Chanukah Cooking Tips

If chopping onions for latkes irritates your eyes, try placing the onion in the freezer for a few minutes before cutting. This will make the liquid in the onions slightly frozen, and less likely to splash as you cut.

When chopping onions, hot peppers, etc, you can protect your hands by wearing plastic gloves or by rubbing them first with olive oil, then wiping the excess off with a napkin (to prevent your hands from being slippery, which would be dangerous when using a knife!) After you finish chopping, wash thoroughly with a non-drying soap.

Leave dairy products in the fridge until you need them, and return them promptly. Example- if cooking with sour cream, but also later using it as a garnish for the latkes, place the sour cream in the fridge while the food cooks. Dairy products can pick up bacteria easily, especially in a kitchen that is warm from cooking.

To keep latkes from getting soggy, remove from fire while still crisp (before they get "too done") and place on a cake cooling rack (set inside a pan, so the dripping oil will not go on your counter) while you refill the pan with raw latkes to cook. Then transfer the cooked latkes to a tray lined with paper towels. This prevents excess oil from building up on the paper towels and being reabsorbed by the latkes.

If you are watching fat intake but still crave latkes, try this trick for cooking them:
Spray or brush a light coat of olive oil on a cookie sheet. Form latke batter into small round portions on cookie sheet (making each one about half the size of a regular latke). Spray the top of each portion with a very light coat of oil. Bake at 450 degrees Fahrenheit until golden brown, about 15-20 minutes. If you cannot find a Kosher spray on oil, simply turn the latkes over after the first ten minutes. This will brown both sides.

Half-cooked latkes, beaten eggs, and fried onions can all be frozen ahead of time.

If making and freezing a yeast dough ahead of time, wrap with plastic wrap and let rise for a minute in the plastic wrap before placing in the freezer. This will fill all the miniscule air-pockets with dough, eliminating freezer burn and that 'freezer taste'.