For centuries, Jewish women schlepped to the fish market, choosing the best fish “by the look in its eyes” before transforming it into the quintessential Sabbath gefilte fish. Using a wooden bowl and a half-moon-shaped chopper, they cut up the fish with onions, crying a little, chopping a little, until the mix was just the…
Passover, the weeklong holiday that celebrates the Israelites’ freedom from slavery in Egypt was simpler back in the day. There was just one recipe for charoset, the mixture that symbolized the mortar the Israelites used to make bricks for the pyramids. That recipe had apples and walnuts — not dates, pistachios and ginger. There was…
1) Matzo: There’s not much to like about this flatbread that looks and tastes like corrugated cardboard. But that’s because you’re probably buying the boxed square matzos. Boxed matzo is made by a machine and often sits on the shelf for months before you purchased it. What you end up with are stale, unsatisfying crackers….
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While we weren’t intentionally looking for one, a theme quickly emerged at our recent taste test of “The Gefilte Manifesto,” and that theme was: “I don’t usually like” blank, “but I like this.” It started in the very first moments of our gathering, when our friend Fred took his first sip of the Celery Collins…
Tzimmes is a sweet Ashkenazi stew in which the ingredients vary depending on family origin and tradition. The dish is often eaten during the Jewish High Holidays to symbolically usher in a sweet new year. This sweet-and-savory chicken tzimmes is an easy dish with a built-in side. The juices of the chicken enhance the flavors…
Kugel comes in many forms, not just noodles. Liz and I both love savory vegetable kugels, and this cauliflower-mushroom version is lighter and more refined than the ever-popular potato kugel. If you’re lucky enough to live in a place where foraged mushrooms are accessible, get the best you can find. They will only enhance the…
Mustard is a key player in Ashkenazi cooking. The mustard plant, a member of the Brassica family, has some pretty important relatives in cabbage and horseradish. Can you imagine eastern European Jewish cooking without them? Probably not. And you also probably can’t imagine a hot deli pastrami sandwich without spicy ground mustard. Personally, I can’t…
