, the sweet is filled with papaya jam.

This recipe takes about 2.5 hours

Ingredients: serves 10-12

Empanada Dough:
2 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 stick (1/2 cup) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
2 large egg
1/3 cup ice water
1 tablespoon distilled white vinegar

Savory Empanada:
10 oz chorizo
2 cloves garlic
4 medium golden potatoes
1 Tablespoon white wine vinegar
2 large pinches salt
¼ teaspoon black pepper

Sweet Empanada:
1 very ripe papaya
¼ cup + a pinch sugar
1 Tablespoon lemon juice

 

 





Start by making the dough. Either by hand or in a food processor combine flour, salt, and cubed cold butter and mix until everything combined. In a small bowl whisk together one egg, vinegar, and water and pour into the flour mix, and using a fork mix everything together. On a floured surface knead out dough until just combined, pat into a rectangle, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for one hour.

To make savory filling, chop up potatoes, remove chorizo from casings and mince both garlic cloves. Fill a medium sauce pan with water, bring to a boil, then drop in potato and boil for about 10 minutes, or until soft. In a sauté pan set to medium heat, render the fat out of chorizo for about 7 minutes, constantly stirring, then add garlic and cook for another 5 minutes. Set chorizo aside and let cool. Once potatoes have been cooked, drain and the water out, add salt, vinegar, and pepper, and mash up with two forks. Let cool.

To make sweet filling cut the papaya in half, remove seeds, and remove from skin with a spoon. In a small sauce pan on medium heat, start smashing up the papaya. Once the papaya starts to bubble, pour in sugar and lemon juice and stir for 6 minutes. Pour in a small bowl and let cool.

After the dough has chilled for an hour, cut in half, and one half at a time on a floured surface roll out about 1/8” thick. Using any circular shape (we used a bowl, and then a cookie cutter) cut out circles, larger ones for savory, and smaller ones for sweet.

To fill the empanadas, in a small bowl whisk one egg. To make the savory empanada; scoop about a Tablespoon of potato, a Tablespoon of chorizo, and sprinkle some queso fresco in the middle. Brush around the edge of the dough with egg, and then fold over, and using a fork push down on edges to seal. To fill the sweet it is a bit tricky and involves so finger skills. Pick up the smaller circle, fold slightly in half, fill with papaya jam, brush the inner edge with egg, push the edges together, lay back down on baking sheet, and using the fork push together. Chill the empanadas for 30 minutes. Keep egg wash.

Preheat oven to 375. Once empanadas chill, poke some holes to allow for steam to escape, and brush with the remainder of egg wash. Sprinkle the sweet empanadas with sugar.

Bake for 30 minutes, rotating half way. You want them to be golden brown. Check the sweet ones at 20 minutes to make sure they don’t burn, sugar can brown very quickly.

Enjoy!!

Holiday Pear Jam and Butter Scone

Today is my love Michael’s birthday. It doesn’t feel like the holidays until we have celebrated his birthday. So this is a post by me (Francesca) for my true love, Michael, to kick off winter holidays and to give him a delicious breakfast the morning of his birthday.

I have prepared simple butter scones with cinnamon pear jam. What is great about this jam is that it perfectly invokes the holidays, and is a great gift to give people.  Make the jam in advance, have it around, and scones make on a whim. They are amazing!

Ingredients:  serves 8
Butter Scones:

1 ¾ cups flour
4 Tablespoons sugar 
1 ½ teaspoon baking powder 
½ Teaspoon salt 
1 stick unsalted butter
2 eggs, beaten with 
¼ cup milk

Jam:

4 Bosc Pears
1 ½ cups sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Start by making the jam. Peel and dice the pears and place in large sauce pan. Using a masher, mash up the pear bits until it is almost like a puree. Turn the heat until medium high, and stir while bringing to a boil. Boil for about 3 minutes. Add sugar, stir until dissolved, and reduce heat to low so that you can simmer. Add cinnamon, and simmer for 25 minutes, stirring every few minutes.

In order to properly jar, follow the canning procedures we have used in earlier jamming posts.

To make the scones, preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Dice the butter into small pieces, and chill.

Mix together all of your dry ingredients, but 1 Tablespoon of sugar. Next mix in the butter, coating all the pieces with the flour mix. Using two forks, break the butter up into the flour mix until they are in small pieces, but not until it is completely mixed. You leave some bigger pieces, because in the oven it creates great moisture and flakiness.

In a small bowl mix together eggs and milk. Pout the wet mix into the dry mix, stirring together until just mixed together.

Grease a baking sheet, and place the dough (it will be very wet) on to the middle of the tray and make into a 10” wide disk. Use the last Tablespoon of sugar and sprinkle on dough.

Carefully cut the dough into 8 pieces, leaving them in place. Place in oven and bake for 10 minutes. Recut the pieces and separate ½ and inch away from each other and place back in oven to bake until golden brown, about 5 more minutes.

Let cool slightly and eat!!

I love you Michael!

Summer Fruit Fall Jam

Michael and I went to Colorado in the beginning of August to visit some friends and check out a door to door organic delivery company they have called Mile High Organics. Something we were really struck by was that our friend Brian has this beautiful range of things he has pickled, jarred, jammed, you name it. When we went to stay with another friend, he was so kind to give us a delicious jar of Colorado cherry jam, and I realized there is just something really beautiful about preserving a specific taste that you can use throughout the year. Many of the fruits of the summer are coming to an end, and it is a perfect time to preserve them before they disappear. Just think, when it gets cold and you are drinking your tea, you can enjoy some of this jam and re-experience those wonderful tastes of summer.

What we recently learned is the difference between jelly, jam, and preserves. We made jams and preserves because I want to honor the fruit in its entirety and incorporate as much of it as we can.

Jelly: The fruit comes in the form of fruit juice.
Jam: The fruit comes in the form of fruit pulp of crushed fruit.
Preserve: The fruit comes in the form of chunks in a syrup or jam.

We made strawberry jam, peach jam, nectarine brandy preserve, and cherry almond preserve. Along with the recipe, we also included below a few suggestions of how to use each of these. At the end of the recipes we included the Ball canning link where you can follow the proper instructions of how to can things, otherwise your food will not properly preserve. So be sure to check out.

Ingredients:

Strawberry jam:
2 Lb strawberries
1 ½ cup sugar

Peach jam:
2 Lbs. peaches
1 ¼ cup sugar

Nectarine Brandy preserve:
2 Lbs nectarine
1 ½ cups sugar
¼ cup brandy

Cherry Almond preserve:
4 cups cherries
1 large lemon
½ cup white sugar
½ cup brown
1 tsp. almond extract

Strawberry jam (as photographed) is amazingly good with rosemary thyme bread, a little blue cheese, or and stinky cheese and a slab of jam.

Peach jam is delightful with a simple high tea spread with some scones.

This nectarine preserve makes a great base in a nectarine tart. Place in the tart shell, and under the fruit. Yum.

Of course cherry preserve is always a favorite of ours in between cake layers. A classic, and never failing.

Strawberry Jam:
Cut the green off of your strawberries and chop in half, and crush half of your mix of strawberries. In a large sauce pan pour all the strawberries and sugar and heat to a boil on a medium heat. Cook for about 10-15 minutes until the mix starts to thicken while stirring every minute or so.

Peach jam:
We leave the skin on the peaches because it adds a nice texture, so simply pit and chop the peaches. Place the peaches and sugar in a sauce pan and on medium heat bring to a boil. Using a masher, mash up the peaches as they start to soften, stir every few minutes for about 10- 15 minutes as the mix thickens.

Nectarine Brandy preserve:
Leave the skin on the nectarine, pit, and chop. In a sauce pan bring the nectarine and brandy to a boil over medium heat. Add half of the sugar mixture, and stir. Let nectarines soften and using your masher, mash them. Add the other half of the sugar, and stir. This preserve takes a bit to thicken up, so you will need to cook it for about 20 minutes, and may need to skim off some foam.

Cherry Almond preserve:
De-pit and chop half of the cherries, leaving the other half as intact as possible. Cook the cherries on a medium high heat, and bring to a boil. Stir and add all the other ingredients, and stir for about 20 minutes until the mix thickens.

Now that you have made all of your preserves be sure to follow all the steps to proper canning because nothing would suck more than all your hard work going to waste!!! Enjoy this for the months to come!!

http://www.freshpreserving.com/Libraries/Homepage_and_FreshTools_Guides/StepByStepHighAcid.sflb.ashx