Only in Southern California. A beach town Jewish congregation creates a super-sized potato pancake to make McDonald’s proud.
Southern Californians like to pride themselves in being innovators and concocting new ideas that the country soon follows.
Members of Temple Isaiah in Newport Beach combined a green Chanukah with the traditional blue and white celebration making it into a light aqua event, and an attempt to break the world record for the largest potato latke.
Potato pancakes -- latkes -- are traditional fare served at Chanukah parties and are usually about four inches in diameter.
Isaiah congregants shredded enough of the spuds to make a three-foot wide super supper latke, which they cooked up in a solar paneled oven.
Record setting by itself, it must have taken a fantastic amount of sun power to heat up an oven big enough to cook that giant pancake. Not even new kitchen ovens are that big.
Rabbi Marc Rubenstein said in a sermon to the 100-family congregation that focused on the environment, "We are our brother's keeper, and we also have to take care of the Earth."
A neat idea and a fun thing to do, but I’m afraid there will be no prize as far as latke purists are concerned.
Real potato latkes are fried; their’s was baked.
If anything, they should win a prize for baking up the world’s biggest potato kugel.
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Joan Walsh
Kerry Lauerman
Professor Emeritus Peter Bagnolo
Salon.com
Comments
I was raised Catholic, but never mind. Latkes ROCK.
Will make some tonight!
Update with recipe?
My recipe, but they won't taste like my granny's...they'll be close.
One egg to every four medium-size white rose potatoes. [Idahos are okay; white rose are best]
Salt and pepper.
1 Tbsp flour.
Food processor until grainy in consistency.
Fry on both sides until golden in at least 2 inches of really hot Crisco in the can; not liquid oil.
I'm a purist and don't add onion, garlic or anything else, but you can add onion to desired taste.
Be careful, even though I use a slotted spoon to dip out the potato mixture, there's still a lot of water in it and it splatters; I have the burn marks on my right hand to proove it.
Top with sour cream (my favorite), but a lot of people like applesauce.
Easy go-with brisket.
One lean, fat trim brisket.
Any chopped up veggies you like: Onion, carrots, parsnips, celery, parsley
One pkg lipton onion soup mix..
and/or
One pkg brown gravy mix and one pkg au juis mix
Mix dry soups and gravy mixes with about 4 cups of water and check through cooking process, because it reduces.
Arrange vegetables around brisket, pour gravy over it. Bake covered at 300 degrees for hours until it falls apart unless you like it chewy.
Let me know how they come out if you make either recipe, that is if you can figure out how to send messages through this site, which I haven't been able to do yet. I'm sure it's right there in front of my nose, I've just missed it.