an open cupboard

Gevalt. My shoulders hurt, my back hurts. My triceps are no longer on speaking terms with me, and they’re whispering mutiny to the biceps. Yesterday, I made my own dumplings out of hand-rolled dough without the use of a pasta machine. Now I know what it must have felt like to be a housewife in a 19th century shtetl. All I need is a washboard for the laundry and a roof for my husband to fiddle on as he sings “TRADITION! TRADITION!”

I know, I know. It sounds like hyperbole. But try it, you’ll see what I mean. Making the dough is fun at first. It involves mixing some beaten eggs into a mound of flour with a fork. At a certain point, you dispense with the fork altogether and use your hands. The joy of messiness, the kneading… it’s an adult version of play dough. After letting the dough rest, the rolling begins. If you’ve rolled your own pie crust, you may not think much of this part. Ah, but pasta dough must be thin, thin, thin—like paper, like silk. When you’ve been rolling a while and realize that your dough is still thick as pie dough, you begin to wonder how much longer. You throw yourself into it, using your weight to apply more pressure on the dough. You sweat through your t-shirt. You think “holy cannoli! What was I thinking?” Just when you decide to settle for
thick, lumpy kreplach, you roll just a little longer until the sheet of pasta is smooth and thin as it can get.

But you’re not done yet. You have to cut little circles with an upside down glass, being careful to place the circles as close together as possible so as not to waste too much dough. Then each circle must be brushed with water, filled with filling, and pressed closed. The pressing is an art in itself. The filling can’t be too much or too little, so that it fills the dough just enough without poking out the sides. The edges must be pressed together carefully around the filling without any air bubbles. Then the edges must be brought together, one side brushed with water, and pressed together firmly as though the dumpling is wringing its hands in front of its plump belly. But the dough must be soft and pliable enough that the belly doesn’t burst, spewing its cheesy contents. It’s painstaking work, alternately exasperating and meditative. But the result is that much more luxurious and tasty when you’ve worked so hard to make it yourself.

If you’re short on time and patience for hard labor, you could run your dough through a pasta machine. It’s probably best to run it through the highest to the lowest setting for a really thin, silky dough. You could use one of those plastic ravioli pressing gadgets that works like a waffle iron
, if you don’t feel like pressing the dumplings yourself. You could press the dumplings like kreplach (triangular wontons), or pelmeni (Russian tortellini). I gravitated towards tortellini style dumplings, as I thought they might better keep their shape and hold their filling (those wringing hands tend to hold the stuffing). But traditional kreplach triangles might be easier to make and certainly less time-consuming. (I’ve always felt that the triangular tips of kreplach or wontons are like delicate little pasta fins, the dumplings quietly swimming in your soup.)

I stuffed my kreplach with a cheese filling in honor of Shavuoth, the Jewish festival of the ten commandments. It is traditional to prepare all manner of dairy foods for this holiday, unlike most holidays where meat and fish are the festive foods. Jewish lore has it that the Israelites did not know how to keep kosher, as they hadn’t yet received the ten commandments. So they ate only dairy foods so as not to eat any animals that weren’t sanctioned by the law. (How did they know the law would prohibit the consumption of certain creatures? Good point. But again, this is lore…)

Back in Russia and Poland, Jews would prepare cheese kreplach served with fried onions or a dusting of sugar, sometimes sour cream or perhaps a bit of jam. The name, size and shape of the dumplings might vary depending on the region. I’ve prepared mine with a filling of goat cheese and za’atar, putting a Mediterranean twist on the Eastern European dish. As for toppings, I’ve used fried onions, leftover goat cheese instead of sour cream and plum jam. Yes, all three. The combination of flavors works surprisingly well.

Other traditional ways to serve kreplach include frying them with onions, or boiling them and then serving them in soup. Kreplach can be stuffed with potatoes, beef, chicken liver, or a combination of beef and pork if you want to make Ukrainian pelmeni (a non-Jewish cousin of the traditional kreple). You could alternatively make a sort of kreplach lasagne, layering sheets of fresh pasta with filling and toppings. How do you like your kreplach?

cheese kreplach for shavuoth

for the filling:
10 oz. soft goat cheese (chevre), or other cheese of similar consistency
5 stalks fresh za’atar, or other fresh herb such as dill, parsley, chives, oregano
salt and white pepper to taste
1 small egg

for the dough (adapted from a recipe in the NY Times):
1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
2 large eggs
lukewarm water, if necessary

for the topping:
goat cheese or sour cream or smetana
1-2 diced onions
butter
good plum jam (should be a little loose—I used June Taylor’s Elephant Heart plum conserve)

Preparing the filling:

• In a large bowl, crumble in the cheese.
• Hold the top of a stalk of za’atar with the thumb and forefinger of one hand. With the thumb and forefinger of the other hand, gently slide your fingers down the stalk, catching the leaves as they fall. Repeat for the remaining stalks. (This works for oregano as well, but any of the other herbs should simply be finely chopped.)
• Rip or chop the za’atar and throw it into the bowl of cheese.
• Season to taste with salt and white pepper. Taste and correct seasoning. Add a beaten egg and stir to combine.

Making the dough:

• On a large, clean flat surface (a wooden table would be good), make a hill of flour. Form a well in the center of the hill.
• Beat the eggs lightly and pour them into the well. Begin mixing the flour into the eggs with a fork.
• At some point, you’ll want to use your hands to mix the egg and flour. If the mixture appears dry, add a little lukewarm water (say 1 or 2 tablespoons). My dough was moist with just the egg.
• Knead the dough well, then let sit covered with a bowl or plastic wrap for 30 minutes.

Rolling the dough:

• Separate the dough into two parts, leaving one portion under the bowl. Take the other half and begin to flatten and stretch it a bit with your hands.
• Flour your surface and start rolling. You can use a pasta machine for this part. Roll the dough into an oblong shape rather than a circle. Be sure to move your dough frequently so that it doesn’t stick to the surface. Flour your surface just enough to keep the dough from sticking. You can patch any holes or cracks.
• Roll until you can’t roll anymore, and then roll a bit more. You want to get your dough as thin and smooth as possible. Remember, the pasta will absorb water and expand when cooked. Feel the thickness of your dough and try to imagine what it might taste like when cooked. If it tastes like a mouthful of dough, you need to keep rolling.
• When finished rolling, you might want to sprinkle a little water on the dough if it looks a bit dry.

Cutting the dough:

• Use a glass with a 3 inch diameter to cut circles of dough. Use a dull knife to help cut the dough if necessary. Try to minimize the space between each circle of dough so as to avoid excess scrap dough.
• When finished cutting the circles, collect the scraps and mush them into a ball. Place the ball under the bowl of resting dough.

Filling and shaping the dumplings:

• With a barely damp pastry brush, brush one circle with a little water, mostly around the edges.
• Place about a teaspoon of filling in the center of the circle.
• Bring one end of the dough over the other in a half circle sandwich of dough and filling. Use your fingers to press the edges of the dough from one edge of the semi-circle to the other, while gently smoothing out any air bubbles along the edge of the filling. Dance your fingers along the edges again to get a good seal.
• You can stop here, or you can continue folding the edges tortellini style. To do this:
  • Brush a little water on one tip of the semi-circle.
  • Then gently wrap the tips over your forefinger, the wet tip under the dry one.
  • Use your thumb to squeeze the tips against your forefinger, sealing them together.
  • Remove your forefinger, and gently squish the tips the other way (vertically).
• Place the dumpling on a lightly floured plate. (I used two plates for my dumplings, simply to avoid the hassle of stacking them on top of each other, in case they stuck.)
• Repeat for the remaining dough circles.
• Take out the second piece of dough and follow the rolling, cutting, filling and shaping instructions. You can ball up and roll out the scraps too, or slice them into jagged, randomly shaped noodles. These can be cooked briefly before boiling the kreplach. Drain and slather with butter for snacking on while the kreplach cook.

Cooking the dumplings:

• In a large skillet, melt some butter and fry the chopped onions on a medium to low flame until golden brown.
• Boil heavily salted water for the dumplings. When the water is boiling gently, tip the plates of dumplings into the pot.
• Agitate the pot lightly so that the dumplings don’t stick to the bottom of the pot. Cook until the kreplach float to the top.
• Remove the kreplach with a slotted spoon, draining the water.
• Top with fried onions, cheese or sour cream, and finally plum jam.

Serves 2-4

I picked up some great pasta making techniques from a class given by the inimitable Omnivorous Fish. Useful links here and here.

Today marks the 60th year of the existence of the State of Israel. Having lived there for twelve years, I must admit I kind of miss the place. Where else can you get freshly baked pita bread off an assembly line at the bakery section of the supermarket? Or falafel in pita with “hummusaladchips?” (always offered as a one word question), tehina, and fiery hot sauce.

To read more about the festivities, here’s a list of relevant links:

• Official Israel at 60 Site
• Israel at 60: A Statistical Glimpse
• YnetNews article: State of Israel Turns 60

Happy Israel Independence day!

I have fond memories of eating matzah brei for breakfast of a Sunday morning during Passover. I’d wake up to the smell of browned butter and cinnamon, and wander into the kitchen.

My dad preferred the scrambled style of the traditional dish. He’d break several sheets of matzah into large pieces and soak them in water or milk, then mixing them with beaten eggs and stir-frying them in a large skillet. He’d sprinkle the crisp, golden matzah pieces with a little sugar and cinnamon, and serve them up to my brother and me. We would raid the refrigerator for all manner of toppings—cottage cheese, butter, cheddar cheese, American cheese, jam, chocolate syrup—and carry them, teetering, back to the table.

The adventure began when we sat down to eat. Cottage cheese and jam? Jam and butter? Cheddar and jam? Cottage cheese and chocolate syrup? The possibilities were endless and no combination was too weird. The matzah brei itself was a delight, a more rugged version of French toast we only ate once a year. I can still taste it, eggy, warm, buttery and bread-like, the sandy sweetness of cinnamon and sugar in my mouth.

savory matzah brei

1 1/2 cups matzah farfel
4 eggs
butter
1-2 handfuls fresh parsley
1 stalk green garlic or spring onion
1 poblano pepper or other pepper
smoked paprika
salt and pepper
cheddar cheese or any other cheese

• Pour the matzah farfel into a large bowl. Break the eggs into the bowl and mix with a fork, beating the eggs slightly and tossing to coat the matzah farfel.
• Melt some butter in a large skillet over medium heat.
• Coarsely chop the parsley and toss into the bowl.
• Finely chop the green garlic or spring onion and toss into the skillet.
• Chop the pepper into 1 inch (3 cm) pieces, adding it to the skillet. Toss to coat with butter and let the mixture sweat.
• Scoop the pepper mixture out of the skillet and into the bowl of farfel.
• Season the farfel egg mixture with salt, pepper, and smoked paprika. Mix to incorporate the peppers and seasoning with the farfel and eggs.
• If necessary, melt more butter in the skillet. Spoon the batter into the skillet and smooth it into a large pancake.
• Crumble some cheese onto the matzah mixture. Turn on the broiler as the matzah brei cooks.
• Once the matzah brei has cooked for a few minutes, turn off the flame and place under the broiler. Remove when the top is golden and the cheese has melted.

Serves 2-4

Make matzotto. Matzotto? Let me explain.

Last Saturday evening was the first night of Passover, that eight day festival of freedom during which observant Jews abstain from eating leavened baked goods. The prohibition extends to grains of all kinds, and for many Jews, certain legumes and seeds as well. This means no bread, pasta, oatmeal, and even popcorn, hummus, tofu, mustard. Homes are cleaned from top to bottom and kitchens turned inside out so that any stray crumbs are disposed of. Pots, pans, and dishes must be kashered or replaced with kitchenware specially reserved for the holiday. Household cooks must then prepare meals based on such varied carbohydrate sources as potatoes, potatoes, potatoes, and potatoes. (World Jewry heaved a collective sigh of relief a few years ago when quinoa was designated kosher for Passover. Quinoa is a new world seed rather than a grain, so rabbis have permitted its consumption on Passover.)

Aside from potatoes, many Jews traditionally prepare a variety of starchy side dishes using matzah, such as the famous matzah balls or kneidlach. These are light and fluffy soup dumplings that melt in your mouth when you eat them, in stark contrast to the matzah from which they are made.

As matzah is scarce this year, I bought a huge container of matzah farfel. Matzah farfel is bits of crumbled matzah, which is the cracker bread we Jews eat during the 8 days of the Passover holiday. To be precise, matzah as it is known in the Western world represents the Ashkenazi (European) Jewish tradition of baking flat, hard unseasoned cracker-like breads for Passover. The traditional matzah of Mizrahi Jews (Jews of the Levant or Middle East) on the other hand, is often a soft flatbread much like naan, which is much more fun to eat. It’s hard to make a matzah sandwich that doesn’t turn into a plateful of crispy, shard-like crumbs. If you’ve ever tried spreading cold butter on a slice of matzah, you know what I’m talking about. You may as well eat it with a spoon. I guess that’s where matzah farfel comes from. Matzah factories must have giant buckets full of inadvertently broken matzah which they process and sell as farfel. And there you have it. European Jewry’s answer to pasta for Passover.

In this recipe, I cooked matzah farfel risotto style, more or less. You can also use matzah farfel to make kugel, a traditional savory or sweet pudding served on Jewish holidays.

matzotto

butter and olive oil
1 cup matzah farfel or bits of broken matzah
1-2 handfuls dried mushrooms, soaked in hot water
handful of chopped parsley or other herbs
salt and pepper

• Melt some butter with olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat.
• Add the matzah farfel and stir to cover in butter and lightly toast until slightly golden. Add more butter or olive oil if the pan gets dry.
• Remove mushrooms from from water and squeeze out any remaining moisture. Reserve the soaking water.
• Coarsely chop mushrooms and add to farfel. Stir to cover in butter.
• Add some of the mushroom water to farfel mixture and stir. As the farfel absorbs the mushroom water, add more and stir.
• Taste as you go to get the consistency you prefer. Then season to taste with salt, pepper, and herbs.

Serves 2

Variations: Use smoked salt and/or smoked paprika. Add bits of smoked duck or goose. Use hot chicken stock to soak the mushrooms. Use whole wheat matzah farfel or spelt matzah farfel. Grate in some parmiggiano or pecorino.

Note: To keep the matzotto kosher, use either dairy or meat ingredients, but not both.

It really does, when it’s done right. There’s nothing quite like a fresh, crisp, whole grain, handmade matzah with a schmear of whipped butter and a sprinkling of sea salt. Yemenite matzah tastes a lot like naan and not much like Ashkenazi matzah at all. And there ain’t nothin’ like a good bowl of matzah ball soup (light and fluffy please, not heavy and leaden). Here’s to flourless chocolate cake and pavlova!

Happy passover y’all!

!חג אביב שמח

Couscous is a marvelous dish when prepared properly. I don’t mean the kind of couscous you make by soaking it in hot water for ten minutes. I mean the kind of couscous you steam forever, smother in butter, steam forever again, etc. OK, I admit, this type of couscous comes in a box too. (Most of us don’t have the time to painstakingly prepare the tiny pasta from scratch.) But when served with traditionally cooked vegetables and meat, couscous is a pleasure to eat—deeply satisfying and soulful.

Traditionally, couscocus is served on Tuesdays, laundry day in certain North African communities. While waiting for their laundry to dry, North African women would prepare the pasta and dry it in the sun. Thus laundry day became a social event, an opportunity to get together with friends and neighbors to gossip and exchange recipes.

The Tuesday couscous tradition persists in Israel at North African mom and pop eateries. Traditionally, couscous is served with a soup of vegetables and meat, eather chicken or beef. The types of vegetables and the spices used vary depending on the regional extraction of the cook.

The couscous joint I frequented in Israel was run by a family of Tripolitan extraction. Their couscous included carrots, potatoes, turnips, and zucchini, as well as chicken. Effie, the owner, always had a full house on Tuesdays, when all the high tech employees in the neighborhood would converge on his place for a plate of some down home couscous and little complimentary plates of mezze and pita. Effie’s has no menu.

Instead, Effie would greet everyone with a smile and some friendly banter, and proceed to rattle off the specials of the day. He’d then take everyone’s order faster than any waiter I’ve seen before or since, and pass them on to his wife in the kitchen. One of his sons would cover the table with simple sheet of butcher paper, and another son would arrive with plates and cutlery. The first son would return with a basket of fresh, warm pita bread and small mezze plates, including hummus with olive oil, olives, a Tunisian pumpkin spread, and two types of eggplant salad. It was always a challenge to eat all the mezzeh and still have room for couscous.

Couscous veMafroum
(That’s the official name, but everyone calls it Effie’s)
12 Yehezkel Kazaz St.
Or Yehuda, Israel
03-5339252

couscous with vegetables

Here’s my vegetarian version of couscous with vegetables, loosely based on my memories of Effie’s couscous.

for the vegetables:

1 onion, chopped, or 3 shallots, chopped
2 cloves garlic
3 small carrots, peeled
1 large turnip, peeled
1 large potato, peeled
1 cup garbanzo beans, soaked and cooked
1 bunch chard, spinach, or other greens, washed and coarsely chopped
1/2 tsp whole fenugreek
spice mixture: 1/2 tsp each whole fennel and coriander seeds, 2 tsp whole cumin seeds
(If you don’t have whole spices, use pre-ground. Just spice the vegetables a little more cautiously, reserving any leftover spice mixture for a later use. It is best, however, to use whole spices.)
salt to taste

for the couscous:

250 gr coucous
butter
salt to taste

equipment:

couscousiere, or a medium sized pot with a steamer or sieve
(I used a small pot and a vegetable steamer for the couscous, and a separate pot for the vegetables. Ideally, the couscous should steam above the vegetables to as to absorb their flavors.)

• Pour the couscous into a large, shallow bowl and soak in 1/2 cup very cold water for 20 minutes.
• Chop the vegetables into coarse chunks.
• If using whole spices, place in a clean coffee grinder and grind to a powder.
• Heat some butter and olive oil in a pot and add in the onions. Season with salt and stir. You don’t want the onions to turn transluscent without browning.
• Press the garlic cloves into the onions, then add the fenugreek and half the ground spice mixture. Stir to distribute evenly.
• Add chopped vegetables to pot, along with garbanzo beans, and cover with water.
• Drain the couscous and rake it with your fingers.
• Place steamer, sieve, or couscousiere steaming insert above vegetables and place drained couscous in steamer.
• Bring vegetables to the boil, uncovered.
• Keep the vegetables on a low simmer and turn the couscous into a bowl.
• Rake the couscous with your fingers, sprinkle it with 1/4 cup cold water, and season with salt and butter to taste.
• Let stand, and then steam again over the simmering vegetables.
• You can repeat the raking-sprinkling-seasoning-sitting process, as recommended on the Ya Rayi site. I was lazy and hungry, so I steamed the couscous twice, rather than three times. It was still delicious.

Serves 3-4

There’s been a cold spell out here in California. You can see your breath in the morning, and the cars are covered with a thin layer of frost. Lawns gleam and sparkle with frozen dew, and my dog—who goes into fits of ecstatic anticipation at the sight of a leash—is quite eager to shorten her morning walks. It’s cold, perfect weather for a good stew.

One of my favorite stews is cholent, a traditional Jewish stew cooked very slowly in an oven. Cholent is traditionally eaten as a Sabbath meal as it is well suited to the rules regarding Sabbath food preparation. Religious Jews are prohibited from cooking food on the Sabbath. But food may be kept warm on a pre-existing flame. By starting the cooking process on Friday morning or afternoon, the cholent cooks by sundown—the beginning of the Sabbath. The stew continues to simmer on a very low heat overnight. The oven is not quite hot enough to change the state of the food (the Talmudic definition of “cooking”), but the long, slow heat is enough to build layer upon layer of subtle flavors. Deeply caramelized onions soften into gravy, the meat falls off the bone and infuses the beans and grain with its flavor, while chunks of waxy potato take on an almost smoky flavor.

In the old days, Jewish women would bring their cholent to the village bakery where the pots were kept warm for the Sabbath. On Saturday afternoon, they would gather at the bakery to fetch their pots, bringing home a filling and tasty Sabbath lunch to their families.

Jews the world over made their own style of cholent, with ingedients varying from region to region. Typical ingredients of Eastern European cholent are potatoes, barley, beans, and meat on the bone. (More meat if you could afford it, more bone if you couldn’t.) Sephardi cholent is called hamin, and often includes eggs in their shells. Huevos haminados, as they’re called, turn brown and creamy after a long night of cooking. Iraqi and Kurdish Jews make a version with chicken and rice, called t’bit. North African Jews make a stew called dafeena, with copious amounts of North African spices and often featuring garbanzo beans.

The crown jewel of any cholent is the dumpling or homemade sausage that cooks on top of the stew. The North African dumpling is called kokla, a slightly richer and more savory version of a matzah ball. The Eastern European version is called kishkeh, a sort of poor man’s sausage. Instead of meat, Kishkeh is made of whatever a poor family might have in the larder: an onion, a carrot, some chicken fat, some breadcrumbs or matzah meal. These are grated, mixed, and seasoned simply with salt, pepper, and a little paprika. The mixture is then stuffed into a clean section of beef intestine, or “kishkeh,” loosely translated as gut. When stuffed into the skin of a chicken neck—sewn shut on each end with a needle and thread—this treat is called helzel, or by its typically Yiddish diminuitive, helzeleh.

To the modern, western palate, kishkeh and helzel might sound, well, unpalatable. We’re not used to consuming offal. For many of us, a filet mignon induces an immediate Pavlovian response while the thought of eating intestine triggers a gag reflex. Historically, however, the less desirable parts of the animal were the only parts most folks could afford to eat. This is particularly true for Jewish culinary traditions that feature such delicacies as chopped liver and jellied calf’s foot. And so they should. Ask any Jew of Eastern European descent what they ate at their grandmother’s house, they’ll likely describe bubby’s ethereal chopped liver—neither creamy, nor chunky, and with just the right amount of carmelized onion—on matzah or a slice of warm, toasted challah.

But the beauty of cholent is you don’t have to make yours the way your bubby did. Cholent is infinitely expandable—use garbanzo beans instead of navy beans, steel cut oats instead of barley, osso bucco instead of a large roast. Or try one of the many ethnic varieties of the dish. And leave the window open after dinner.

This post is part of the Waiter, there’s something in my stew! event hosted by Andy of Spitoon extra. Check out Andy’s site for the roundup of stews.

cholent

I used steel cut oats instead of barley. Barley tends to plump nicely and thicken the gravy somewhat. Oats tend to disappear a bit more into the sauce. Millet might work, although I haven’t tried it. I used a combination of new and old world beans, but just about any beans will do. You might want to try using different sizes of beans to achieve a varied texture.
oil for frying
2-3 large veal osso bucco
3-4 potatoes
1 large onion, coarsely chopped
3-4 cloves garlic
1 TBS sweet paprika
1/2 TBS smoked paprika
pepper to taste
1 1/2 c mixed beans, soaked overnight
3/4 c grain, such as barley or oatmeal
4-8 washed raw eggs in their shells

for later:

1 kishkeh (recipe to follow)
1 TBS salt

• Preheat the oven to 200° F (about 93.33° C).
• Heat some oil in a large, heavy frying pan and brown the osso bucco on both sides. Meanwhile, slice a potato into 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick rounds. Use these slices to cover the bottom of your pot. Double up if you still have slices leftover after covering the bottom of the pot.
• Remove the osso bucco from the pot and place on top of the potato slices.
• Add more oil to the pan if necessary, and brown the onions. Season with both paprikas and freshly ground pepper. Press the garlic cloves into the onion mixture and continue frying until the onions are fragrant and have softened.
• While the onions are cooking, coarsely chop the remaining potatoes into large chunks.
• Drain the beans and layer the beans with the onion mixture in the pot. Sprinkle over grains. Add the potatoes and pour over water to cover.
• Carefully nestle the eggs in various nooks and crannies of the uncooked stew.
• Cover and bake in the oven overnight. Before going to bed, check to make sure the stew has enough water. If not, add some hot water, cover, and put back in the oven.
• In the morning, see if the stew needs any more water. Add hot water if necessary. Taste a few beans. If they’ve softened, season the cholent with salt. If they haven’t softened, your beans are too old or you added salt at the beginning of cooking. Start over!
• Place the kishkeh on top of the cholent and continue baking. If the cholent is too liquidy, leave the top off so some of the water can evaporate. Otherwise, cover the cholent.
• After 18 to 24 hours, remove the cholent from the oven. Serve each diner some potatoes, beans, grains, meat, and a chunk of kishkeh. Peel the eggs and serve as an appetizer with challah, chopped liver, and pickles, or eat with the cholent.

Serves 8-10

kishkeh

Rather than buying pre-made frozen kishkeh, you can pretty easily make your own. I love the sweet, salty taste of kishkeh, and the textural contrast between the soft filling and the crisp edges of the sausage.

1 large onion
1 large carrot, or 3 small ones
1 large potato boiled and peeled
1/2 c bread crumbs or matzah meal
1/4 c schmaltz or rendered goose or duck fat
1 TBS salt
1 TBS paprika
freshly ground pepper to taste
2 ft (61 cm) sausage casing

• Grate the onion, carrot, and potato into a medium bowl. Alternatively, process the onion and carrot in a food processor.
• Melt the schmaltz.
• Add the breadcrumbs or matzah meal, the schmaltz, and the spices. Mix to combine.
• Cut the casing in half to make it easier to work with. You’ll end up with two kishkehs, one for now, one you can freeze for later. (You could just as well cook them both.)
• Rinse the casing and tie a knot at one end. Use a sausage funnel, or your fingers, to stuff the casing. (This is a bit messy, but it works.)
• Use your thumb and forefinger to find the opening of the casing. Insert one finger into the opening, then another. Pull your fingers apart slightly, forming an upside down peace sign. Use this space to force stuffing down the casing with your other hand. When you’ve got a lump of stuffing in the casing, carefully push it down towards the knotted end by wrapping your hand around the tube. If air bubbles form, push the stuffing up a bit to let the air out, then back down.
• Continue stuffing the casing and letting out air bubbles. Stop when you have an inch or two of empty casing left. Let out any last air bubbles and knot the casing tightly.
• Repeat with the other casing.
• To cook kishkeh, do any one of the following:
• Poke holes in the casing and fry.
• Poke holes in the casing and fry. Slice into rounds and fry until crisp on both sides.
• Poke holes in the casing. Cook on top of cholent.

Makes 2 kishkehs

Every Hannukah, my tone-deaf father who sang “in the key of R” would sing “Who put the latkes in Harry Truman’s gatkes?” No, that’s not the name of a song. It’s just a silly phrase that he’d sing intermittently, while preparing the holiday dinner. I have no idea who put potato pancakes in Harry Truman’s underwear, or why, for that matter.

Last night I finally girded my loins to make our first Hannukah dinner for this year. I’ll be making potato pancakes on Friday for a holiday party, so I wanted to make something a little bit different. Hannukah is all about fried foods, potatoes just happen to taste good when fried. So I opted for celeriac carrot pancakes.

These are a little trickier than potato pancakes, as the celeriac and carrots lack the potato starch that helps bind together traditional latke batter. As long as you squeeze out any excess water and fry them at a fairly high heat, these fritters should come out crisp on the outside and soft on the inside. You could use avocado or safflower oils coconut oil or schmaltz for frying, as these fats tend to have a high smoking point (see note below). I used bacon fat to fry the majority of my latkes. It’s cheaper and imparts a subtle smokey flavor to the fritters. Be sure to turn on your kitchen fan to drive out the greasy bacon odors. (The noise of the fan also helps drown out the sound of your Jewish ancestors turning over in their graves.)

The flavor of these pancakes is both sweet and earthy, with a touch of the metallic sharpness of celeriac. Apple sauce is redundant here, the carrots are sweet enough. A little sour cream, crème fraîche, or yogurt are fine toppings. A mixed holiday genres by topping his with cranberry sauce. I prefer sour cream.

carrot celeriac latkes

300 grams celeriac, washed, peeled, and trimmed
300 grams carrots, washed and trimmed (don’t bother peeling)
1 small onion, peeled and quartered
3 eggs, beaten
a scant pouring of matzah meal, just a tablespoon or two
about 1-2 TBS freshly minced dill
about 1 scant TBS salt
freshly ground black pepper to taste
fat for frying (choose a fat with a high smoking point, such as grapeseed oil, coconut oil, or rendered animal fat such as schmaltz or, ahem, bacon fat)

• Cut the vegetables to fit the chute of your food processor, and process using the grater attachment. If you’ve got time and want to work out your biceps, grate the vegetables manually. Alternate between celeriac, onion, and carrot (the onion prevents the celeriac from oxidizing).
• Mix in the beaten eggs. Add a little matzah meal if the batter looks like it needs help keeping together.
• Season with dill, salt, and pepper and mix well.
• Heat your fat in a heavy frying pan on a medium-high flame (I like cast-iron). Optionally, heat fat in two large pans to more efficiently cook all the latkes.
• When the fat is very hot, place a large soup spoonful of batter in the pan and flatten the batter with the back of the spoon. You want a very thin fritter that just keeps together. Repeat until the pan is full. You want some space between each latke, and you don’t want to crowd the pan. Depending on the size of your pan, you’ll probably be able to fry two to four latkes in each pan.
• When the latkes turn brown at the edges, turn them over with a spatula. Fry until the other side is browned.
• Taste the first batch of latkes. Correct the seasoning if necessary.
• Fry the rest of the batter, allowing the latkes drain on some paper towel.
• As you fry, monitor the heat of the frying pan. You may need to adjust the heat slightly, up or down, as you go along. If the latkes are too brown, you may need to turn the heat down a little. If they take too long to cook and aren’t crisp, you may need to turn the heat up. Be sure to melt more fat in the pan between batches. Then allow enough time for the fat to heat up.

Serve with sour cream or crème fraîche with a bit of dill for garnish, and optionally, a slice or two of gravadlax.

Serves 2-4

Note: Check out this page for a list of oils and their smoking points. Avocado and safflower oils have the highest smoking point.

This is my post for the Dishes of Comfort blogging event, hosted by Cream Puffs in Venice and Viaggi & Sapori.

One of my favorite foods growing up was kashe varnishkes, an Eastern European Jewish side dish full of carbs and mushrooms. As a child, I enjoyed nothing more than a bowl of steaming, sticky white rice, a slice of crusty bread or challah, or a bowl of pasta, hot or cold, with olive oil and salt. I was, and still am, enthralled by the texture, flavor, and the soulful satisfying nature of carbs.

Kashe varnishkes, however, stands apart. A combination of pasta, buckwheat, and mushrooms, kashe varnishkes is the Eastern European answer to Egyptian kushari and Yemeni majadra. The unique pleasure of Kashe varnishkes lies in its combination of nutty, tender buckwheat kernels, with earthy, juicy mushrooms, along with al dente pasta. Kashe varnishkes is pleasantly toothsome, yet very warming on a cold night.

Kashe varnishkes is one of the few dishes that my mother learned to cook from her Eastern European mother. Back in pre-WWII Europe, my great-grandmother enforced the rule that the kitchen was no place for children. Consequently, my grandmother didn’t learn much in the way of cooking, and my mother was often shooed from her mother’s little kitchen in Israel. Kashe varnishkes was one of the few dishes that survived the broken chain of culinary tradition, along with gorgul morgul—a peculiar yet tasty concoction made of egg yolk, lemon juice, and honey—which was meant to soothe a sore throat.

My mother would prepare kashe varnishkes as a treat for a Friday night Sabbath dinner, perhaps with chicken and salad or broccoli. I loved the steaming kernels of toasted buckwheat as much as I loved the big, chewy pasta bowties that poked through the mound of grain. The mushrooms were little buried treasures that exploded with earthy flavor in my mouth.

On Saturday afternoons when everyone napped, I would tiptoe to the refrigerator and fix myself a bowl of leftover kashe varnishkes. They were cold, and I couldn’t reheat them on the Sabbath, but I didn’t care. I would correct the seasoning with salt and perhaps a little pepper. Satisfied, I would take the bowl and a soup spoon and go to the living room, where I would choose an interesting book from my father’s extensive library. Maybe Jonathan Swift, or Dickens, perhaps Aldous Huxley. I’d climb into the big leather Eames chair and cross my legs Indian style. I’d pick up the book and cradle the bowl in my lap. As I disappeared into the universe of my book, I’d dig in my spoon and take a big, luscious bite.

kashe varnishkes

butter
150-200 gr pasta, preferably bowtie (I used fettuccine, which I broke into large-ish bite-size pieces)
3/4 c buckwheat, toasted
1/3 lb mushrooms (I used shitakes and chanterelles)
salt and pepper to taste

• Cook the pasta as you usually would, rinse it to stop it from cooking.
• In a large skillet, melt a little butter and fry the buckwheat until fragrant.
• Add one cup of water to the buckwheat and bring to a boil. Then lower to a simmer and cover.
• Meanwile, slice the mushrooms and fry them in a skillet with butter.
• Season the mushrooms to taste with salt and pepper.
• After a few minutes of simmering, check to see whether the buckwheat needs more water. If it looks dry and isn’t yet tender, add a little more water. You want to add just enough water to keep the buckwheat from drying out. The goal here is tender, yet slightly firm buckwheat, as opposed to buckwheat mush. Towards the end of cooking, remove the cover so that excess liquid evaporates. If a little buckwheat sticks to the pan, do not scrape it up.
• Season the buckwheat with salt and pepper to taste, bearing in mind that you’ve already seasoned the mushrooms.
• Combine the pasta, mushrooms, and buckwheat and correct seasoning. Serve at room temperature or briefly reheat in a pan.

Serves 3-4

I was recently amused to see a lulav and etrog on display at the Berkeley Bowl. Apparently, you can order them from a guy at the produce section and buy them along with the rest of your groceries.

The lulav and etrog are symbols used in the Jewish celebration of Sukkot, or the Feast of Tabernacles. The lulav and etrog consist of a citron, a ripe palm frond, a myrtle branch, and a willow branch. Each element of the Four Species, as they’re called, represents a different type of Jew. Like Voltron, the Four Species are bound together to create a greater whole, representing the entire Jewish nation. Traditionally, the lulav and etrog are blessed and then gently shaken in four directions, representing the presence of the divine in the four corners of the earth.

My fondest memories of Sukkot are of eating in the sukkah. A sukkah is a sort of temporary hut built outdoors, with a roof typically made of palm branches. The idea is to re-create the huts in which the Jews lived as they traveled the desert between Egypt and the promised land. The sukkah must have a roof that is sparse enough for dwellers to see the stars at night. Ideally, you’re supposed to live in the sukkah for seven days, meaning eating, sleeping, hanging out. For children, this is great news. Any child who loves building forts and camping has a field day, or rather seven field days, during Sukkot.

But nothing is quite like a candle-lit holiday dinner in a sukkah. The palm frond roof rustles in the breeze, and the stars peek through as you enjoy your dinner. The air is permeated by the perfume of the branches, the sweet smell of challah dipped in honey, and the fragrant etrog which is carefully wrapped in a long lock of flax and laid to rest in its own little etrog box.

At the end of the holiday, the sukkah is dismantled and saved for the following year, the sukkah decorations are put away, and the palm fronds lie beside the trash bins awaiting garbage day.

But the etrog isn’t thrown out. Unlike lemons, citrons don’t rot. Instead, they shrivel and harden, which only intensifies their lovely fragrance. An old etrog might find itself snuggled in a sweater drawer. In a Sepharadi or Mizrahi home, etrogs might become etrog jam.

If you can find citrons in your area (try next week, after the holiday), you might want to try making etrog jam, especially if you’re a marmalade enthusiast. Citron jam has a particular flavor of its own. It’s Sukkot in a jar.