Confertzel Cookbook: 拉题卡

So thin...Eat! Eat!

The "Confertzel Cookbook" should serve as documentation of one Jew-in-China's attempts to make "soul food" using what is available at local Chinese wet markets and corner stores. I intend to keep the recipes fairly low budget and to use methods that most people in China (or with limited resources and kitchen facilities) could accommodate. If I offend anyone with how heinously I drift from traditional recipes, let me apologize preemptively. Specifically, I apologize to my Jewish grandmother.

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I must confess: I have been a bad Jew.

Usually, I completely loathe hearing when somebody refers to "good Jews" and "bad Jews" because it implies some notion of the proper way to be Jewish. This angers me because one of the reasons I am so proud of my Judaism is that there is plenty of room for interpretation and self-affirmation within a religion and culture that has been forced to adapt over a [approximately] 4,000-year-history. (Plus there is something a little strange in saying "Jew" instead of "Jewish person." Doesn't it read and sound a little...national socialist?)

But, I am firm in my statement that "I have been a bad Jew[ish person]"--by my own expectations of myself as a Jew[ish person]. I have the expectation of myself that I will maintain a strong connection to my heritage through tradition, Hebrew, family history, and a generally passable knowledge about Judaic history. (On a side note, one of my new years' resolutions--secular, Rosh Hashanah, and Chinese--is to start learning more Yiddish.) In any case, I continually let myself down in how "non-observant" I am to my lax Judiasm.

While having Christmas shoved in my face since Chinese people presume Christmas is an American holiday that all Americans celebrate with equal jolliness and merriment, I realized that I have not celebrated [C]Han[n]uk[k]a[h] in a significant way for at least three of the last four years. I should accept the inevitability of not finding a suitable channukiah whilst in China, but I cannot excuse myself for pandering to teach about Christmas while barely mentioning my own traditions. And while I do not do much, I do annually celebrate Christmas by fashioning a red bow tie on my collar and by putting "Greensleeves" from A Charlie Brown Christmas on repeat.

This year I am taking a stand against my own lethargy (though definitively not against Vince Guaraldi). I am celebrating [C]Han[n]uk[k]a[h] by taking a small step back into my own Jewish cultural immersion. My tool of choice: fried potatoes.

Recipe:

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1. Peel and shred two cups of potatoes. I decided to save time and abstain from shredding; the resulting flavor retained nostalgic notes. 
2. Mix potatoes with two large beaten eggs, two tablespoons of all-purpose flour, and 1 teaspoon of salt.
3. Add the Asian flare. I chose to stir-in 3/4 of a cup of scallions, one clove of garlic, and about half a cup of freshly shredded ginger. My goal was to mix a traditional latke recipe with that of a scallion pancake.
4. Oil a skillet or wok (I rotated between one of each) substantially enough to avoid the egg sticking to the metal on medium-high heat. Add about two tablespoons of the mix to the skillet and/or wok and flatten the mix into a pancake about 3-4 inches in diameter. 
5. Let cook until the edges of the pancake look golden, and then flip the pancake onto it's opposite side to finish cooking. Each pancake should cook for about three minutes. Serve hot.

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Serves: This recipe produced 10 拉题卡 (latikas), which was just enough to give three neighbors who had never experienced a latke an idea of what they had been missing. I would think this would usually serve about 5 noshers and 2 fressers.

Notes for improvement:

I would actually use a little less salt. The salt obscured the garlic.

For bonus points, make some homemade apple sauce. I did this using one gala apple, 1/4 cup of honey, and one tablespoon of sugar. The sweetness of the applesauce matched splendidly with the spice of the fresh ginger. I was "forced" to use a blender, a device not commonly found in a Chinese household--though easily affordable at just 30 kuai (~$5).

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I think a good alternative would be to substitute Chinese chives for the scallions.

Confertzel Cafe Menu Entry: 拉题卡 (latikas) "Problem-Pulling Cards"