There's far more to Hanukkah dining than potato latkes, and some cooks are looking back -way back - for inspiration.
Special contributor Phyllis Glazer writes in The Los Angeles Times that she's basing her holiday meal on food available circa 165 BC, at the time of the Jewish guerrilla group the Maccabees. That means lentil and barley stew, latkes made with bulgur, goat feta cheese and olives on the side - plus a salad of wild greens, symbolic of those that cover the hills of Jerusalem after winter rains.
Noah Bernamoff, who owns the Brooklyn deli Mile End, tells The New York Times he's forgoing his Montreal mother's kasha varnishkes. He's re-imagining the recipe with what he thinks his Lithuanian great-grandmother would have prepared instead. So rather than bowtie noodles bought from the supermarket, he's making dough butterflies shaped by hand and cooking them up with buckwheat groats, caramelized onions, mushrooms cooked in duck fat and a confit of chicken gizzards.
Others, meanwhile, are celebrating the festival of lights by going the opposite route, shaking up tradition with a mishmash of international ingredients.
Epicurious shares this recipe for jalapeno-popper fritters with tomato salsa as an alternative to potato latkes, and the food site KitchenDaily offers up daikon radish and potato latkes with wasabi cream.
What are you cooking?
Wency Leung