December 23, 2014

Parsnip Yam Latkes

Dammit Parsnip, learn to take a selfie! Half of us are cut off.
Guess what? It's still Chanukah! Which means 2 things:
1) We still have a religious and ethical obligation to eat as much fried food as possible
2) We don't. Want. Any. More. Potatoes.  
What's the solution? Latkes made out of other things! Why? Because they're awesome, and don't taste exactly like everything else we've been eating for the last week. Also, I had some left over oil. 

Ingredients:
2 Parsnips
1 large Yam (ideally, you should be visibly shocked at the size of this yam. If you're wearing a monocle, it should fall into your champagne flute. That's how you know it's a good yam.)
1 standard Onion 
2 large Eggs (for those of you who don't know, eggs are subdivided into size categories. Why? Because some eggs are bigger than others. Not everything is a mystery)
1/4 cup Flour
1 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Ground Cinnamon
1/2 tsp Ground Ginger
1/4 tsp Black Pepper
Oil, for the frying
A high tolerance for repetition

For those of you familiar with my Latke recipe, some of this might seem familiar. But I don't come to wherever you work and complain about your work habits, so shut it. The first step is to fill a bowl with water. Then take your Giant Yam and peel it. Don't let it sit. Yams start oxidizing stupid fast. It's possible that they evolved this trait as a defense mechanism against primordial chefs. It's also possible that they're just dicks. I'm not a botanist, I don't know. What I DO know is that you need to immediately take your friendly neighborhood, bloodthirsty evil box-grater, place it over your bowl 'o water, and grate your yam. And probably also your fingers. We'll call that "bonus protein." And we'll call that last sentence the grossest thing I've ever written on this blog. 

Assuming you still have an appetite, the next step is to peel and grate your parsnips and onion, into the same bowl you grated your yams into. Then you're going to drain the water out of it, roll your grated veggies in a towel and squeeze all of the moisture out of them. Add in your eggs and stir to combine. Then dump your flour in a separate bowl, along with all of the salt and spices, and stir with a fork or whisk to combine. Add the flour mixture in to the yam goop in three batches, stirring after each batch. Yes, you just stirred ingredients together outside of the goop, only to stir them into the goop. This way you help ensure that they're evenly distributed. So stop staring at me with your accusing eyes.

Fill up a skillet with 1/4 inch of oil, and heat it up over a medium flame. Take your yam glop (that's right, the addition of flour and spices turned your goop into glop. Deal with it), and form round glop-ettes, 3 inches in diameter. Use a ruler and a protractor, or else they'll burn, and all your friends will laugh at you and abandon you (citation needed). 

Fry your glop-ettes for no less than 4 minutes on each side. Like the regular latkes, you shouldn't mess with them, or check them, or prod them. And like the regular latkes, you're not going to listen to me. Because you're weak, and you'll never make it in this business (blog reading). Remove the crispy and delicious latkes from the hot oil via a complex process know as "nutting the hell up already," and put them on a plate lined with paper towels to drain the excess oil off. 

Mmm...fried goodness. Maybe next week I'll make a salad.
Refill your pan with glop nuggets and, if necessary, oil (Pro-tip: If you refill the oil, give it a chance to heat up before adding in more glop. Assuming you want delicious food, and not an oil-soaked mess). Repeat until you've exhausted your glop, oil, patience, and capability to move because you've eaten all the delicious fried food the world has to offer. 


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