EthNYC Eats: Learn How to Make Big Al Frank's Potato Latkes
Welcome to the Daily News' exciting new food series EthNYC Eats. Each week we'll bring you inside the kitchen of a New York family who will showcase their joy of cooking together and share their delicious recipes with you. Enjoy!
Belle Gabel's grandfather passed away in 2008 — but his latke recipe didn’t die with him.
And the Barnard student just learned how to make them thanks to her aunt, Charlene Frank. The duo is the first in the Daily News’ “EthNYC Eats” series, featuring New Yorkers who are keeping family recipes alive by teaching a relative their favorite dish.
Frank, who loves cooking for family and friends, chose to whip up “Big Al Frank’s Potato Latkes” in honor of her dad (Gabel’s grandpa).
“I love to cook and my dad loved my cooking,” says Frank, while prepping the meal in her Upper East Side apartment. “The potato latkes were all about my dad. I wrote down (his) recipe, which was difficult because he used ‘some of this and some of that,’ but I needed these to come out as good as his.
Enlarge
JULIA XANTHOS/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
“Big Al Frank's Potato Latkes” served with sour cream and apple sauce.
“So I watched and wrote, and tried over and over until I got it. It was so meaningful because nobody in my family thinks about potato latkes, which we all love, without think of daddy. He didn’t cook a lot, except for on the barbecue, but the latkes, well, everybody came home for them.”
Today, the potato pancakes help connect the Eastern European Jewish family to their roots.
“Now they are a continuation, a way to keep us going as a family with a history and to move that history forward,” Frank says.
The first challenge to cooking her dad’s latkes is preparing them in a New York City apartment with limited space. But Frank makes it work, even sharing tips for cooking in small kitchen on her blog, galleykitchengourmet.blogspot.com. She offers advice like: get a strong plastic cutting board that will cover your sink for extra counter space; and if you need an extra table or chairs for a dinner party, ask your building super, who may have them.
JULIA XANTHOS/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Belle Gabel (l.) and her aunt, Charlene Frank, cook potato latkes on the Upper East Side.
Frank pairs her tasty latkes with sour cream and apple sauce. “Cooking with Belle was the best,” she says. “We’ve cooked together before at a class we took at Sur la Table and I was so proud of her. I hope that she got some of my feeling about cooking from this experience and she learned things that my mom taught me, like clean as you cook and prep before you cook.
“My favorite thing about cooking with her and with any of the family members is making sure the recipes don’t die.”
Frank has even self-published cookbooks that she’s gifted to family members over the years, complete with old photos.
“People like to know where they came from and what they're about,” she says. “As we become more and more mobile, the feeling of roots can disappear. You can have roots by cooking something that has been in your family generation after generation.”
Frank keeps her ancestors alive in other ways, too.
COURTESY OF THE FAMILY
Charlene Frank's parents (pictured) Rosalie (Ricky) Bayroff and Al Frank started the delicious family recipe.
“In my living room is a beautiful brass coffee table my grandfather made, and a samovar my grandparents brought with them when they came to the United States from Vilna (in Lithuania),” she shares. “There are lots of paintings from my Aunt Mollie’s gallery as well as her table and chairs.”
Gabel, 20, admits she has a lot to learn in the kitchen, but is grateful for the lesson from her aunt.
“She is definitely the head chef, and I’m the sous chef,” Gabel says. “I can make latkes, but they never turn out as good. I guess I need more practice, but, yes, I will definitely be able to pass on the recipe.”
Calling amateur cooks ...
Maybe it is your Nonna’s lasgana, Yiayia’s baklava, or Mam’s yassa. If you have a meaningful family recipe that you want to pass down or learn from a relative, e-mail us at ethNYCeats@nydailynews.com.
You might be picked to be featured in our new “EthNYC Eats” series, where different New York families with roots around the world give a cooking lesson.
In the coming weeks, we’ll feature recipes for Korean bulgogi, Jewish meatballs, Swiss steak, Dominican chicken soup, Russian/Ukrainian meat patties, pea risotto and sausage and peppers.
RECIPE: BIG AL FRANK’S POTATO LATKES
INGREDIENTS
(from his daughter, Charlene Frank)
5 pounds baking potatoes, such as Russet - they have to be hard, like Russet. (Peel and cut out all the eyes, because they add a bitter taste. For a variation, try 3 or 4 yams.) Hint - You can easily halve or double this recipe. But when you halve it, still use 2 eggs and use just a little less than 1 teaspoon baking powder.
3 or 4 yams (a variation - use 3 or 4 medium size yams, it's delicious if you want to give it a try)
1 large onion, peeled
2 eggs, b1 teaspoon baking powder
1 palm of Kosher (coarse) salt (if your palm is small, add more, my dad was a big guy with big hands)
Matzo meal
All-purpose flour
Oil for frying (a light oil like canola or sunflower oil or a light vegetable oil)
INSTRUCTIONS
Cut the onion into pieces that will fit in the food processor. Put them in food processor with bottom blade, and process. Remove the bottom blade, put on top blade with shredder side up.
Shred potatoes and then put them into a very large bowl or pot (preferably a colander covered with cheesecloth).
When they’re all shredded you need to get as much moisture out as possible. I do the following:
Drain excess liquid from potato mixture — if you have them in a colander over a bowl or pan, push them down and squish the moisture out. If you’re following the cheesecloth hint below, squeeze the moisture out, toss the potatoes around and squeeze again. Only dry potatoes hold their shape.
Add eggs to onion/potato mixture.
Add baking powder and salt.
Cover mixture with flour (not too thick, not too thin — that’s what Dad told me).
Cover this mixture with matzo meal (thicker than flour). Mix everything together — I use my hands because there’s a lot of potatoes here.
Taste to be sure salt is OK. (Hint — if you taste before adding the matzo meal and flour it may taste too salty, always taste after they've been added. In the variation using the yams, the mixture doesn’t get as wet, but it is OK.)
Heat the oil in a very large frying pan (or two). The oil has to be very hot (but not smoking) or the pancakes will fall apart.
Important - the oil must be very hot, but not smoking. I usually am not patient enough to wait for the oil to be hot enough and my first batch fails.
Scoop some mixture into a slotted spoon — make it just enough to allow at least four pancakes to cook at the same time with enough room that they don’t touch. Don’t expect to make it into a pancake before it is in the oil. Just carefully place it into the hot oil and it will stay together.
Before turning it over, lift it a little to be sure bottom is deep golden brown (they’re the most delicious when they’re crispy).
Remove from heat when both sides are golden. When you lift them out with a spatula, press top of the pancake with a big fork or against the side of the pan to get excess oil out. Drain on a cookie sheet covered with paper towels (or a brown paper bag like Dad used to do) to get as much oil out as possible.
Tip 1: Put a cheesecloth in a big colander in the pot or bowl you are using and put the shredded potatoes in the cheesecloth-covered colander. The moisture will drip out through the colander and then you can squeeze the extra out using the cheesecloth. Once you squeeze it all out, open it up, toss the potatoes around and squeeze them in the cheesecloth again to ensure that all the moisture is out. If they aren’t dry, they won’t hold together.
Tip 2: Potato latkes should be golden brown and crispy. They often start out that way, but by the time they hit the table they are soft. Or people make the mixture ahead of time and do the frying right before dinner, but then the potatoes turn black and ugly. This year my sister Carol and I tried something new. We cooked the latkes until they held together like a pancake but were not yet golden brown. Then right before we served them we refried them in hot oil for about 45 seconds per side, or until they are golden on each side. It is fast and a perfect way to serve perfect latkes even for a large crowd.
If you have one, use a heavy frying pan, if not, use what you have. Sometimes we use two frying pans to get this done faster, if you do that, you'll need more oil. But usually there is too much going on in my small kitchen to use two pans
Tip 3: This is my sister Meryl’s tip for cooking and freezing latkes ahead of time, and keeping them crispy.
Cook the latkes as you normally would. When they are cool, freeze them in a single layer. When you are going to use them, preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Put the latkes in a single layer on a rack in the oven. Cook for 10 to 15 minutes or until warm all the way through. Voila! Crispy delicious latkes!
Welcome to the Daily News' exciting new food series EthNYC Eats. Each week we'll bring you inside the kitchen of a New York family who will showcase their joy of cooking together and share their delicious recipes with you. Enjoy!
Belle Gabel's grandfather passed away in 2008 — but his latke recipe didn’t die with him.
And the Barnard student just learned how to make them thanks to her aunt, Charlene Frank. The duo is the first in the Daily News’ “EthNYC Eats” series, featuring New Yorkers who are keeping family recipes alive by teaching a relative their favorite dish.
Frank, who loves cooking for family and friends, chose to whip up “Big Al Frank’s Potato Latkes” in honor of her dad (Gabel’s grandpa).
“I love to cook and my dad loved my cooking,” says Frank, while prepping the meal in her Upper East Side apartment. “The potato latkes were all about my dad. I wrote down (his) recipe, which was difficult because he used ‘some of this and some of that,’ but I needed these to come out as good as his.
Enlarge
JULIA XANTHOS/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
“Big Al Frank's Potato Latkes” served with sour cream and apple sauce.
“So I watched and wrote, and tried over and over until I got it. It was so meaningful because nobody in my family thinks about potato latkes, which we all love, without think of daddy. He didn’t cook a lot, except for on the barbecue, but the latkes, well, everybody came home for them.”
Today, the potato pancakes help connect the Eastern European Jewish family to their roots.
“Now they are a continuation, a way to keep us going as a family with a history and to move that history forward,” Frank says.
The first challenge to cooking her dad’s latkes is preparing them in a New York City apartment with limited space. But Frank makes it work, even sharing tips for cooking in small kitchen on her blog, galleykitchengourmet.blogspot.com. She offers advice like: get a strong plastic cutting board that will cover your sink for extra counter space; and if you need an extra table or chairs for a dinner party, ask your building super, who may have them.
JULIA XANTHOS/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Belle Gabel (l.) and her aunt, Charlene Frank, cook potato latkes on the Upper East Side.
Frank pairs her tasty latkes with sour cream and apple sauce. “Cooking with Belle was the best,” she says. “We’ve cooked together before at a class we took at Sur la Table and I was so proud of her. I hope that she got some of my feeling about cooking from this experience and she learned things that my mom taught me, like clean as you cook and prep before you cook.
“My favorite thing about cooking with her and with any of the family members is making sure the recipes don’t die.”
Frank has even self-published cookbooks that she’s gifted to family members over the years, complete with old photos.
“People like to know where they came from and what they're about,” she says. “As we become more and more mobile, the feeling of roots can disappear. You can have roots by cooking something that has been in your family generation after generation.”
Frank keeps her ancestors alive in other ways, too.
COURTESY OF THE FAMILY
Charlene Frank's parents (pictured) Rosalie (Ricky) Bayroff and Al Frank started the delicious family recipe.
“In my living room is a beautiful brass coffee table my grandfather made, and a samovar my grandparents brought with them when they came to the United States from Vilna (in Lithuania),” she shares. “There are lots of paintings from my Aunt Mollie’s gallery as well as her table and chairs.”
Gabel, 20, admits she has a lot to learn in the kitchen, but is grateful for the lesson from her aunt.
“She is definitely the head chef, and I’m the sous chef,” Gabel says. “I can make latkes, but they never turn out as good. I guess I need more practice, but, yes, I will definitely be able to pass on the recipe.”
Calling amateur cooks ...
Maybe it is your Nonna’s lasgana, Yiayia’s baklava, or Mam’s yassa. If you have a meaningful family recipe that you want to pass down or learn from a relative, e-mail us at ethNYCeats@nydailynews.com.
You might be picked to be featured in our new “EthNYC Eats” series, where different New York families with roots around the world give a cooking lesson.
In the coming weeks, we’ll feature recipes for Korean bulgogi, Jewish meatballs, Swiss steak, Dominican chicken soup, Russian/Ukrainian meat patties, pea risotto and sausage and peppers.
RECIPE: BIG AL FRANK’S POTATO LATKES
INGREDIENTS
(from his daughter, Charlene Frank)
5 pounds baking potatoes, such as Russet - they have to be hard, like Russet. (Peel and cut out all the eyes, because they add a bitter taste. For a variation, try 3 or 4 yams.) Hint - You can easily halve or double this recipe. But when you halve it, still use 2 eggs and use just a little less than 1 teaspoon baking powder.
3 or 4 yams (a variation - use 3 or 4 medium size yams, it's delicious if you want to give it a try)
1 large onion, peeled
2 eggs, b1 teaspoon baking powder
1 palm of Kosher (coarse) salt (if your palm is small, add more, my dad was a big guy with big hands)
Matzo meal
All-purpose flour
Oil for frying (a light oil like canola or sunflower oil or a light vegetable oil)
INSTRUCTIONS
Cut the onion into pieces that will fit in the food processor. Put them in food processor with bottom blade, and process. Remove the bottom blade, put on top blade with shredder side up.
Shred potatoes and then put them into a very large bowl or pot (preferably a colander covered with cheesecloth).
When they’re all shredded you need to get as much moisture out as possible. I do the following:
Drain excess liquid from potato mixture — if you have them in a colander over a bowl or pan, push them down and squish the moisture out. If you’re following the cheesecloth hint below, squeeze the moisture out, toss the potatoes around and squeeze again. Only dry potatoes hold their shape.
Add eggs to onion/potato mixture.
Add baking powder and salt.
Cover mixture with flour (not too thick, not too thin — that’s what Dad told me).
Cover this mixture with matzo meal (thicker than flour). Mix everything together — I use my hands because there’s a lot of potatoes here.
Taste to be sure salt is OK. (Hint — if you taste before adding the matzo meal and flour it may taste too salty, always taste after they've been added. In the variation using the yams, the mixture doesn’t get as wet, but it is OK.)
Heat the oil in a very large frying pan (or two). The oil has to be very hot (but not smoking) or the pancakes will fall apart.
Important - the oil must be very hot, but not smoking. I usually am not patient enough to wait for the oil to be hot enough and my first batch fails.
Scoop some mixture into a slotted spoon — make it just enough to allow at least four pancakes to cook at the same time with enough room that they don’t touch. Don’t expect to make it into a pancake before it is in the oil. Just carefully place it into the hot oil and it will stay together.
Before turning it over, lift it a little to be sure bottom is deep golden brown (they’re the most delicious when they’re crispy).
Remove from heat when both sides are golden. When you lift them out with a spatula, press top of the pancake with a big fork or against the side of the pan to get excess oil out. Drain on a cookie sheet covered with paper towels (or a brown paper bag like Dad used to do) to get as much oil out as possible.
Tip 1: Put a cheesecloth in a big colander in the pot or bowl you are using and put the shredded potatoes in the cheesecloth-covered colander. The moisture will drip out through the colander and then you can squeeze the extra out using the cheesecloth. Once you squeeze it all out, open it up, toss the potatoes around and squeeze them in the cheesecloth again to ensure that all the moisture is out. If they aren’t dry, they won’t hold together.
Tip 2: Potato latkes should be golden brown and crispy. They often start out that way, but by the time they hit the table they are soft. Or people make the mixture ahead of time and do the frying right before dinner, but then the potatoes turn black and ugly. This year my sister Carol and I tried something new. We cooked the latkes until they held together like a pancake but were not yet golden brown. Then right before we served them we refried them in hot oil for about 45 seconds per side, or until they are golden on each side. It is fast and a perfect way to serve perfect latkes even for a large crowd.
If you have one, use a heavy frying pan, if not, use what you have. Sometimes we use two frying pans to get this done faster, if you do that, you'll need more oil. But usually there is too much going on in my small kitchen to use two pans
Tip 3: This is my sister Meryl’s tip for cooking and freezing latkes ahead of time, and keeping them crispy.
Cook the latkes as you normally would. When they are cool, freeze them in a single layer. When you are going to use them, preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Put the latkes in a single layer on a rack in the oven. Cook for 10 to 15 minutes or until warm all the way through. Voila! Crispy delicious latkes!