Jewish Holiday Cooking
A Food Lover's Treasury of Classics and Improvisations
by Jayne Cohen
To many, Jewish cooking is "bubbe" cuisine—food associated with Jewish grandmothers and venerable Eastern European classics like kugels, latkes, blintzes, and matzoh balls. In Jewish Holiday Cooking, Jayne Cohen seeks to challenge the perception of Jewish food as Old World and nongourmet. While she maintains that Jewish cooking is firmly rooted in family tradition—and draws on her own memories of family celebrations—she approaches holiday dishes with an eye for today's palates. As well, she moves beyond Eastern European mainstays to survey cooking across the Sephardic Jewish diaspora from Iran to Egypt. She also embraces newcomers to Judaism and interfaith families with stories of the origins and significance of cherished food traditions, plus guidance on celebrating each holiday.
The book begins with the weekly Sabbath meal, offering tweaks on classic dishes like lemon roasted chicken with rhubarb-prune tsimmes, onion challah, and—instead of gefilte fish—bellahat (Egyptian ground fish balls with tomato and cumin). From there, it moves through the cycle of festivals beginning with Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur in the fall and concluding with Passover and Shavuot in the spring. But many of the dishes can be enjoyed year-round. Tired of the same old matzoh ball soup? Try the chicken soup with asparagus and shiitakes served with roasted fennel matzoh balls, or pumpkin and sweet potato soup with sweet potato matzoh balls. Kugels and blintzes, too, incorporate contemporary tastes, like the upside-down caramel-cranberry-pecan noodle kugel and honeyed quince-apple blintzes with sour cream-date sauce. For Hanukkah, there's an assortment of avant-garde latkes, such as Jerusalem artichoke-parsnip latkes. Of course, no Jewish holiday cookbook would be complete without brisket. The brisket braised in pomegranate juice with onion confit and pomegranate seeds is a tasty update that will still make bubbe proud.
|
Rhubarb-Prune Tsimmes
2 cups chopped onion
2 tablespoons mild olive or canola oil
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped (2 teaspoons)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
¼ cup fragrant honey (floral like lime or orange blossom, or herbal like lavender or thyme)
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1½ cups carrots, scrubbed (and scraped if desired), cut into 1-inch chunks
1 cup prune juice
1 pound rhubarb, ends trimmed (discard leaves—they can be toxic), tough strings removed with a vegetable peeler, and stalks cut into 1-inch pieces (4 cups)
1½ cups pitted prunes, halved, or quartered if large
In a 10-inch, heavy skillet, sauté the onion in the oil over medium heat until wilted, about 5 minutes. Stir in the garlic and cook for a minute or two. Sprinkle generously with salt and pepper to taste, turn the heat down to medium-low, cover, and sweat the mixture slowly, stirring occasionally until the onions are quite soft but still pale-colored, for 10 to 15 minutes.
Add the honey and cinnamon, and mix until well-distributed. Add the carrots and cook, stirring, for about 5 minutes.
Add the prune juice and bring the mixture to a boil. Add the rhubarb and the prunes and simmer over moderate heat, stirring every once in a while until the rhubarb is soft and the carrots are tender but not falling apart, for 12 to 18 minutes.
Turn the heat up to high and boil the mixture, uncovered, until the liquid in the pan is thick and syrupy. Taste and adjust seasoning. |
Reviewed by Rachel Levin
|
More