Meaty potato pancakes, pastrami, and pink bubbles
plus a huge career milestone
I am writing this newsletter intro mere hours after fulfilling one of my career goals: filming a segment for the Rachael Ray Show. My heart is still fluttering and I’m still coming down from this morning’s hoopla (or that could be the two glasses of wine I just had at lunch with my business partner, Sarah, to celebrate). We went to the iconic Joseph Leonard (my first time, can you believe it??) where we feasted on roasted cauliflower with tahini and harissa, roasted eggplant, and a decadent chopped liver & onion toast that I’ll be thinking about for weeks to come.
It’s been a busy few weeks in the FLD-verse and I am grappling with lots of conflicting emotions: I am proud/excited about all the milestones but also stressed out and overwhelmed. Anxious, but happy. Energized, but tired. I am existing at an intersection of a lot of *feelings* (and thankfully I have therapy in a few minutes to help me figure all that out).
But for now, let’s talk about what I’ve been cooking, eating, and drinking. It’s a beautiful life.
Oh, and if you like what you see here please consider sharing the newsletter on social media or with friends - it means a lot to me.
xx,
Em
WHAT IM COOKING
New month, new recipe series! November is all about the potato. Yeah, I’m freaking excited. Let’s get things started with draniki: a Belarusian potato pancake stuffed with meat. I’ve taken my own liberties here: a lot of the recipes I saw used pork and I used beef (but lamb would be amazing too). I also opted for more of a crispy/crunchy latke texture for the potatoes instead of a smooth, uniform pancake. Oh, and the sour cream/garlic/Holy Tshili dipping sauce is key.
Draniki with sour cream, garlic and chili oil
WHAT YOU NEED
4 russet potatoes
¼ cup flour + more as needed
Salt to taste
2 eggs
1 lb beef
2 large onions, shredded or grated
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp chili flakes (I used Aleppo pepper flakes)
1 tsp allspice
Salt + cracked pepper to taste
1 cup sour cream
2 garlic cloves grated
Drizzle of chili oil
WHAT YOU DO
First, let’s make our beef filling: add beef, grated onion, cumin, chili flakes, allspice, salt and cracked pepper to a mixing bowl. Mix, fry a small patty to check for seasoning, and adjust. Refrigerate until ready to use.
Peel your potatoes and grate via the largest side of the box grater (or use a food processor). We want to preserve some texture for max crunch!
Add the grated potatoes to a colander or mesh strainer over a mixing bowl, add some salt, and let sit for a few minutes. Squeeze as much liquid as you can from the potatoes (again, this is for crunch factor). Transfer the shredded potatoes to a mixing bowl and add flour, egs and salt to taste.
Add neutral oil to a skillet over medium-high heat (enough to shallow-fry the potatoes - the more you use, the tastier it will be TBH but we aren’t trying to deep fry them). Once the oil is hot add about 2 tablespoons of potato mixture to the skillet and use a spatula or your hands to spread it thin. Add about 1 tablespoon of meat filling on top, again using a spatula or your hands to spread it out over the potato. Finally, top the meat with another layer of potato. Repeat until the skillet is full of meat-stuffed potato batter.
Once the potato pancakes are golden brown, flip. Drain the cooked draniki on a sheet pan lined with paper towel or a wire cooling rack.
Serve the draniki with sour cream (I like to add grated garlic, salt and chili oil to it).
WHERE I’M EATING
Liebman’s Deli: 552 W 235th St, The Bronx, NY 10463
Liebman’s Deli, located in Riverdale in the West Bronx, is a relic from the past in the best possible way. I could’ve sat in that teal vinyl booth, sipping on chicken soup and eating half-sours + drinking seltzer for hours - it felt like home. I headed to Liebman’s with a mission in mind: I wanted to try the kreplach - a Jewish dumpling stuffed with meat (chicken in this case) and floating in the most comforting chicken soup (check out my video here). It reminded me so much of the meat pelmeni of my youth: served in bouillon (the Russian term for chicken soup, clearly borrowed from the French word), peppery, doughy, just a little bit soggy from floating in liquid and absolutely magical.
As advised by a Riverdale resident I met on my walk over, I ordered the pastrami sandwich and specified that the pastrami should be lean. It was - no joke - the best pastrami sandwich I’ve ever had.
WHAT I’M DRINKING
Just moments ago I experienced one of the best bottles of pink bubbles I’ve ever tried while having lunch at Joseph Leonard: the Filipa Pato 3B: an extra brut, unfiltered, sparkling rosé out of Portugal. The “3B” has significance: it denotes that the wine is a blend of 80% Baga and 20% Bical grapes harvested from vineyards in Bairrada. Upon first sip the wine was clearly dry, refreshing and floral *but* what really hooked me was the finish: it tastes like the most decadent, buttery brioche which could really only mean one thing: this wine was aged on its lees. What does that mean, and how did I know?
Well, the alcohol in wine is created when yeast (indigenous, in this case, meaning naturally occurring in the environment and not planted) converts sugar (from grapes) to alcohol. When this process occurs the yeast dies and is frequently filtered out before the wine ages. However when it is not, the dead yeast (now coined “lees”) ages with the wine and gives it a brioche-like, buttery/bread-y flavor that I am obsessed with. Furthermore, this producer belongs to a Portuguese wine dynasty (if you will): the Pato family! I am also a big fan of the Joao Pato “Duckman” orange pet nat.
