Why call this Kafka Soup? Because it keeps METAMORPHoSIZING!!!!
Friday was the second time I made this vegetable, bean and pasta soup.It's a wonderfully simple and quick recipe-under 25 minutes from cutting the first vegetable to the bowl on your table.
The first time I made it, it was yummy-but a little too monochromatic for my taste. So this time, at the last minute, I added a chiffonade (I have been waiting my entire life to use that word in a sentence) of baby spinach.
Tonight, on its third serving, I added chunks of Shabbat's leftover roasted chicken breast and the remaining roasted veggies.And in keeping with today's lazy day, no chiffonade (notice I snuck that word in again?)-I just threw in 2 hands-full of baby spinach. And for tomorrow's lunch, I'm breaking out the Sriacha.
KAFKA SOUP
1 tbs olive oil
1 medium-large onion, diced
2-3 medium carrots, diced
2 celery ribs, diced
6 cups of good quality vegetable stock or broth, or chicken broth
1 can cannelini beans, rinsed well and drained
1/2 cup dried small pasta (orechetti work well)
Salt and pepper to taste
1. Heat olive oil in a large heavy pot until it shimmers. Add onions and cook until translucent and fragrant.
2. Add celery and carrots and cook 4-5 minutes.
3. Add the stock and bring to a boil on high flame. Reduce heat to a high simmer and cook for 10 minutes, until carrots and celery are almost tender.
4. Add the beans and pasta, stir and cook an additional 8-10 minutes until the pasta is tender. Season to taste.
I added the spinach in the last few minutes of cooking. I added the chicken and leftover veggies at the beginning of cooking.
Enjoy!
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Gil Marks, Jewish Food Expert
I had hand surgery this week and won't be cooking for a bit - but there's still a lot to talk about regarding Jewish cooking. Here's a piece from the Jerusalem Post featuring chef and food historian Gil Marks:
October 25, 2011 Tuesday 27 Tishri 5772 21:26 IST
Jews and Food: from Yogurt to Chile Con Carne
By LOREN MINSKY/ITRAVELJERUSALEM.COM TEAM
25/10/2011
International chef and food historian, Gil Marks, shares secrets of delicious dishes and the unsung Jewish heroes of world cuisine.
On Sunday evening, Gil Marks spoke on the topic of “Jews and Food” to a mainly Anglo audience at Tmol Shilshom, a rustic coffee-shop bookstore in Jerusalem. Cited as one of the fifty most influential American Jews in 2010 in the Forward’s annual “Forward 50”, Marks is the author of the award-winning Olive Trees and Honey: A Treasury of Vegetarian Recipes from Jewish Communities around the World and more recently, the Encyclopedia of Jewish Food.
“This guy knows everything about anything,” says David Ehrlich, manager of Tmol Shilshom. “He was funny and quick to answer any question.” The talk was filled with surprising anecdotes on how culinary history has been influenced by Jewish traditions and wanderings in the diaspora.
Marks was in Israel visiting family over the holidays. Loren Minsky caught up with him.
Q: How did you come to combine your love of food with your love and knowledge of Judaism?
A: My mother takes full credit for my career. She tells everyone that when I was young, I would complain about her food and she would tell me to make my own – and I did. Once you feel comfortable in the kitchen (overcome the intimidation of the unknown) and have a basic understanding, it is easy to progress.
In my previous incarnation, I ran a guidance department and taught history at a yeshiva high school. I would invite friends and guests over for Shabbat and they would ooh and ah about the food. Each time, I would try to outdo myself. I am a self-taught chef. I have never taken a cooking class in my life.
Things are different now. An increasing number of middle class Jews go to cooking schools. It has become an acceptable profession. At a certain point, I told myself that life to too short and what I like is writing and cooking, so in 1986 I started Kosher Gourmet magazine, to reflect that kosher food could be quality fare. We lasted for seven years until Papa Bush’s ‘non-recession’ eliminated advertising and I segued to books.
Q: How do you differ to other Jewish cookbook authors?
A: I believe that I emphasize the historical and cultural aspects of Jewish food (where it came from, how it got there, and where it might be going) more than other Jewish cookbook authors.
Q: Are you vegetarian? Is vegetarian Jewish food your speciality?
A: I am not a vegetarian, but most of the time I eat vegetarian. If done right, vegetarian food can be incredibly flavorful and exciting. My previous book, Olive Trees and Honey, about traditional Jewish vegetarian fare, sells very well among non-Jews who are looking for those types of dishes. Jewish vegetarian food, as part of the wider umbrella of Jewish food, is one of my specialties.
Q: Tell me more about the James Beard Foundation award? How was it to be voted one of the most influential Jews in America?
A: I’ve written five books, three of them were nominated for a James Beard Award and Olive Trees & Honey won. It’s a tremendous sense of accomplishment when experts and those outside the Jewish community acknowledge the value of my work. I think my parents, who live in Israel, were most proud when the Jewish Forward included me in last year’s Forward Fifty.
Q: What is your connection to Israel?
A: I’ve been visiting Israel since my bar mitzvah when I spent the summer in Israel. During and after college, I spent two years studying in yeshivas here. My parents, one of my sisters, six nieces and nephews, and 14 great nieces and nephews live in Israel. I spend most of the holidays here. I usually come for two or three months at a time about twice a year. With an internet connection, I can work from anywhere. A good part of Encyclopedia of Jewish Food was written in Israel. I wanted the book to also include the Israeli food culture, not just American and European.
Q: What is the best part of being here?
A: My nieces and nephews! I also love to see how Israel has changed over the years and the degree of ethnic diversity. I enjoy seeing the Ethiopians and Asians and many others and thinking, “these are Jews.” I love Mahane Yehudah and other venues where Jewish food from around the world is on display. This is what Klal Yisrael is all about.
Q: What are your thoughts on Israeli raw materials and food?
A: The raw materials in Israel are tremendous. Israeli fruits and vegetables are generally far superior to American variations, which are grown for shipping and storage purposes and what they look like, not for the innate flavor. Israeli olive oil herbs, cheeses and wines are superb, although people don’t always make the best use of them. That’s been changing lately with more and more Israeli chefs realizing that they don’t have to be an imitation of the French kitchen, but a synthesis of the best, utilizing the local produce. CSAs (Community Sponsored Agriculture) provide incredible organic produce.
Q: How is your new book different to past books?
Encyclopedia of Jewish Food is the most comprehensive, accurate, and readable compilation of Jewish food ever with over 655 entries and 300 recipes about Jewish foods from across the globe. Much of what is commonly assumed about food is mistaken or simply wrong. For example, matzah was not always hard and cracker-like. The potato latke (and other prominent Ashkenazic potato dishes) only emerged in the mid-19th century. Food carries history and culture and I attempted to show the interconnection to Jews. How did the Jaffa Orange and Gevina Levanah (white cheese) come to Israel? How did Jews impact chocolate, bananas, and yogurt?
Q: How was the idea born for the book?
A: After the success of Olive Trees and Honey, I was discussing potential future books with my editor at Wiley Publishing, and she said, “You’re a walking encyclopedia of food, so why not write a Jewish encyclopedia of food?” I’ve been trying and collecting recipes and storing them along with food information in my computers for 25 years. It took me nearly five years to pull my research together, to check and double check my information and to make it as readable as possible.
Q: Are you planning on giving any other talks during the remainder of your stay in Israel?
A: I have one more presentation during this trip to Israel, a cooking demonstration for the Senior Citizen group of Gush Etzion and Efrat in Alon Shvut.
November and December are my busy months, so I am returning for a series of presentations there. I fly from Israel to Denver, Colorado for a talk and then spend weeks giving talks and cooking demos. It beats working for a living. Meanwhile, I work on my website (gilmarks.com), blog (gilmarks.com/wordpress) and updating my Twitter and Facebook accounts.
Gil Marks’ books are available on Amazon and other internet sources.
iTravelJerusalem.com is a new online international travel portal offering all the latest information on things to do , places to eat and places to stay.
October 25, 2011 Tuesday 27 Tishri 5772 21:26 IST
Jews and Food: from Yogurt to Chile Con Carne
By LOREN MINSKY/ITRAVELJERUSALEM.COM TEAM
25/10/2011
International chef and food historian, Gil Marks, shares secrets of delicious dishes and the unsung Jewish heroes of world cuisine.
On Sunday evening, Gil Marks spoke on the topic of “Jews and Food” to a mainly Anglo audience at Tmol Shilshom, a rustic coffee-shop bookstore in Jerusalem. Cited as one of the fifty most influential American Jews in 2010 in the Forward’s annual “Forward 50”, Marks is the author of the award-winning Olive Trees and Honey: A Treasury of Vegetarian Recipes from Jewish Communities around the World and more recently, the Encyclopedia of Jewish Food.
“This guy knows everything about anything,” says David Ehrlich, manager of Tmol Shilshom. “He was funny and quick to answer any question.” The talk was filled with surprising anecdotes on how culinary history has been influenced by Jewish traditions and wanderings in the diaspora.
Marks was in Israel visiting family over the holidays. Loren Minsky caught up with him.
Q: How did you come to combine your love of food with your love and knowledge of Judaism?
A: My mother takes full credit for my career. She tells everyone that when I was young, I would complain about her food and she would tell me to make my own – and I did. Once you feel comfortable in the kitchen (overcome the intimidation of the unknown) and have a basic understanding, it is easy to progress.
In my previous incarnation, I ran a guidance department and taught history at a yeshiva high school. I would invite friends and guests over for Shabbat and they would ooh and ah about the food. Each time, I would try to outdo myself. I am a self-taught chef. I have never taken a cooking class in my life.
Things are different now. An increasing number of middle class Jews go to cooking schools. It has become an acceptable profession. At a certain point, I told myself that life to too short and what I like is writing and cooking, so in 1986 I started Kosher Gourmet magazine, to reflect that kosher food could be quality fare. We lasted for seven years until Papa Bush’s ‘non-recession’ eliminated advertising and I segued to books.
Q: How do you differ to other Jewish cookbook authors?
A: I believe that I emphasize the historical and cultural aspects of Jewish food (where it came from, how it got there, and where it might be going) more than other Jewish cookbook authors.
Q: Are you vegetarian? Is vegetarian Jewish food your speciality?
A: I am not a vegetarian, but most of the time I eat vegetarian. If done right, vegetarian food can be incredibly flavorful and exciting. My previous book, Olive Trees and Honey, about traditional Jewish vegetarian fare, sells very well among non-Jews who are looking for those types of dishes. Jewish vegetarian food, as part of the wider umbrella of Jewish food, is one of my specialties.
Q: Tell me more about the James Beard Foundation award? How was it to be voted one of the most influential Jews in America?
A: I’ve written five books, three of them were nominated for a James Beard Award and Olive Trees & Honey won. It’s a tremendous sense of accomplishment when experts and those outside the Jewish community acknowledge the value of my work. I think my parents, who live in Israel, were most proud when the Jewish Forward included me in last year’s Forward Fifty.
Q: What is your connection to Israel?
A: I’ve been visiting Israel since my bar mitzvah when I spent the summer in Israel. During and after college, I spent two years studying in yeshivas here. My parents, one of my sisters, six nieces and nephews, and 14 great nieces and nephews live in Israel. I spend most of the holidays here. I usually come for two or three months at a time about twice a year. With an internet connection, I can work from anywhere. A good part of Encyclopedia of Jewish Food was written in Israel. I wanted the book to also include the Israeli food culture, not just American and European.
Q: What is the best part of being here?
A: My nieces and nephews! I also love to see how Israel has changed over the years and the degree of ethnic diversity. I enjoy seeing the Ethiopians and Asians and many others and thinking, “these are Jews.” I love Mahane Yehudah and other venues where Jewish food from around the world is on display. This is what Klal Yisrael is all about.
Q: What are your thoughts on Israeli raw materials and food?
A: The raw materials in Israel are tremendous. Israeli fruits and vegetables are generally far superior to American variations, which are grown for shipping and storage purposes and what they look like, not for the innate flavor. Israeli olive oil herbs, cheeses and wines are superb, although people don’t always make the best use of them. That’s been changing lately with more and more Israeli chefs realizing that they don’t have to be an imitation of the French kitchen, but a synthesis of the best, utilizing the local produce. CSAs (Community Sponsored Agriculture) provide incredible organic produce.
Q: How is your new book different to past books?
Encyclopedia of Jewish Food is the most comprehensive, accurate, and readable compilation of Jewish food ever with over 655 entries and 300 recipes about Jewish foods from across the globe. Much of what is commonly assumed about food is mistaken or simply wrong. For example, matzah was not always hard and cracker-like. The potato latke (and other prominent Ashkenazic potato dishes) only emerged in the mid-19th century. Food carries history and culture and I attempted to show the interconnection to Jews. How did the Jaffa Orange and Gevina Levanah (white cheese) come to Israel? How did Jews impact chocolate, bananas, and yogurt?
Q: How was the idea born for the book?
A: After the success of Olive Trees and Honey, I was discussing potential future books with my editor at Wiley Publishing, and she said, “You’re a walking encyclopedia of food, so why not write a Jewish encyclopedia of food?” I’ve been trying and collecting recipes and storing them along with food information in my computers for 25 years. It took me nearly five years to pull my research together, to check and double check my information and to make it as readable as possible.
Q: Are you planning on giving any other talks during the remainder of your stay in Israel?
A: I have one more presentation during this trip to Israel, a cooking demonstration for the Senior Citizen group of Gush Etzion and Efrat in Alon Shvut.
November and December are my busy months, so I am returning for a series of presentations there. I fly from Israel to Denver, Colorado for a talk and then spend weeks giving talks and cooking demos. It beats working for a living. Meanwhile, I work on my website (gilmarks.com), blog (gilmarks.com/wordpress) and updating my Twitter and Facebook accounts.
Gil Marks’ books are available on Amazon and other internet sources.
iTravelJerusalem.com is a new online international travel portal offering all the latest information on things to do , places to eat and places to stay.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Sliding into Sukkot! Safe!
I always feel a little like a dog chasing its tail during the Yom Tovim - I never feel like I've completely caught up with myself before the next hag begins. and so it is today - just began defrosting chicken and, of all things, a chicken breast "pastrami" style. The butcher said it's delicious. The breast has been rolled into a roast, pickled and coated with pastrami seasoning. I bought it partly out of nostalgia for the seasoning, as I gave up red meat more than 25 years ago. I'm planning to roast it with potatoes and carrots. What could be bad?
Also on tap, a colorful vegetable tagine with sweet and regular potatoes,carrots, parsnips, dried fruits, barley and again, delicious evocative seasonings - this time, cardamon, cumin and cinnamon. I can't wait to smell the kitchen once this gets cooking!
Finally, with just 2 of us at home (miss you, pook) we have a lot of leftover challah. That will be transformed magically into a challah kugel, much like a delicious sweet bread pudding. (So good, hot or cold!) This week, I think I'll serve it with a warm blueberry sauce from Trader Joe's. Add to that a simply fabulous - and simple - pareve chocolate cake with powdered sugar, and voila! A great Sukkot dinner.
Hag Sameach, and keep cooking.
Also on tap, a colorful vegetable tagine with sweet and regular potatoes,carrots, parsnips, dried fruits, barley and again, delicious evocative seasonings - this time, cardamon, cumin and cinnamon. I can't wait to smell the kitchen once this gets cooking!
Finally, with just 2 of us at home (miss you, pook) we have a lot of leftover challah. That will be transformed magically into a challah kugel, much like a delicious sweet bread pudding. (So good, hot or cold!) This week, I think I'll serve it with a warm blueberry sauce from Trader Joe's. Add to that a simply fabulous - and simple - pareve chocolate cake with powdered sugar, and voila! A great Sukkot dinner.
Hag Sameach, and keep cooking.
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Nothing Succeeds Like Ethnic Succession
I came across an amusing and fascinating article about the new Moroccan-born owners of that old stalwart, Manischewitz Foods. They, like me, agree that gefilte fish is definitely an acquired taste. I'll wince and eat it twice a year if necessary - and we're not talking about the jar stuff here. I'll only eat the Sandra Lee-ish semi-home-made buy the frozen block and boil it yourself version. So enjoy this article from the Wall st Journal:
With Some Passing on Gefilte Fish, A New Lure: Fish 'Meatballs'
Manischewitz Takes Mediterranean Turn, Hoping to Spice Up Fare; 'What Is Cumin?'
By LUCETTE LAGNADO
For years, gefilte fish—plump little patties of minced fish—has been the Jewish holiday treat that some Jews love to hate.
Enlarge Image
Manischewitz
Manischewitz has traditionally made Jewish foods like matzoh-ball soup.
These days, some say they've moved on. "Tradition is important but it needs updating—it doesn't have to be only about gefilte fish anymore," says Chany Konikov, a rabbi's wife in Southampton, N.Y., who also likes poached salmon and sushi.
Even Paul Bensabat wasn't that impressed when he tried it. "Boring," he says. "Pretty bland." And he's co-CEO of Manischewitz Co., one of the largest producers of gefilte fish. When Mr. Bensabat and partners took over the 123-year-old company, they decided to spice things up. One idea: Moroccan fish balls.
Manischewitz, founded by a rabbi, has been steeped in the traditions of Russian and Eastern European Jewry, producing matzoh, chicken soup and jars of gefilte fish—patties of carp, mullet, pike and whitefish in various combinations—which are a fixture on the holidays among Ashkenazi, or Eastern European, Jews. The Jewish High Holidays began last week with the Jewish New Year, or Rosh Hashana, and culminate with Yom Kippur, which starts Friday night.
Mr. Bensabat, a Moroccan Jew born in Casablanca, had never tasted gefilte fish when he and his partner joined an investor who had acquired the company. Some Manischewitz fare hadn't been a part of his upbringing. "I never grew up eating matzoh-ball soup," he says. His childhood memories were of couscous and other dishes of the Mediterranean.
Enlarge Image
Manischewitz
Manischewitz makes more than 50 different kinds of gefilte fish.
He started sampling jars of gefilte fish. Manischewitz makes more than 50 different kinds—sweet and not sweet, in jelly and in broth, to name a few.
His partner and co-CEO Alain Bankier, also Moroccan-Jewish and also from Casablanca, is more diplomatic. "It is an acquired taste," he says.
They agreed Manischewitz needed to go beyond gefilte fish—and quickly. Sales of traditional gefilte fish in a jar were still a pillar of the business, but were steadily going down. Younger consumers favored other foods or brands. The company hadn't produced new products in years when Messrs. Bensabat and Bankier joined it in 2008.
"All ethnic foods decline over time," says Jonathan Sarna, a professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis University, who recalls how his mother and other women of past generations would keep live fish in their bathtubs and make gefilte fish from scratch. Gefilte fish, he says, "didn't go mainstream" the way, for example, bagels did.
Mr. Bensabat's prescription was to branch out to Mediterranean fare—starting with his mother's Moroccan fish balls.
The company's food technologists at its headquarters in Newark, N.J., were mystified: They hadn't a clue how to make Moroccan fish balls.
The solution: a cross-cultural, trans-Atlantic cuisine transplant, in which Mr. Bensabat would get the family recipe from his 83-year-old maman and Manischewitz's cooks would translate it for large-scale production.
Mrs. Claire Bensabat's Festive Sweet Couscous Recipe
Sweet couscous is a specialty of Mrs. Claire Bensabat, Paul Bensabat's mother, that she loves to make; since she cooks by instinct, it was hard for her to come up with exact measures, but through the efforts of working together with her son, she produced the following recipe for The Journal
Makes 5 servings
1. Preparing the couscous
Ingredients:
1 10-oz box semolina
2 cups water
½ tsp salt and pepper
2 Tablespoons olive oil
Wash the semolina 2 times then add the water, oil, salt and pepper and roll it by hand in a large bowl.
Place the semolina in the steamer and evaporate it 3 times in a row. In between each process of evaporation, place the semolina in a bowl and keep spraying it with water and rolling it at the same time to avoid lumps.
When the semolina looks fluffy, it is ready to be served with the prunes, raisins and almonds, prepared as described.
2. Preparing the prunes, raisins and almonds:
Ingredients :
2 large onions
1 lb dried sweet pitted prunes
½ lb raisins
7 oz minced almonds
½ teaspoon cinnamon
4 tablespoons sugar
½ cup vegetable oil
½ teaspoon of chicken powder
1 ½ glasses of water
½ cup powered sugar
In a pan, fry the minced onions until they are golden brown.
In a pot, pour 1½ glass of water and add half of the golden brown onions, the dried pitted prunes, the cinnamon and sugar. Simmer for 5 minutes over medium heat.
In a separate pan, add the rest of the minced onions, 1 glass of water, the chicken powder and the raisins. Simmer for 5 minutes over medium heat.
When both prunes and raisins are cooked, combine in the pot and cook for 5 minutes over low heat.
Separately, pan fry the minced almonds until they are golden brown and crunchy.
On a round plate, place the semolina in a volcano shape and put the minced almonds on top of the cone. The raisins and prunes should be displayed in "strings" or lines falling from the top of the cone to the base, alternating with the powdered sugar "strings", to get that festive sweet couscous nicely decorated.
* * *
Celine Bankier's Meat Pastelles (Moroccan Meat Patties)
Pastelles are the Moroccan-Sephardic variation of knishes. These are fried potato patties, stuffed with meat. The recipe is "a vue d'oeil" or "measure by eye," in other words an instinctive approach, therefore the indicated amounts are approximate. It is translated from French as given by Celine Bankier to her son, Alain.
Makes approximately 30 pastelles
The potatoes:
You can make about 2 lbs of your favorite potato puree, or you can use potato flakes, directions below. Use only the potato flakes and not the spice mix that may come with the flakes.
Boil together 3¼ cups of water, 5 tablespoons of margarine and 1 teaspoon of salt. After the water boils, remove from heat, and add ½ cup cold water, 5 cups of potato flakes, three eggs, a pinch of salt, ½ tablespoon of pepper and a little bit of nutmeg (¼ teaspoon?).
Mix contents until it is a consistent puree. Add a little more salt or nutmeg as needed.
The meat:
Take about 2 lbs of ground beef, add ½ cup of water, ½ teaspoon of pepper, and cook until the water is evaporated. Remove meat from the heat and add the juice of one lemon, 1 tablespoon vinegar, and 2 tablespoons of very finely chopped parsley and blend together. Re-grind cooked meat to a very fine consistency.
Form little round flat meat balls ("boulettes"), which are thin and approximately 3-4 centimeters in diameter. Cover your palms with oil, and take some of the potato puree, form a patty and envelop the flat meat "boulette" in the puree, roll it your hand to make a flat potato patty and make sure the meat is well covered by the potato puree.
Dip potato patty in cake meal and then in egg batter (beat the whole eggs into a consistent liquid) and fry quickly in hot oil until lightly golden on both sides. Take out and gently pat down in absorbent paper to take off the oil and serve warm.
There were a few obstacles, starting with the fact that his mother, Claire Bensabat, lives 4,000 miles away in Nice. She speaks French and doesn't use recipes or follow a cookbook to prepare her delicacies.
Her recipe for fish balls: Take a fish, and "add a little bit of cumin."
When Mr. Bensabat pressed for exact measures, his mother said she had none.
"It was a nightmare," he says.
Mrs. Bensabat agreed to go to her kitchen the next day, prepare a batch of her fish balls from scratch, and jot down every step.
After some back and forth, Mr. Bensabat handed over the instructions.
This settled nothing.
"I told them they are off the wall," Ely Fink, a regional sales manager, says. He wondered how he was going to get such an exotic product into supermarkets used to stocking traditional Manischewitz fare.
Then there was the Cumin Crisis. Manischewitz had no cumin. The industrial kitchen had "salt, pepper, garlic, onion—nothing exciting," says Inna Rabinovich, the Russian-born food technologist charged with reproducing the Moroccan fish balls. She struggled to produce a version for mass production, summoning the boss each time she prepared a new batch, hoping he'd like it. "Sometimes it wasn't very good—but he was very polite," she says.
They turned to Manischewitz's longtime chief of procurement, Yossi Ostreicher, to procure the large quantities of cumin required.
"What is cumin?" he said.
Manischewitz couldn't buy just any cumin. It needed to be both kosher and kosher for Passover. Mr. Ostreicher found one firm in Israel able to furnish it.
There remained the question of how to present the product to the public.
"It is not like you go to the Mediterranean fish ball section of your local supermarket," says David Rossi, the company's marketing chief.
Executives debated whether to label the fish balls "Mediterranean" or "Moroccan." Should they name the product "fish bites" or "fish balls"? There was even a suggestion to use the French name, "boulettes de poisson."
The consensus was to go with "fish meatballs." The name is "very descriptive and appetizing," Mr. Bensabat says. To avoid confusion, the company's marketers put quotes around "meatballs."
The product made it to stores this past spring. Mr. Bensabat says it's doing "quite nicely, but a new product takes time." And the company says sales of gefilte fish are stabilizing, which they attribute to a longing for "comfort food."
The partners aren't done. They're trying to make oregano-flavored matzoh, and "Mediterranean gefilte fish," adding rosemary and other spices.
Mrs. Bensabat has been offering suggestions to her son of other dishes the company could make, such as her lemon caper sauce and a Moroccan dish known as chouchouka, made of red, orange and green peppers and tomatoes.
The recipe the partners want most is for the couscous they loved as children, smothered in a meat or chicken sauce.
Mrs. Bensabat is busy in her kitchen tryin enjoy this article from the Wall Street Journal:
With Some Passing on Gefilte Fish, A New Lure: Fish 'Meatballs'
Manischewitz Takes Mediterranean Turn, Hoping to Spice Up Fare; 'What Is Cumin?'
By LUCETTE LAGNADO
For years, gefilte fish—plump little patties of minced fish—has been the Jewish holiday treat that some Jews love to hate.
Enlarge Image
Manischewitz
Manischewitz has traditionally made Jewish foods like matzoh-ball soup.
These days, some say they've moved on. "Tradition is important but it needs updating—it doesn't have to be only about gefilte fish anymore," says Chany Konikov, a rabbi's wife in Southampton, N.Y., who also likes poached salmon and sushi.
Even Paul Bensabat wasn't that impressed when he tried it. "Boring," he says. "Pretty bland." And he's co-CEO of Manischewitz Co., one of the largest producers of gefilte fish. When Mr. Bensabat and partners took over the 123-year-old company, they decided to spice things up. One idea: Moroccan fish balls.
Manischewitz, founded by a rabbi, has been steeped in the traditions of Russian and Eastern European Jewry, producing matzoh, chicken soup and jars of gefilte fish—patties of carp, mullet, pike and whitefish in various combinations—which are a fixture on the holidays among Ashkenazi, or Eastern European, Jews. The Jewish High Holidays began last week with the Jewish New Year, or Rosh Hashana, and culminate with Yom Kippur, which starts Friday night.
Mr. Bensabat, a Moroccan Jew born in Casablanca, had never tasted gefilte fish when he and his partner joined an investor who had acquired the company. Some Manischewitz fare hadn't been a part of his upbringing. "I never grew up eating matzoh-ball soup," he says. His childhood memories were of couscous and other dishes of the Mediterranean.
Enlarge Image
Manischewitz
Manischewitz makes more than 50 different kinds of gefilte fish.
He started sampling jars of gefilte fish. Manischewitz makes more than 50 different kinds—sweet and not sweet, in jelly and in broth, to name a few.
His partner and co-CEO Alain Bankier, also Moroccan-Jewish and also from Casablanca, is more diplomatic. "It is an acquired taste," he says.
They agreed Manischewitz needed to go beyond gefilte fish—and quickly. Sales of traditional gefilte fish in a jar were still a pillar of the business, but were steadily going down. Younger consumers favored other foods or brands. The company hadn't produced new products in years when Messrs. Bensabat and Bankier joined it in 2008.
"All ethnic foods decline over time," says Jonathan Sarna, a professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis University, who recalls how his mother and other women of past generations would keep live fish in their bathtubs and make gefilte fish from scratch. Gefilte fish, he says, "didn't go mainstream" the way, for example, bagels did.
Mr. Bensabat's prescription was to branch out to Mediterranean fare—starting with his mother's Moroccan fish balls.
The company's food technologists at its headquarters in Newark, N.J., were mystified: They hadn't a clue how to make Moroccan fish balls.
The solution: a cross-cultural, trans-Atlantic cuisine transplant, in which Mr. Bensabat would get the family recipe from his 83-year-old maman and Manischewitz's cooks would translate it for large-scale production.
Mrs. Claire Bensabat's Festive Sweet Couscous Recipe
Sweet couscous is a specialty of Mrs. Claire Bensabat, Paul Bensabat's mother, that she loves to make; since she cooks by instinct, it was hard for her to come up with exact measures, but through the efforts of working together with her son, she produced the following recipe for The Journal
Makes 5 servings
1. Preparing the couscous
Ingredients:
1 10-oz box semolina
2 cups water
½ tsp salt and pepper
2 Tablespoons olive oil
Wash the semolina 2 times then add the water, oil, salt and pepper and roll it by hand in a large bowl.
Place the semolina in the steamer and evaporate it 3 times in a row. In between each process of evaporation, place the semolina in a bowl and keep spraying it with water and rolling it at the same time to avoid lumps.
When the semolina looks fluffy, it is ready to be served with the prunes, raisins and almonds, prepared as described.
2. Preparing the prunes, raisins and almonds:
Ingredients :
2 large onions
1 lb dried sweet pitted prunes
½ lb raisins
7 oz minced almonds
½ teaspoon cinnamon
4 tablespoons sugar
½ cup vegetable oil
½ teaspoon of chicken powder
1 ½ glasses of water
½ cup powered sugar
In a pan, fry the minced onions until they are golden brown.
In a pot, pour 1½ glass of water and add half of the golden brown onions, the dried pitted prunes, the cinnamon and sugar. Simmer for 5 minutes over medium heat.
In a separate pan, add the rest of the minced onions, 1 glass of water, the chicken powder and the raisins. Simmer for 5 minutes over medium heat.
When both prunes and raisins are cooked, combine in the pot and cook for 5 minutes over low heat.
Separately, pan fry the minced almonds until they are golden brown and crunchy.
On a round plate, place the semolina in a volcano shape and put the minced almonds on top of the cone. The raisins and prunes should be displayed in "strings" or lines falling from the top of the cone to the base, alternating with the powdered sugar "strings", to get that festive sweet couscous nicely decorated.
* * *
Celine Bankier's Meat Pastelles (Moroccan Meat Patties)
Pastelles are the Moroccan-Sephardic variation of knishes. These are fried potato patties, stuffed with meat. The recipe is "a vue d'oeil" or "measure by eye," in other words an instinctive approach, therefore the indicated amounts are approximate. It is translated from French as given by Celine Bankier to her son, Alain.
Makes approximately 30 pastelles
The potatoes:
You can make about 2 lbs of your favorite potato puree, or you can use potato flakes, directions below. Use only the potato flakes and not the spice mix that may come with the flakes.
Boil together 3¼ cups of water, 5 tablespoons of margarine and 1 teaspoon of salt. After the water boils, remove from heat, and add ½ cup cold water, 5 cups of potato flakes, three eggs, a pinch of salt, ½ tablespoon of pepper and a little bit of nutmeg (¼ teaspoon?).
Mix contents until it is a consistent puree. Add a little more salt or nutmeg as needed.
The meat:
Take about 2 lbs of ground beef, add ½ cup of water, ½ teaspoon of pepper, and cook until the water is evaporated. Remove meat from the heat and add the juice of one lemon, 1 tablespoon vinegar, and 2 tablespoons of very finely chopped parsley and blend together. Re-grind cooked meat to a very fine consistency.
Form little round flat meat balls ("boulettes"), which are thin and approximately 3-4 centimeters in diameter. Cover your palms with oil, and take some of the potato puree, form a patty and envelop the flat meat "boulette" in the puree, roll it your hand to make a flat potato patty and make sure the meat is well covered by the potato puree.
Dip potato patty in cake meal and then in egg batter (beat the whole eggs into a consistent liquid) and fry quickly in hot oil until lightly golden on both sides. Take out and gently pat down in absorbent paper to take off the oil and serve warm.
There were a few obstacles, starting with the fact that his mother, Claire Bensabat, lives 4,000 miles away in Nice. She speaks French and doesn't use recipes or follow a cookbook to prepare her delicacies.
Her recipe for fish balls: Take a fish, and "add a little bit of cumin."
When Mr. Bensabat pressed for exact measures, his mother said she had none.
"It was a nightmare," he says.
Mrs. Bensabat agreed to go to her kitchen the next day, prepare a batch of her fish balls from scratch, and jot down every step.
After some back and forth, Mr. Bensabat handed over the instructions.
This settled nothing.
"I told them they are off the wall," Ely Fink, a regional sales manager, says. He wondered how he was going to get such an exotic product into supermarkets used to stocking traditional Manischewitz fare.
Then there was the Cumin Crisis. Manischewitz had no cumin. The industrial kitchen had "salt, pepper, garlic, onion—nothing exciting," says Inna Rabinovich, the Russian-born food technologist charged with reproducing the Moroccan fish balls. She struggled to produce a version for mass production, summoning the boss each time she prepared a new batch, hoping he'd like it. "Sometimes it wasn't very good—but he was very polite," she says.
They turned to Manischewitz's longtime chief of procurement, Yossi Ostreicher, to procure the large quantities of cumin required.
"What is cumin?" he said.
Manischewitz couldn't buy just any cumin. It needed to be both kosher and kosher for Passover. Mr. Ostreicher found one firm in Israel able to furnish it.
There remained the question of how to present the product to the public.
"It is not like you go to the Mediterranean fish ball section of your local supermarket," says David Rossi, the company's marketing chief.
Executives debated whether to label the fish balls "Mediterranean" or "Moroccan." Should they name the product "fish bites" or "fish balls"? There was even a suggestion to use the French name, "boulettes de poisson."
The consensus was to go with "fish meatballs." The name is "very descriptive and appetizing," Mr. Bensabat says. To avoid confusion, the company's marketers put quotes around "meatballs."
The product made it to stores this past spring. Mr. Bensabat says it's doing "quite nicely, but a new product takes time." And the company says sales of gefilte fish are stabilizing, which they attribute to a longing for "comfort food."
The partners aren't done. They're trying to make oregano-flavored matzoh, and "Mediterranean gefilte fish," adding rosemary and other spices.
Mrs. Bensabat has been offering suggestions to her son of other dishes the company could make, such as her lemon caper sauce and a Moroccan dish known as chouchouka, made of red, orange and green peppers and tomatoes.
The recipe the partners want most is for the couscous they loved as children, smothered in a meat or chicken sauce.
Mrs. Bensabat is busy in her kitchen tryin enjoy this article from the Wall Street Journal:
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
A Good and Sweet Year Starts Here
In the midst of Rosh Hashanah prep...and this is what it looks like: Chicken soup and floaters, roast with pomegranate sauce, roasted turkey, chicken tagine with prunes, almonds and apricots...assorted sweets and treats.
There are delicious California reds and whites to be imbibed.
Recipes will follow after the hag. In the meantime, from my kitchen to yours, and from my family to yours, Shana Tova U'Mtookah, a good and sweet New Year.
There are delicious California reds and whites to be imbibed.
Recipes will follow after the hag. In the meantime, from my kitchen to yours, and from my family to yours, Shana Tova U'Mtookah, a good and sweet New Year.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Chicken, Chicken, Chicken
My sweet husband, hereafter referred to as Sweetie, says that I must know hundreds of way to cook chicken.I'm not sure I know QUITE that many, but it might be close...So the next few postings will be devoted to different styles of chicken dishes.
First, a word about what makes a bird kosher. According to the Orthodox Union, a leading kashrut certification body,
The Torah does not enumerate specific characteristics to distinguish permitted and forbidden birds. Instead, it enumerates 24 forbidden species of fowl, while all other birds are considered to be kosher. Nonetheless, for various reasons, in practice we eat only those birds which have an established tradition that the species is kosher.
In the United States, the only poultry accepted by mainstream kashrus organizations as kosher are chicken, turkey, duck and goose.
So keep your eyes on this spot for the next few days as we showcase different chicken recipes, suitable for everyday, Shabbat or the hagim.
First, a word about what makes a bird kosher. According to the Orthodox Union, a leading kashrut certification body,
The Torah does not enumerate specific characteristics to distinguish permitted and forbidden birds. Instead, it enumerates 24 forbidden species of fowl, while all other birds are considered to be kosher. Nonetheless, for various reasons, in practice we eat only those birds which have an established tradition that the species is kosher.
In the United States, the only poultry accepted by mainstream kashrus organizations as kosher are chicken, turkey, duck and goose.
So keep your eyes on this spot for the next few days as we showcase different chicken recipes, suitable for everyday, Shabbat or the hagim.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
The Refrigerator Rules, or How I Beat Working Mother's Refrigerator
Ok, even if you're not one, I'll bet from time to time you suffer from what I call Working Mother's Refrigerator. You know what I mean...veggies clearly past their prime, chicken of indeterminate age, yogurt that could substitute for a penicillin shot. So other than asking your nose or stomach to make the Supreme Sacrifice, just follow The Refrigerator Rules
1. Temperature: Keep your refrigerator's temperature set to at least 40 degrees. Bacteria loves to grow between 40 and 140 degrees.
2. Cleaning: Make sure to wipe up spills as soon as they happen. Clean your fridge with a thorough wipe down every week. Use a solution of half-and-half water and distilled vinegar.
3. Storing: Store leftovers in containers with lids. This will prevent spills and cross contamination with other foods that might soon be spoiling or are already spoiled. All leftovers should be stored within 2 hours of cooking or 1 hour on hot summer days.
4. Chilling: To chill hot leftovers, place them in shallow covered containers and immerse them in a bath of ice water to cool rapidly.
5. Discarding: Toss any leftovers that have sat in the fridge for more than 4 days. Do not rely on smell, taste or sight. But if something is growing on your leftovers, it's definitely a sign to toss.
6. Reheating: When you want to eat leftovers that need reheating, be sure to heat them to a temperature higher than 140 degrees.
Read more: http://www.kitchendaily.com/2011/08/26/the-refrigerator-rules-when-to-toss-those-leftovers/#ixzz1WfRbjYxy
1. Temperature: Keep your refrigerator's temperature set to at least 40 degrees. Bacteria loves to grow between 40 and 140 degrees.
2. Cleaning: Make sure to wipe up spills as soon as they happen. Clean your fridge with a thorough wipe down every week. Use a solution of half-and-half water and distilled vinegar.
3. Storing: Store leftovers in containers with lids. This will prevent spills and cross contamination with other foods that might soon be spoiling or are already spoiled. All leftovers should be stored within 2 hours of cooking or 1 hour on hot summer days.
4. Chilling: To chill hot leftovers, place them in shallow covered containers and immerse them in a bath of ice water to cool rapidly.
5. Discarding: Toss any leftovers that have sat in the fridge for more than 4 days. Do not rely on smell, taste or sight. But if something is growing on your leftovers, it's definitely a sign to toss.
6. Reheating: When you want to eat leftovers that need reheating, be sure to heat them to a temperature higher than 140 degrees.
Read more: http://www.kitchendaily.com/2011/08/26/the-refrigerator-rules-when-to-toss-those-leftovers/#ixzz1WfRbjYxy
Monday, August 22, 2011
This Is Totally Off-Topic, But Looks Like Fun!
As a parent of a college student, I'm a bit past doing this on my own for a kid's party. But having baked and decorated fun cupcakes yesterday with Debate Girl, I was reminded of fun kitchen projects of yore.
So, if you are looking for a great idea for a party, see below. H/t to EHow
How to Make a Chocolate Ice Cream Cup Using Balloons
Why serve ice cream in traditional bowls you must wash after using or in boring ice cream cones? Create edible chocolate ice cream bowls with balloons. While you will not eat the balloons, you will use them as molds to create the bowl shape. For best results, do this in a very cold kitchen or very quickly. Ask your friends and family members to help you make these bowls, and everyone can enjoy the fruits of their labor when finished.
Difficulty: Moderately Easy
Instructions
Things You'll Need
Several small balloons
Soap and water
Soft towel
Baking pan
Wax paper or parchment paper
3/4 lb. chopped chocolate or chocolate chips (any type: white, dark, or milk)
Saucepan
Large metal bowl to fit over the saucepan
Whisk
Scissors
1
Blow up several small balloons until they are 4 in. in diameter, and tie a knot in the end of each to close.
2
Wash the outside of each balloon gently with soap and water, and dry with a soft towel.
3
Line a baking pan with wax paper or parchment paper, and place the lined pan into the freezer to chill while you prepare the chocolate.
4
Fill the saucepan with 1 in. of water in the bottom and bring to a boil.
5
Place the chocolate into the metal bowl, and set the bowl on top of the saucepan with the boiling water. Turn the heat down to low. Avoid getting water into the chocolate to prevent its seizing and changing in texture.
6
Slowly melt the chocolate, stirring with the whisk the entire time to keep it smooth.
7
Remove the bowl with the melted chocolate from the saucepan and let the chocolate cool for 5 minutes.
8
Remove the lined baking pan from the freezer and set on the counter next to the bowl of melted chocolate.
9
Holding a balloon by the knot, dip the opposite end into the melted chocolate. Gently lift out the balloon and tilt it to allow the chocolate to cover the bottom half of the balloon.
10
Set the balloon on the wax paper- or parchment paper-lined baking sheet, holding the knotted end upright for several seconds until the chocolate begins to cool and harden. Repeat with the remaining balloons and chocolate.
11
Place the baking pan with the chocolate-covered balloons into the freezer for 30 minutes to completely harden the chocolate.
12
Remove the chilled chocolate-covered balloons from the freezer. Use the scissors to snip a small hole in the top of each balloon to slowly deflate it. Do not pop the balloons or the chocolate bowls will break.
13
Pull out the deflated balloons and return the chocolate bowls to the freezer until ready to use or fill with ice cream and serve immediately.
(I particularly liked the reminder NOT to eat the balloons....)
So, if you are looking for a great idea for a party, see below. H/t to EHow
How to Make a Chocolate Ice Cream Cup Using Balloons
Why serve ice cream in traditional bowls you must wash after using or in boring ice cream cones? Create edible chocolate ice cream bowls with balloons. While you will not eat the balloons, you will use them as molds to create the bowl shape. For best results, do this in a very cold kitchen or very quickly. Ask your friends and family members to help you make these bowls, and everyone can enjoy the fruits of their labor when finished.
Difficulty: Moderately Easy
Instructions
Things You'll Need
Several small balloons
Soap and water
Soft towel
Baking pan
Wax paper or parchment paper
3/4 lb. chopped chocolate or chocolate chips (any type: white, dark, or milk)
Saucepan
Large metal bowl to fit over the saucepan
Whisk
Scissors
1
Blow up several small balloons until they are 4 in. in diameter, and tie a knot in the end of each to close.
2
Wash the outside of each balloon gently with soap and water, and dry with a soft towel.
3
Line a baking pan with wax paper or parchment paper, and place the lined pan into the freezer to chill while you prepare the chocolate.
4
Fill the saucepan with 1 in. of water in the bottom and bring to a boil.
5
Place the chocolate into the metal bowl, and set the bowl on top of the saucepan with the boiling water. Turn the heat down to low. Avoid getting water into the chocolate to prevent its seizing and changing in texture.
6
Slowly melt the chocolate, stirring with the whisk the entire time to keep it smooth.
7
Remove the bowl with the melted chocolate from the saucepan and let the chocolate cool for 5 minutes.
8
Remove the lined baking pan from the freezer and set on the counter next to the bowl of melted chocolate.
9
Holding a balloon by the knot, dip the opposite end into the melted chocolate. Gently lift out the balloon and tilt it to allow the chocolate to cover the bottom half of the balloon.
10
Set the balloon on the wax paper- or parchment paper-lined baking sheet, holding the knotted end upright for several seconds until the chocolate begins to cool and harden. Repeat with the remaining balloons and chocolate.
11
Place the baking pan with the chocolate-covered balloons into the freezer for 30 minutes to completely harden the chocolate.
12
Remove the chilled chocolate-covered balloons from the freezer. Use the scissors to snip a small hole in the top of each balloon to slowly deflate it. Do not pop the balloons or the chocolate bowls will break.
13
Pull out the deflated balloons and return the chocolate bowls to the freezer until ready to use or fill with ice cream and serve immediately.
(I particularly liked the reminder NOT to eat the balloons....)
Saturday, August 13, 2011
An Interesting Perspective on Shabbat and Cooking
From Tablet:
Closed Kitchen
On Shabbat, the day of rest, cooking is prohibited. But for a chef-turned-rabbinical student, cooking is key to celebration, and food prepared in advance will never taste as good.
BY BENJAMIN RESNICK | Aug 9, 2011 7:00 AM
CREDIT: Daniel Hertzberg
When I decided to keep Shabbat, the prohibition against cooking was the hardest observance for me to follow.
After college, I spent a few years working in high-end restaurant kitchens in New York. Then I decided to go to rabbinical school. I did not grow up particularly observant—I have a deep, abiding love for BLT sandwiches—so my transition from harried, pork-belly slinger to postmodern halakhic man involved some serious lifestyle changes. While I didn’t find it particularly difficult to give up pancetta, turning off the stoves on Shabbat was a different story.
For as long as I could remember, celebration meant cooking and cooking meant doing it as well as I knew how. This was true long before I entered the food world professionally. When I was 11, I religiously watched Julia Child [1] and other Saturday-morning cooking shows and cooked dishes I learned from them, like peppers stuffed with wild rice. In college, I commandeered the kitchen of my girlfriend’s dorm suite to throw an elaborate dinner party—fried lemon sole with capers and brown butter, and spinach salad with caramelized fennel, goat cheese, and candied nuts. Six years later, when my girlfriend became my wife, I collaborated with our caterers to perfect the mushroom hors d’oeuvre that would be passed at our wedding.
Observing Shabbat makes that approach untenable. The laws of food preparation on Shabbat are complex; they dictate what can be reheated and what cannot, what tools can be used, how vegetables may be sliced, even the proper way to make tea—first by pouring the water from the water heater into a pot and then pouring water from the pot over the teabag itself. Together, the rules can feel overwhelming for the uninitiated, and they certainly did for me.
But I had an even bigger problem: I didn’t want to give up on cooking as a form of rejoicing. And my apprehension persisted even after I began to feel reasonably confident in my understanding of Jewish law, halakhah.
For one, I knew that food I prepared halakhically wouldn’t be as good. Coming from the restaurant world, I was (and still am) accustomed to being involved in each dish until moments before it was eaten. If left to sit too long in the kitchen, a steak cooked medium rare will be medium by the time it reaches the diner. But traditional Shabbat observance requires most food to be prepared well ahead of time. Readying food too far in advance, and having too little control over the dish when it goes to the table, means that what my family eats on Shabbat is inevitably inferior to what we eat during the week. The skin on a piece of sea bass won’t stay crispy if it has to be cooked 30 minutes before dinner. Lasagna that has been drying out in the oven from a 4 p.m. candle-lighting until a 7 p.m. dinner doesn’t cut it for me, culinarily or spiritually. And the perfect roast chicken, a popular Shabbat dish in the Ashkenazi world, is technically impossible to serve if one is observant. (It needs an hour in a blazingly hot oven, half an hour to rest, and then it needs to be served immediately, ideally with mustard aioli and bitter greens; any more time and the poor bird begins to desiccate.)
Of course, there are workarounds. Some have been around for centuries, such as cholent, a dish that gets better and better the longer it cooks; poached salmon, best served at room temperature, is a Sabbath favorite too. Then there are innovations such as sous-vide cooking, which involves slow-poaching meat in hermetically sealed bags for long periods of time. But cholent gets tiresome and most of us don’t have vacuum sealers and immersion circulators in our home kitchens.
I am all for boundaries [2] in the kitchen. Whether they’re halakhic (not serving rabbit) or culinary (traditional Italian cuisine frowns upon serving fish with cheese), limitations tend to inspire creativity. Still, without the speed, the tools, or the technical skill of a professional cook, it’s a tall order to complete the dishes by Shabbat’s arrival and to warm them in such a way that is halakhically permissible and non-detrimental to the food. The meal inevitably suffers.
It’s nearly impossible to serve anything that is both warm and green, for example. Reheated vegetables almost invariably lose their color. This means I can’t make the chive sauce I like to serve with cod, or sautéed spinach. This means my pea soup is inevitably brown.
Restrictions like these can make traditional Shabbat observance seem like deprivation. Shabbat is not conceptualized as an ascetic practice; rather, the obligatory nature of Shabbat and its attending constraints are supposed to usher in a higher luxury. Eating has always been central to that sense of luxury. Rabbinic literature is full of imaginative descriptions of Shabbat meals. In the Talmud, Rabbi Eliezer tells us that a man should always set a full table on Friday night, even if he only needs an olive’s worth of food. Likewise, many traditional Shabbat songs feature culinary themes. “It is an honored day,” writes Ibn Ezra in his poem “Ki Eshmera Shabbat,” “a day of enjoyment, of bread and good wine, of meat and fish!”
Moishe Wendel, chef-owner of Pardes [3]—an exciting new glatt kosher restaurant in Brooklyn’s Boerum Hill neighborhood—acknowledges the inherent drawbacks of Shabbat cooking. Before he became religious, he spent time cooking in non-kosher restaurants. He says that halakhic boundaries actually have the potential to improve the food, and not just spiritually. “When you work within limits, the parameters make your food better,” he told me, gulping a beer and wiping his face with his kippah after a busy night on the line. At Pardes, he cures his own lamb bacon, something he says he wouldn’t spend the time making if he could simply buy it. But he’s pleased with his results. “It’s trial and error like anything else,” he says about Shabbat cooking. “Sear off a steak to a nice bloody rare. Let it rest. Put it on top of two forks on the blech [4] and you’ve got yourself a perfect cote de boeuf!”
I know that conceptualizing Shabbat as obligation is essential to ensure that Shabbat remains distinct from the rest of the week. A robust sense of religious obligation doesn’t allow for picking and choosing. Traditional Shabbat observance is powerful precisely because its boundaries don’t bend according to individual preference. Shabbat allows us, potentially, to experience something infinitely larger than ourselves.
Like all Shabbat restrictions, the necessity of having everything prepared beforehand is meant to elevate the experience itself. Shabbat dinner is supposed to be the best meal of the week, spiritually and culinarily. The sages say that so long as it is prepared in honor of Shabbat, even a humble dish like fish-hash pie is a delight.
I love humble dishes. Excellent mashed potatoes, perfectly fried eggs: These are some of my favorite meals. But anyone who has spent a long time in the kitchen knows it’s the humble dishes that require the most exacting craft. It’s not hard to make great food if you are starting with truffles or foie gras. Making transcendent fish-hash, though eminently possible with salt-cod, fingerling potatoes, garlic confit, and sweet onions, requires more finesse. And because halakhic observance makes finesse in the kitchen difficult, if not impossible, I simply haven’t been able to reach culinary and religious heights simultaneously—at least not yet.
There is a traditional Jewish impulse to try to answer difficult questions by telling a story, so I’ll repeat a parable from the Gemara.
Once, the emperor of Rome said to Rabbi Joshua ben Hanania, “Why does the Shabbos dish smell so good?” The rabbi replied: “We have a certain seasoning called the Sabbath, which we put into it, and that gives it a wonderful smell.” The emperor asked for some of it. “To him who keeps the Sabbath,” Rabbi Joshua said, “it is efficacious; but to him who does not keep the Sabbath it is of no use.”
Benjamin Resnick is a rabbinical student at the Jewish Theological Seminary.
Closed Kitchen
On Shabbat, the day of rest, cooking is prohibited. But for a chef-turned-rabbinical student, cooking is key to celebration, and food prepared in advance will never taste as good.
BY BENJAMIN RESNICK | Aug 9, 2011 7:00 AM
CREDIT: Daniel Hertzberg
When I decided to keep Shabbat, the prohibition against cooking was the hardest observance for me to follow.
After college, I spent a few years working in high-end restaurant kitchens in New York. Then I decided to go to rabbinical school. I did not grow up particularly observant—I have a deep, abiding love for BLT sandwiches—so my transition from harried, pork-belly slinger to postmodern halakhic man involved some serious lifestyle changes. While I didn’t find it particularly difficult to give up pancetta, turning off the stoves on Shabbat was a different story.
For as long as I could remember, celebration meant cooking and cooking meant doing it as well as I knew how. This was true long before I entered the food world professionally. When I was 11, I religiously watched Julia Child [1] and other Saturday-morning cooking shows and cooked dishes I learned from them, like peppers stuffed with wild rice. In college, I commandeered the kitchen of my girlfriend’s dorm suite to throw an elaborate dinner party—fried lemon sole with capers and brown butter, and spinach salad with caramelized fennel, goat cheese, and candied nuts. Six years later, when my girlfriend became my wife, I collaborated with our caterers to perfect the mushroom hors d’oeuvre that would be passed at our wedding.
Observing Shabbat makes that approach untenable. The laws of food preparation on Shabbat are complex; they dictate what can be reheated and what cannot, what tools can be used, how vegetables may be sliced, even the proper way to make tea—first by pouring the water from the water heater into a pot and then pouring water from the pot over the teabag itself. Together, the rules can feel overwhelming for the uninitiated, and they certainly did for me.
But I had an even bigger problem: I didn’t want to give up on cooking as a form of rejoicing. And my apprehension persisted even after I began to feel reasonably confident in my understanding of Jewish law, halakhah.
For one, I knew that food I prepared halakhically wouldn’t be as good. Coming from the restaurant world, I was (and still am) accustomed to being involved in each dish until moments before it was eaten. If left to sit too long in the kitchen, a steak cooked medium rare will be medium by the time it reaches the diner. But traditional Shabbat observance requires most food to be prepared well ahead of time. Readying food too far in advance, and having too little control over the dish when it goes to the table, means that what my family eats on Shabbat is inevitably inferior to what we eat during the week. The skin on a piece of sea bass won’t stay crispy if it has to be cooked 30 minutes before dinner. Lasagna that has been drying out in the oven from a 4 p.m. candle-lighting until a 7 p.m. dinner doesn’t cut it for me, culinarily or spiritually. And the perfect roast chicken, a popular Shabbat dish in the Ashkenazi world, is technically impossible to serve if one is observant. (It needs an hour in a blazingly hot oven, half an hour to rest, and then it needs to be served immediately, ideally with mustard aioli and bitter greens; any more time and the poor bird begins to desiccate.)
Of course, there are workarounds. Some have been around for centuries, such as cholent, a dish that gets better and better the longer it cooks; poached salmon, best served at room temperature, is a Sabbath favorite too. Then there are innovations such as sous-vide cooking, which involves slow-poaching meat in hermetically sealed bags for long periods of time. But cholent gets tiresome and most of us don’t have vacuum sealers and immersion circulators in our home kitchens.
I am all for boundaries [2] in the kitchen. Whether they’re halakhic (not serving rabbit) or culinary (traditional Italian cuisine frowns upon serving fish with cheese), limitations tend to inspire creativity. Still, without the speed, the tools, or the technical skill of a professional cook, it’s a tall order to complete the dishes by Shabbat’s arrival and to warm them in such a way that is halakhically permissible and non-detrimental to the food. The meal inevitably suffers.
It’s nearly impossible to serve anything that is both warm and green, for example. Reheated vegetables almost invariably lose their color. This means I can’t make the chive sauce I like to serve with cod, or sautéed spinach. This means my pea soup is inevitably brown.
Restrictions like these can make traditional Shabbat observance seem like deprivation. Shabbat is not conceptualized as an ascetic practice; rather, the obligatory nature of Shabbat and its attending constraints are supposed to usher in a higher luxury. Eating has always been central to that sense of luxury. Rabbinic literature is full of imaginative descriptions of Shabbat meals. In the Talmud, Rabbi Eliezer tells us that a man should always set a full table on Friday night, even if he only needs an olive’s worth of food. Likewise, many traditional Shabbat songs feature culinary themes. “It is an honored day,” writes Ibn Ezra in his poem “Ki Eshmera Shabbat,” “a day of enjoyment, of bread and good wine, of meat and fish!”
Moishe Wendel, chef-owner of Pardes [3]—an exciting new glatt kosher restaurant in Brooklyn’s Boerum Hill neighborhood—acknowledges the inherent drawbacks of Shabbat cooking. Before he became religious, he spent time cooking in non-kosher restaurants. He says that halakhic boundaries actually have the potential to improve the food, and not just spiritually. “When you work within limits, the parameters make your food better,” he told me, gulping a beer and wiping his face with his kippah after a busy night on the line. At Pardes, he cures his own lamb bacon, something he says he wouldn’t spend the time making if he could simply buy it. But he’s pleased with his results. “It’s trial and error like anything else,” he says about Shabbat cooking. “Sear off a steak to a nice bloody rare. Let it rest. Put it on top of two forks on the blech [4] and you’ve got yourself a perfect cote de boeuf!”
I know that conceptualizing Shabbat as obligation is essential to ensure that Shabbat remains distinct from the rest of the week. A robust sense of religious obligation doesn’t allow for picking and choosing. Traditional Shabbat observance is powerful precisely because its boundaries don’t bend according to individual preference. Shabbat allows us, potentially, to experience something infinitely larger than ourselves.
Like all Shabbat restrictions, the necessity of having everything prepared beforehand is meant to elevate the experience itself. Shabbat dinner is supposed to be the best meal of the week, spiritually and culinarily. The sages say that so long as it is prepared in honor of Shabbat, even a humble dish like fish-hash pie is a delight.
I love humble dishes. Excellent mashed potatoes, perfectly fried eggs: These are some of my favorite meals. But anyone who has spent a long time in the kitchen knows it’s the humble dishes that require the most exacting craft. It’s not hard to make great food if you are starting with truffles or foie gras. Making transcendent fish-hash, though eminently possible with salt-cod, fingerling potatoes, garlic confit, and sweet onions, requires more finesse. And because halakhic observance makes finesse in the kitchen difficult, if not impossible, I simply haven’t been able to reach culinary and religious heights simultaneously—at least not yet.
There is a traditional Jewish impulse to try to answer difficult questions by telling a story, so I’ll repeat a parable from the Gemara.
Once, the emperor of Rome said to Rabbi Joshua ben Hanania, “Why does the Shabbos dish smell so good?” The rabbi replied: “We have a certain seasoning called the Sabbath, which we put into it, and that gives it a wonderful smell.” The emperor asked for some of it. “To him who keeps the Sabbath,” Rabbi Joshua said, “it is efficacious; but to him who does not keep the Sabbath it is of no use.”
Benjamin Resnick is a rabbinical student at the Jewish Theological Seminary.
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Ah, Lox
Just point me in the direction of good lox. I love it. I like it on a bagel. I like it with pasta. I love it in scrambled eggs with a nice onion. I long for pickled lox with onions and cream sauce. This is starting to sound like Dr. Suess.
But who really knows from lox?Saul Zabar, that's who. No slimy, oil coated, thickly-sliced imposters for him. Or me, either.
So I hope the link below transforms into the video clip. See you on the fish line.
http://foodcurated.com/2011/07/amuse-bouche-zabars-picky-tradition-of-hand-selecting-smoked-fish/
Too Hot to Cook?
It's bad when the dog days begin in July...kind of puts a damper on my enthusiasm to cook. But here we are in almost-mid-August, and ya gotta eat, right? I've been dreaming of cool salads and easy-to-make delights (not to mention a cook and a butler), and last night, I hit on it.
I had a bag of fresh pita which was a day away from becoming pita chips (baked with a shpritz of olive oil and a sprinkle of either garlic powder or za'atar)..let's see. What can I come up with?
FATOOSH! (also, I love saying that). Fatoosh is a bread and vegetable salad you can put together in 15 minutes and serve the masses. I shared it with my soul sistah in the building.
FATOOSH
serves 4 large salads or 6 side salads
5 cups lightly toasted pita, torn into 1" pieces
2 Persian/Israeli cucumber, diced
1/4 cup flat parsley, roughly chopped
1/4 cup scallions, chopped
1/4 cup green, orange or red peppers (or mixed!)
2-3 tomatoes, diced (nice and ripe, NOT EVER refrigerated)
1 Romaine lettuce heart, torn into small pieces
3 garlic cloves, crushed (I cheated and used 3 frozen Dorot garlic cubes)
1/2 cup FRESH lemon juice
3/4 cup good quality EVOO (extra virgin olive oil)
1/4 cup fresh mint, roughly chopped
Salt and pepper to taste
Combine pita, lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes, peppers, scallions and parsley in a large (I mean it!) bowl and toss gently.
In a small bowl or dressing shaker, combine garlic, olive oil, mint and lemon juice. Mix well. Pour dressing over salad and serve immediately.
(See? I wasn't kidding about how quickly you can make this yummy dish!)
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Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Week Four: Oven Held Hostage
It's been a month since my beautiful and as yet unused Viking Oven was rendered inoperable by a faulty door lock mechanism. Every morning, I peek into the kitchen to see whether the Oven Fairy has made an overnight visit and miraculously repaired my poor oven. So far, no...
After a lovely overnight in the country (thank you, sister/sister-in-law) and an afternoon spent picking black raspberries, I need to take advantage of this wonderful fresh and highly perishable treat...so my "soul sister" and I will take to baking tomorrow, in her oven.
Among the things I propose, this totally yummy-sounding brownie recipe. I'll let you know how it turns out!
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