‘Tis the Season: A Kemach Torah Passover Digest

First things first: The 2012 Passover Guide is proving to be enormously popular, at least by the standards of a niche blog like this one. The hit count on March 30th, the day it was published, was more than three times the previous record hit count for a single day. Thanks to everyone who shared it through Facebook, Google+ and word of mouth, and please keep spreading the word!* Please treat the comments section of this post as the new suggestion box for additions to the 2013 Guide.

Now that we’re in the final week of preparations, I thought it would be a good time to present some relevant posts you might have missed last year.

1. Who Knows Three? An explanation, a bit on the technical side, of why we have three matzot on the modern seder plate.
2. A Question of Seasonality. Addressing the oddity of charoset, which is usually made with apples even though they’re a fall crop and Passover is a spring holiday. Read the comments section.
3. The Curious Case of Matzah Ashirah. How egg matzah is highly problematic for reasons that make no sense.
4. Carrot “consommé” (vegan). Not necessarily a Passover recipe, but if you read the Guide (just follow the first link in this article) you’ll see that that’s exactly the point.

So much for old business. Now, how about that Passover-hekhshered ice cream? No? And you don’t have a dedicated ice cream maker for Passover? No problem.

Shavua tov!

* I don’t make money off of this blog or anything. I just want to make Passover better.

PSA: How to get the latkes you want

The Internet is host to a zillion latke recipes. Some of them aren’t what you would expect. I’m not going to cram in another one, but since tonight is the first night of Chanukka I thought I should say something about them. Whichever recipe you choose to follow, here are some tips for making delicious, problem-free latkes:

1. Know your potatoes (assuming you’re making latkes out of potatoes). Waxy potatoes, also known as boiling potatoes, contain less starch and therefore don’t get as thick or bind to each other as well when fried. If you’re using these—and you might want to, because some of them are delicious—make sure you use a little extra egg and flour/matzo meal/whatever as binder. Starchy potatoes, also called baking potatoes, bind to themselves naturally when fried. Yukon golds also make excellent latkes without too much extra binder.
2. Alternate grating onions and potatoes, and mix the batter a little when you switch. When you grate a potato, you expose its internal starches to oxygen, which causes them to turn brown. (This is the same process that browns the slices of a cut apple.) The acid from onion juice slows down this process and makes for a nicer-looking latke. Grating all the potatoes and then the onion allows the reaction to get started quickly, while keeping the potato always in contact with some onion prevents this.
3. Drain the potatoes and onions once they’re grated. Many a cook has mixed up what seemed like the perfect latke batter, only to have it become watery and difficult to handle when the time comes to fry. (Frying very wet batter can also be dangerous, since lots of water dropped into hot oil causes spattering.) This happens because the vegetables continue to “bleed” watery liquid for a while after they’ve been grated. You can let them sit in a bowl for ten minutes and then tip it out, or even better, drain them for ten minutes in a colander and then squeeze out the excess.
4. Stir in the salt at the last minute if your circumstances allow. Salt leeches more moisture out of the vegetables and creates the same problem addressed in point 3.
5. Stir the batter between frying batches. No matter how diligent you are about steps 3 and 4, some liquid will always settle at the bottom of the bowl. Stirring from the bottom up redistributes it and keeps the batter moist, while not stirring results in a puddle at the bottom and a final batch of weird, splotchy latkes.
6. Keep the oil hot. Fried foods don’t have to be fatty, and the best way to keep them crispy and not soggy with oil is to make sure that the oil itself stays between 350 and 365 degrees Fahrenheit (177 to 185 Celsius). If you have a frying thermometer, use it. If not, drop a small test latke into the oil—enthusiastic sizzling should begin on contact, rather than sluggishly building up. Also, if you find your oil running low, do not add oil while there are latkes in the pan. This will cause the temperature to plunge and result in soggy, oily pancakes. Instead, finish the batch in the pan and then add more oil, giving it time to heat up before you start on the next round of latkes.
7. After frying, drain the latkes well. Some extra oil always follows a latke out of the pan, so place them on a towel-lined plate to dry. You can also drain them directly in a wire mesh strainer positioned over a bowl or the sink, which allows both sides to remain crisp rather than steaming the underside.

If you have any other advice for better latkes, please share! Chanukka sameach!

French toast and bal tashchit

כִּֽי־תָצ֣וּר אֶל־עִיר֩ יָמִ֨ים רַבִּ֜ים לְֽהִלָּחֵ֧ם עָלֶ֣יהָ לְתָפְשָׂ֗הּ לֹֽא־תַשְׁחִ֤ית אֶת־עֵצָהּ֙ לִנְדֹּ֤חַ עָלָיו֙ גַּרְזֶ֔ן כִּ֚י מִמֶּ֣נּוּ תֹאכֵ֔ל וְאֹת֖וֹ לֹ֣א תִכְרֹ֑ת כִּ֤י הָֽאָדָם֙ עֵ֣ץ הַשָּׂדֶ֔ה לָבֹ֥א מִפָּנֶ֖יךָ בַּמָּצֽוֹר: רַ֞ק עֵ֣ץ אֲשֶׁר־תֵּדַ֗ע כִּ֣י לֹא־עֵ֤ץ מַֽאֲכָל֙ ה֔וּא אֹת֥וֹ תַשְׁחִ֖ית וְכָרָ֑תָּ וּבָנִ֣יתָ מָצ֗וֹר עַל־הָעִיר֙ אֲשֶׁר־הִוא֙ עֹשָׂ֧ה עִמְּךָ֛ מִלְחָמָ֖ה עַ֥ד רִדְתָּֽהּ:־

When you lay siege to a city for a long time in order to capture it, do not take an axe to its trees to destroy them; you may eat from them, but not destroy them. Is a tree a person to whom you should lay siege? You may destroy a tree that you know is not a fruit-bearing tree, and use it to build siege works against the city that is warring with you until it falls. (Deuteronomy 20:19-20)

This passage, forbidding the destruction of fruit trees during a siege, is the basis for a broad swath of Jewish law known as bal tashchit, roughly “do not destroy.” A quick summation of bal tashchit would go something like this: Do not needlessly waste resources, or exhaust a resource in a way that minimizes the benefit derived. For example, throwing a perfectly good raw potato in the garbage is prohibited, but so is eating it raw, since this provides neither the nutrition nor the enjoyment normally associated with potatoes. (Now I know what I’m having for lunch.) Jewish environmental groups often cite the principles of bal tashchit, if not the specific laws, as a religious foundation for ecological conservation programs.