3 Milanese Hanukkah Recipes from The Jewish Holiday Table
Flipping through The Jewish Holiday Table is an exercise in discovery. The colorful cookbook, compiled by Jewish Food Society founder Naama Shefi and Devra Ferst, shares recipes via its contributors’ continent- and generation-spanning family stories, which means you may stumble across a Rosh Hashanah spread with origins in India and Iraq or a Mexican-by-way-of–New York seder.
Take these recipes from contributor Lorenza Pintar, who recalls indulging in cinnamon-rolled doughnuts and latkes topped with soft cheese each winter during her Milanese childhood, not knowing at the time that her family and its traditions were Jewish. Her grandparents and great-grandparents were forced to hide their identities during Mussolini’s regime. Later, Pintar’s mother set out to reconnect with their Jewish roots, a process that included chronicling their family recipes.
Here, Pintar shares a few of those recipes—which make an enticing addition to any Hanukkah table.
Latkes with Stracchino
The key to crispy latkes is to remove as much liquid from the shredded potatoes and onions as possible before you mix in the other ingredients. Wrapping the grated onion and potatoes in a clean dishcloth and using it to wring out the liquid is a helpful technique.
Lorenza’s family serves their latkes with stracchino, an Italian cow’s-milk cheese with a creamy texture. If you can’t find it, a good substitute would be Taleggio, which has a slightly more assertive flavor but an equally soft and buttery texture.
Frittole Dolci (Italian Cinnamon and Raison Doughnuts)
Jewish families around the world celebrate Hanukkah with fried sweets, but these vary widely by community. In Moroccan homes, you might find sfenj; in Egyptian families, zalabia; and in Israel, sufganiyot filled with jam. Lorenza’s family makes these yeasted fritters that are studded with plump raisins and flavored with grappa.
Cassola (Italian Cheesecake)
Lorenza grew up in Milan eating ricotta cheesecake around Hanukkah, but it’s most often thought of as a treat from Rome, where it’s customarily served for Shavuot in Jewish homes and on Christmas in Catholic ones. It likely arrived in the Eternal City via Sephardi Jews who fled Sicily during the Spanish Inquisition. The lightly sweetened cake gets its flavor and tender texture from ricotta, so use the best-quality cheese you can find. Some artisan ricottas are sold still in their draining baskets, with a bit of whey in the bottom of the container; be sure to drain the cheese for a few minutes before using in the recipe.
