Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Recipes

Joan Nathan’s White House Seder Treats

For some of us, planning our Passover cooking for our friends and family is intimidating enough. Now, imagine cooking at the White House? With noted in-house pastry chef Bill Yosses. Overwhelming, right? Well, not for Jewish food writer Joan Nathan. Nathan, a long-time DC resident and friend of Yosses’s spent Wednesday afternoon at the White House preparing Passover dishes at an event. Fortunately for us, it was caught on tape. Watch below as Nathan creates a pear and pecan haroset, which she learned to make recently while visiting Arkansas. The pair also cooks Nathan’s sweet Matzo Chremsel. For the complete recipes read more.

Both recipes are reprinted with permission of the White House

Arkansas Pear Haroset
Adapted from Michael Selig, Little Rock, AR

Total time: 20 minutes

1 cup toasted pecans
1 cup dried figs
1 ½ just-ripe finely chopped pears, about 2 cups
1/2 medium Arkansas Black apple or other crisp, slightly tart variety, peeled and finely chopped, about ½ cup
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 tablespoons honey
3 tablespoons Passover sweet wine
The grated zest and juice from 1/2 lemon

1) Finely chop the pecans and the figs with a hand chopper or knife in a wooden bowl.

2) Stir them in with the pears and apple. Add the cinnamon, honey, sweet wine, and the grated lemon zest and juice. Toss together and store in a glass or ceramic bowl. Refrigerate at least 1 hour to mesh flavors.

Yield: 4 cups haroset

My Matzo Chremsel
Adapted from “Jewish Cooking in America” by Joan Nathan

Total Time: 30 minutes

3 matzos, broken in bite size pieces, soaked in cold water very briefly, and gently squeezed dry
2 tablespoons currants
2 tablespoons almonds, coarsely chopped
2 tablespoons dried apricots or prunes, coarsely chopped
3 large eggs, separated
¼ teaspoon of salt
1/4 cup matzo meal
1/3 cup sugar
½ teaspoon cinnamon
Grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
Kosher-for-Passover vegetable oil, for frying
Sugar or Kosher for Passover confectioners’ sugar for sprinkling

1) Lightly mix the matzos, currants, almonds, dried apricots or prunes, the egg yolks, the matzo meal, salt, sugar, cinnamon, and the grated zest and juice of a lemon in a medium bowl.

2) Mix the egg whites until stiff in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Fold the beaten egg whites into the matzo mixture. Refrigerate for about a half hour.

3) Line a plate with paper towels and heat 2 inches of kosher for Passover vegetable oil to 375 degrees in a wok or other low-sided medium stockpot. Carefully spoon the batter, 1 heaping tablespoon at a time, into the hot oil without crowding the pan. Fry until golden and crisp, about 1 minute on each side. Using a slotted spoon, transfer to the paper towels to drain. Serve warm, if possible, sprinkled with the sugar or confectioners’ sugar. Leftovers you can reheat in a 350 degree oven just before serving.

Yield: 12 to 15 chremsel

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.