One Little Bit of Passover Food Fun for 2013

With Passover having just concluded, and my annual bout of the lung crap finally coming under control, here are a couple of pix of the only Passover food I cooked this year:

Farfel Pudding

I had bought the can of farfel before I got sick. Matzoh farfel is not the small pasta you might be thinking of. It is made by doing the mechanical equivalent of stacking up sheets of matzoh, then running a rolling pin over  them. Though I could have returned the can to the store with the five pound package of matzoh that never made it to my folks', my first jar of organic coconut oil had also been acquired on that earlier shopping trip with the Farfel Pudding in mind. 

Every year, I would struggle with the Farfel Pudding Dilemma: the original recipe calls for margarine, and given the nature and desired texture of the pudding, a solid-at-room temperature fat is preferred. For years, holding my nose, the Kosher for Passover margarine sticks would be dutifully applied. Then, Mother's stopped making them. I couldn't bring myself to use butter with a Kosher-style meat meal made expressly for a Jewish holiday, so the next option was the "good" margarine sold at Mustard Seed Market, even though it had kitniyot (legumes deemed not Kosher for Passover by the Ashkanazic authorities, such as corn and soy). Feh. It's still margarine, no matter how they slice it.

For a couple of years, I gave in and used butter, which made the best pudding (no surprise). But this year, I was excited to try the coconut oil, which is solid at room temperature, parve (kosher with either meat or dairy) and actually good for you. Then, the crud hit, and Passover got cancelled; it was right out of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, without the happy ending. Until I felt well enough to at least throw this Farfel Pudding together:

It came out a little pale. The Brunty Farm eggs tasted great, but didn't add much yellow color, and of course the coconut oil is much whiter than either butter or margarine, so it looked different than usual. The texture was a tad looser also (though it tightened up by the time it became leftovers). But the coconut flavor worked really well with the apricots. We rated this a successful experiment, to hopefully be continued next year. And yes, we've been eating it with the sausage we picked up at the West Side Market last Friday; once you've blown the holiday, it's kind of, well, blown.

I hope that all of you enjoyed happy and healthy holidays, whichever (if any) you observe, and that you got to play with some fun food!

Fun Playing with Passover Puddings

My mother always made two puddings, or kugels, for Passover. One is sweet. The recipe comes from a cookbook called "Elegant Essen, " which was put out by the East Northport Jewish Center in 1973 as so many churches, synagogues, and civic groups put out cookbooks - by collecting recipes from their members. This recipe is entitled "Pudding - Sweet and Delicious" and is attributed to Eunice Zarett.



The dish consists of 1# Matzo Farfel, which you can see in the pot behind the farfel package, margarine (which is the only box of the stuff I buy all year - and this year, Kosher for Passover stick margarine was nowhere to be found, for reasons explained here), 7 eggs, 1 cup sugar, 1 can apricots in juice or sugar (no corn syrup!), salt, cinnamon (Vietnamese and intense, from Heather's Heat & Flavor), hot water and about 1 cup of cold water.



Start by pouring hot tap water over the farfel. The recipe says to drain it, and mom always drained it pretty promptly. One year, when I was making this, I forgot to drain the farfel. When I finally remembered and looked into the pot - it had absorbed all of the water! I made the pudding anyway, and learned that allowing the farfel to become saturated increases the "puddingness" of the kugel - so I now deliberately leave it for a while before draining (if there is anything left to drain).


Seven Blue Eggs Ready For Beating


Not Margarine Melting

Since there was no KP margarine available anyway, I decided to try a product from the Mustard Seed Market that had no hydrogenated oil, trans fats, or artificial ingredients. It had soybean oil and corn for flavor, so it was not even close to Pasaidich, but I decided to try it anyway. And it was good.



I beat together the eggs, margarine, sugar, salt, cinnamon, and the juice from the can of apricots.



The diced apricots went into the drained farfel, and the egg mixture was then added. The recipe calls for 1.5 cups cold water to also be added here, but since there was still some water left in the farfel after draining, I only used 1 cup.



This was poured into a prepared dish, topped with sprinkled cinnamon and baked.



Sorry - no photos of the hot pudding when served - it just didn't happen! But here is what it looks like - it is delicious to eat hot or cold!





The second pudding is the traditional Potato Kugel. If you look on the internet or Jewish cooking books and magazines, you'll find numerous variations on this dish. But I cannot bring myself to mess with it, it is so perfect as mom made it! Well . . . almost. We do add some hot chile (which my mother, who doesn't like any hot spice, would not approve of!), and we use a better prep method (mom used a blender and we use a food processor) - but this is still mom's kugel.



For 5# of potato (a "double" kugel) - 4 eggs, potato starch, kosher salt, ground pepper and about 4 garden Tabasco peppers from the freezer take a whirl in the Cuisinart.



The potatoes, and some onions, are peeled and grated using the cheese grating wheel of the food processor (or the smallest holes on a box grater, if you don't like having knuckles):





The grated veggies are combined with the egg mixture, and matzo meal is added a TB or so at a time, until the mixture feels right. It is then poured into a prepared casserole and baked. Again, we didn't get a picture "right out of the oven," but this should give you the idea:





No wonder my mom always called Passover Kugel Week! What a glorious way to play with your food, and then have leftovers!