People eat with their eyes; you are what you eat; and a table is not blessed if it has fed no scholars, this one is a Yiddish Proverb. So how do you feed these scholarly patriarchs on one of the most not-so-holy days of the Jewish calendar? Latkes!

For this year, however, I tried something new and it worked. I wanted to do a sort of fusion, like we do back home in California between the east and the west. I therefore decided to make Cous Cous latkes this Hannuka with an apple baby cress salad and  spicy braised cabbage. Is your mouth watering already, well, it will once you make it yourself. See, the best part about my techniques is that anyone can make what I make, in other words it’s fool-proof. So who am I you’re asking? Well here’s the story:

I was born in Odessa, Ukraine and lived there until the age of almost 9. My family and I then moved to San Francisco where I lived for the most part until 2009 when I moved to Vienna and do banquets, cooking shows and presentations mostly for the tiny Jewish community here while studying Business Admin. The rest is sure to follow, in the meantime enjoy the recipe.

You will need:

Braised Cabbage

½ head of cabbage (red)

1 apple

1 t corriander

1 t cardamom

1 C. red wine

½ C. lemon juice

Salt and Pepper to taste

1/2 C sugar

1 Onion

oil for cooking

Shred the cabbage into .5 wide centimeter slices. Slice the onion and apples. Cook the onion until transluscent, add cabbage S+P to taste, put on medium low heat. Cook for 10 minutes, add apples, red wine, lemon juice, cover and let cook for 40 minutes on low heat. Add spices, sugar, mix, set aside.

Latkes

500 grams cous cous

600 grams water, boiled

1 C Extra virgin olive oil

1 T turmeric

S+P

1 bunch chives

1 C flour

2 eggs

add turmeric, S+P, oil to couscous, mix, add boiled water to the mix and run a fork through it, cover with plastic wrap (seran wrap) and let stand for 15 minutes. Chop chives into 3 mm length. When cous cous is ready, run a fork through it and fluff it. add chives, flour and eggs, use your hands, but make sure it’s cooled down before you do that. (I don’t need to remind you to wash your hands and take of your rings before you do it). Mixture is ready, heat up a pan on med-high heat, add oil when hot to about 1/4 mm in height. Make “latkes” out of the cous cous mixture and fry, one side for about 5 minutes. (Temperatures on burners vary so be careful not to burn, keep an eye on it.)

Salad

Live baby cress box

S+P

Evoo

1 diced apple

1 diced tomato

1 T lemon juice

1 T honey

Mix the ingredients, taste, and feel free to add a bit of apple mousse if you have some.

That’s it, plate and Enjoy!
For more great recipes, stay tuned,

Lyonchik

thanks Mashka for the photos!