In Honor of Oil

How did a fritter—made from a root vegetable originally found in South America—become the centerpiece of the Hanukkah table in the United States? The answer involves a conquistador, a French scientist, miraculous lamp oil, Catherine the Great, and a beheading by a woman named Judith. That is a lot of drama for a humble potato pancake. Let’s dig in!

Because freshly fried potato latkes are a traditional part of the Hanukkah celebration, we’ll start with a greatly simplified summary of the Hanukkah story: In 168 B.C. a Jewish temple was besieged by Syrian-Greeks and dedicated to the worship of Zeus. The Jews rose up and eventually regained control of the temple. They wanted to rededicate it to God by lighting a menorah, but found they had only enough oil to last one day. To their delight, the oil in the menorah burned for eight days. To commemorate this miracle, Hanukkah is celebrated by lighting the candles in a menorah every day for eight days—and by eating fried foods. Like potato latkes.

Now let’s get to the beheading! According to the Book of Judith—included some versions of the Bible—our heroine seduced an invading general named Holofernes with an irresistible buffet of wine and fried pancakes. As he drifted into a stupor, she lopped off his head with a sword and carried it away to terrify his troops. The Hebrews were triumphant, and Judith’s pancakes went down in history. But, according to the story, her fritters were made of cheese, so when did potatoes enter the picture?

In the sixteenth century, Spanish conquistador Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada arrived in what’s now Columbia, expecting to find gold. He discovered potatoes instead and brought them back to Europe. But the first potatoes planted in European soil were a bitter, watery failure until they became a lifeline for a French scientist named Antoine-Augustin Parmentier. Locked up in a Bavarian prison camp, Parmentier survived by eating potatoes and upon his release, he became a potato promoter—and the tubers’ popularity took root in France.

By the late eighteenth century, to stave off famine brought on by repeated crop failures, Catherine the Great of Russia ordered the planting of potatoes, and they became a staple food across eastern Europe. Rich in starch, as well as vitamin B6, potassium, copper, vitamin C, manganese, and antioxidants, potatoes nourished and nurtured the Jewish population of eastern Europe. Potato latkes—fried in oil—became a cornerstone of the Hanukkah table. By the end of the nineteenth century, immigration brought latkes to the United States, and the 1889 cookbook Aunt Babette’s Cookbook: Foreign and Domestic Recipes for the Household was one of the first to feature a recipe for potato latkes.

You don’t have to celebrate Hanukkah to enjoy these irresistibly crisp potato fritters. They’re a delicious side dish for roasted meats or burgers and taste great plain or with a topping of not-too-sweet apple sauce, like my Caramel-Apple Applesauce (paleo and Whole30 compliant). Traditional potato latkes follow a very simple formula of ingredients—shredded potatoes, onion, egg, and a binder like flour or matzo crumbs—fried in oil until they’re crisp. For our version, we’ve replaced the deep fryer with a blast of heat in the oven—and the matzo with potato starch—so the latkes are still very crisp, but paleo-friendly and easier to prepare.

Asian Lettuce Cups with Almond Green Beans

Serves 2–4 | Total time: 35–40 minutes | Whole30 compliant

It’s the yin/yang of Vietnamese cooking!

Vietnamese meals balance the five flavors (sour, bitter, sweet, spicy, salty), colors (green, red, yellow, white, black), nutrients (carbs, fat, protein, minerals, water), and the five senses—all while paying attention to the contrast between hot and cool. In this recipe, “hot” is represented by the lamb and jalapeño, while the mint, cilantro, and lime juice are “cool.” So cool, they’re hot.

Vietnamese Lamb with Scallion Rice

Serves 2–4 | Total time: 30–35 minutes

FRY-day?!

With these paleo- and Whole30-friendly recipes for french fries and dipping sauces, you can capture that exhilarating feeling of Friday any day of the week!

Spicy Nigerian Beef Street Fries

Spicy Yuca Fries

Herb Parsnip Fries

Crispy Oven-Baked Sweet Potato Fries

Classic Diner-Style Home Fries

Dipping Sauces

Kickass Ketchup

Homemade Mayo

Sunshine Sauce

Ranch Dressing

Tahini Dressing

Southwestern Cumin-Lime Dressing

Lizard Sauce

Saved by the Bell

From July through September, farmers markets and backyard gardens are filled with bushels and pecks of bell peppers in vibrant green, orange, red, yellow, and purple. The roots of bell peppers stretch back 9000 years, to the tropical areas of South America, Central America, and Mexico. After his voyage of 1492, Christopher Columbus took peppers from the West Indies to Spain, where they were dubbed “Spanish Peppers,” were grown in the royal gardens, and became popular in cuisine around the Mediterranean.

It wasn’t until the late 17th century that so-called Spanish Peppers were renamed “bell peppers” by Lionel Wafer, a privateer and ship surgeon who documented his adventures in Panama with the Cuna Indians in his book A New Voyage and Description of the Isthmus of America. His account includes robust descriptions of the geography, the “Indian inhabitants” and their “customs, employments, marriages, feasts, hunting…” (See the original manuscript online here.)

One of the first recipes for stuffed peppers in the United States appeared in the 1896 Boston Cooking School Cook Book by Fannie Farmer. It’s a simple recipe that calls for stuffing a whole pepper with steamed rice, cooked meat, stewed tomatoes, and butter. A variation gets creative with veal, bread crumbs, and onion juice. All around the world, many cuisines have their own approach to this simple combination. In Spain, it’s arborio rice and saffron; in Romania, pork, rice, and sour cream; in Korea, the peppers are stuffed with tofu; in the Philippines, the filling includes shrimp, pork, and water chestnuts; and in Denmark, the rice is replaced with bulgur wheat and instead of meat, it’s mushrooms and kale (known as Fyldte Peberfrugter).

For our recipe, we chose an Indian version that marries ground lamb with fragrant spices, replaces the rice with potatoes, and relaxes the traditional tomato sauce into a velvety texture with the addition of coconut milk and fragrant Indian spices. It can be tricky to cook the meat filling completely without baking the pepper into mushy oblivion. To get the texture of the pepper just right, we give the peppers a light oven-steaming and pre-cook the meat and potatoes for the filling. It’s easy and fast, and the end result yields crisp-tender peppers, flavorful filling, and a rich sauce that’s like eating puffy curry clouds.

Indian Stuffed Peppers with Butter-Curry Sauce

Serves 4-6 | Total time: 60-75 minutes | Hands-off time: 30 minutes

Paleo Eggs Benedict

Serves 4 | Total time: 35 minutes

Think of paleo ingredients like paints in a palette!

Suddenly, a colorful world of flavor opens up before you. These recipes from around the world show you how to mix-and-match simple ingredients to create exciting meals that are easy to cook, pretty to look at, and fun to eat.

Mofongo

Where It’s From: Puerto Rico

What It Is: A side dish made from cooked plantains, crushed chicharrones (or crumbled bacon), garlic, salt, and luscious cooking fat.

Schnitzel Patties

Where It’s From: Czech Republic

What It Is: Ground pork patties, breaded with a light coating of crushed pork rinds, then baked in the oven.

Tandoori Chicken

Where It’s From: India

What It Is: Chicken marinated in coconut milk and fragrant spices, then baked or grilled — with lovely cauliflower rice on the side.

Basil-Coconut Curry

Where It’s From: Thailand (sort of)

What It Is: Shrimp in a spice blend inspired by Thai curries, combined with coconut milk, basil leaves, bright veggies, and lime.

BBQ Pork

Where It’s From: Southern USA

What It Is: Pork butt, rubbed in Memphis-influenced spices, smoked on a gas grill, then finished in the oven and topped with a North Carolina style sauce.

Shashlik

Where It’s From: Russia

What It Is: Lamb marinated in lemon-seltzer with earthy spices, then skewered, and grilled. Meat on a stick is the best meat! Don’t miss the crunchy carrot salad on the side.

Bibimbap

Where It’s From: Korea

What It Is: Riced cauliflower, savory beef,  crisp vegetables, and a sauce made from dates and sriracha, all in one bowl.

Bigos

Where It’s From: Poland

What It Is: A slow-simmered stew of sauerkraut, kielbasa, mushrooms, bacon, and love.

Kibbeh Sinayee

Where It’s From: Middle East

What It Is: Riced cauliflower is mixed with lamb, then layered in a pan and baked for an exotic twist on meatloaf.

Hungarian Goulash

Where It’s From: Hungary

What It Is: Hunks of beef are simmered until they’re fall-apart tender in a sauce richly seasoned with Hungarian paprika.

Gado Gado

Where It’s From: Indonesia

What It Is: A mix of raw vegetables, steamed vegetables, hard-boiled eggs, crispy chicken, and a luscious nut-butter dressing topped with crispy fried shallots and ginger.

Cobb Salad

Where It’s From: Hollywood

What It Is: Iceberg lettuce and baby spinach topped with oven-roasted chicken, black olives, avocado, hard-boiled egg, bacon, and a tangy dressing.

Caesar Salad

Where It’s From: Tijuana, Mexico

What It Is: The classic! Romaine lettuce drizzled with a dressing made of eggs, olive oil, anchovies, and garlic, finished with homemade yucca root croutons.

Thai Larb

Where It’s From: Thailand

What It Is: Ground pork combined with irresistible garlic chips, cashews, cucumber, lime, mint, and cilantro, served in fresh lettuce leaves.

Chicken Bastila

Where It’s From: Morocco

What It Is: A savory pie — made a little sweet with dates. It’s an almond-flour crust, stuffed with spice-infused chicken and a touch of cinnamon. It’s savory-sweet-salty-chewy-crunchy magic.

Lamb Souvlaki

Where It’s From: Greece

What It Is: Cubed lamb, beef, or pork, marinated in lemon, garlic, and thyme, then skewered and grilled.

Spicy Yuca Fries

Where It’s From: Latin America

What It Is: Chewy, starchy yuca root is cut into strips, then tossed with your favorite fat and baked, for alternative fries that are crazy-delicious.

Desserts

Indian Carrot Pudding

Where It’s From: India

What It Is: Grated carrots are simmered slowly in a sweet coconut milk-cardamom sauce and finished off with raisins, cashews, almonds, and pistachios.

Maple-Vanilla Shortbread

Where It’s From: Scotland

What It Is: Luscious cookies made from ghee, almond flour, potato starch, and maple syrup. Try them dipped in dark chocolate for an extra treat!

Chocolate Mousse

Where It’s From: France

What It Is: Decadent chocolate mousse made from just two ingredients: dark chocolate and ice. Top with whipped coconut cream and coarse sea salt to make it extra indulgent.

Ambrosia Salad

Where It’s From: Southern USA

What It Is: Pecans, shredded coconut, oranges, raspberries, and pineapple chunks in a ‘dressing’ of sweet whipped coconut milk.

There is so much to love about Ethiopian cuisine: Eating with your hands! Hearty stews and butter-infused vegetables! Spicy-hot, bright red berbere seasoning! Bread that doubles as a plate! And gursha, an intimate sign of friendship and hospitality.

At a traditional Ethiopian meal, vegetable and meat dishes are served family style, often on an extra-large circle of injera, the spongy, flexible flatbread made from fermented teff flour. (Teff is an ancient, gluten-free grain that’s indigenous to the area.) There’s always a basket of additional injera, so no forks or spoons are needed. Instead, diners tear off a piece of injera with their right hand—always the right hand—and use it to scoop up bites of the main dish before popping it into their mouths. Tear, scoop, eat, repeat. It’s communal, friendly, and relaxed.

In both familiar and formal settings, dinner guests literally feed each other during a meal. An act of respect and love called gursha, it’s common for friends and family to feed others in the group by scooping up a bite of food and placing it in their companion’s mouth: the bigger the bite, the bigger the love. The person receiving a gursha is called the gorash, and the giver is the agurash. (Visit here to see a cartoon of a family sharing gursha.)

Many dishes are seasoned with the spice blend berbere, made from chili peppers, fenugreek, garlic, coriander, ginger, cardamom, cumin, and other spices. Every family has its own carefully guarded secret recipe, and the best berbere is made by roasting whole peppers and spices in the sun, then grinding the ingredients into a fine powder. Another common flavoring is niter kibbeh, clarified butter that’s spiced with fenugreek, cardamom, garlic, and ginger.

The most popular and common dish is wat: meat and vegetable stews, similar to curries. Doro wat (chicken) and key wat (beef) are the ones most frequently found on restaurant menus and family tables, but wat can also be made with lamb (beg wat), chickpeas (shiro wat), or lentils (misir wat). It’s always seasoned with berbere and served with injera, and the richness of the stew is often contrasted with fresh vegetables like gomen (stewed greens).

Rather than ending with a sweet pastry or other dessert, Ethiopian meals usually come to a close with buna (coffee). The coffee ceremony begins with the roasting and grinding of the beans in view of the guests, then the coffee is boiled in a clay pot called a jebena. It’s served in small espresso-style cups with sugar, sometimes salt, and even a dollop of niter kibbeh (the original butter coffee).

For this paleo-friendly Ethiopian-style feast, we’ve selected key wat and gomen, but have replaced the traditional injera with cauliflower rice. Homemade berbere seasoning allows you to control the level of heat, but you can replace the spices in key wat with store-bought berbere, if you prefer. Serve both dishes family style, and feel free to share a little gursha with your favorite people.

Ethiopian Beef Stew (Key Wat)

Serves 4-6 | Prep: 10 minutes | Cook: 90 minutes | Whole30 compliant

Brunch compliant, dinner approved.

Eat this on lazy weekends and busy weeknights because it’s crazy-delicious, very easy to cook, and super comforting.

Breakfast Pizza

Serves 4 | Total time: 25 minutes

Ready faster than take-out can be delivered, it’s super satisfying and very healthy—but you can keep the ‘healthy’ part a secret, if you want.

Chinese BBQ Pork Meatballs with Snap Peas

Serves 2–4 | Total time: 45 minutes | Hands-off time: 15 minutes

These paleo-friendly ‘pancakes’ will give you that eons-old feeling of comfort, but energize you for the day, thanks to the combo of carbs and protein in the batter, and the flavorful quick sausage on the side. They’re light, just sweet enough, and 100% omforting.

Plus, they’re the breakfast of poets!

If you also wanted to eat this for dinner once in a while, you wouldn’t be wrong.

Paleo Banana Pancakes & Quick Sausage

Serves 4 | Total time: 30 minutes