Fun Playing With Rosh Hashanah Dinner At Blu

Regular readers of this blog know that I love to cook, especially for the Jewish Holidays. Love it and do it so well that I was fortunate enough to be featured in the Cleveland Plain Dealer doing it in 2011! But circumstances are not permitting this tradition to continue, at least in my current home.

Restaurateur Brad Friedlander to the rescue! After closing his iconic Moxie, the Restaurant in Beachwood Ohio earlier this year, he reinvented the space as Blu, the Restaurant and the emphasis of the cuisine to fish and seafood. Moxie had done Rosh Hashanah dinner for a number of years, and we sampled it once with friends. It was ok, but lacked profundity. 

Blu offered a Rosh Hashanah dinner this year, with essentially the same menu as Moxie had before. Given the home kitchen situation, we decided to give it a try, and it proved to be a winner. Not as good as mine, you know, but a lovely meal to welcome in the New Year. 

After making Gefilte Fish from scratch for most of my life, I find most others' versions range from lame to repulsive. Still, Blu specializes in fish. How could it be bad?

Gefilte Fish with Grated Beet and Horseradish

The answer is that it was light and fresh, and quite good. Not as good as mine (they probably didn't use any carp), but a delightful start to the holiday feast. I would have liked a higher ratio of horseradish to beets in the topping, but that's a quibble.

House made Challah followed the fish. We asked for honey and it was brought immediately. Lovely.

Next up, the big test. Chicken Soup with Matzoh Balls.

Though not quite as special as mine is, this soup offered chickeny flavor, with a nice balance of sweetness from the carrots. The matzoh balls were softly textured and tasted great. I would eat this again.

Brisket Au Jus and Roasted Chicken 

I always made brisket for the entree. My mother would occasionally roast a turkey in addition to the brisket, but I never did. This brisket was more pristine, without the tomatoes that are a staple in mine. Still, it was cooked to melt-in-your-mouth tenderness, and the jus complimented it nicely. The roast chicken was a standout - crispy skin, deftly seasoned, and perfectly cooked. 

Green Beans Almondine

Carrots

We really enjoyed the vegetables. Somehow, despite the nearly full restaurant and the hustle and bustle of service, these plates were hot, but the contents were still al dente. So not only did they taste good and have great texture at dinner, the leftovers didn't turn to mush on reheating. Well done, Blu!

Roasted Potatoes

Accented with a generous hit of rosemary, the potatoes were likewise perfectly cooked. 

Sweet Noodle (Lokshen) Kugel (Pudding)

My mom (and I) never did noodle kugel, or anything too sweet for the main courses. My Russo-Hungarian dad was all about the pepper and salt, so we always made potato kugel. Nonetheless, this was probably my favorite dish of the evening. Eggy and creamy, with a little sweet and a nice hit of cinnamon, I would welcome this dish on my own table.

This brings us to dessert.

The menu said that this was Rugelach and Spiced Apple Cake. The Apple Cake is on the left. The honey went so well on it! The pastry on the right didn't resemble the Rugelach I grew up on. But the buttery rich flaky pastry, and infusion of what tasted like home-made preserves (prune and apricot, I think) made them a winner whatever they are called. 

Service, which had been poor on our first visit to Blu, was mostly excellent. We were glad to see they've worked those glitches out! And the portions - we had enough leftovers (about half or a little more than half) for dinner for the second night of Rosh Hashanah at home, and leftovers remained even after that!

So if you wonder how this dinner stacks up against mine, here are some links to previous dinners I've done at my house or my mom's. 2009, 2008, 2011 (at Mom's). But we had a lot of fun playing with Rosh Hashanah dinner at Blu, and a big thank you to Brad for doing it.

Oh, and here's what a fish dish from a non-holiday night looks like at Blu.

"Special" Swordfish, corn relish, avocado creme. 

Blu The Restaurant

3355 Richmond Road

Beachwood, Ohio 44122

(216) 831-5599

https://blutherestaurant.com/

Open for lunch and dinner Monday-Friday

Saturday dinner only

Closed Sunday

Fun Playing With Fish in New York

We began playing with New York food in earnest on April 11. The first order of business was shopping - Makinajian Farms for soup chickens and eggs, then Stop and Shop for groceries. But the fish and seafood were among the highlights of our trip.

Our last stop Friday was Northport Fish & Lobster, set in an old shack on Route 25A in Northport. I'd never been there, but my parents had heard good things and wanted to try them. Northport Fish is a locally owned full service fishmonger. No fewer than four locally sourced fishes were available that day, plus many seafood options. We picked up our Gefilte Fish bag, and couldn't resist buying some lunch items also. Mom had ordered 5# of ground fish (whitefish, pike and carp) with onion, plus the heads and skeletons. For our Gefilte Fish recipe, please look here.

It all looked so good! Mom had requested that we get her one of their advertised $5 Lobster Rolls, but what else would make for a quick and easy lunch?

Fresh Montauk Flounder, Fried to Order

This fish was so pristine it took my breath away. Delicious and perfectly cooked!

Lobster Roll

Ok, I saw the kvetching on Yelp about this. There is real lobster in the mix. There is also a lot of mayo. There may be some filler fish. But for $5, it was plentiful and tasty so what's not to like? I'd probably pick something else, but I wouldn't complain, either.

Clam-Stuffed Garlic Bread

I don't think I've ever nibbled such soft and tender clam meat as the morsels generously stuffed into this garlicky bread (same roll as the lobster was stuffed into). These are sold needing to be baked down for about 15 minutes at 350. The clams were so tender and fresh that they maintained deliciousness two days later after being re-heated as leftovers. It was a little too oily when hot, but oh-so-tasty!

Fish Mix - A Tad Under-ground

I took this photo to document how gefilte fish mixture should not look. It needed to either be passed through the grinder again or ground with a finer die (the onions were still in a dice, also). Fortunately, I'd brought my food processor, so it took only a few minutes to correct the texture.

Gefilte Fish

And here's the final product, served up at our Seders Monday and Tuesday nights with garden horseradish. Absolutely delicious!

But there was more fish to savor! Our favorite local purveyor of smoked fish, Bagel Boss would close for Passover early on Monday, so Dad made a fish and bialy run on Sunday to hold us until it was time to burn the Chometz (or otherwise get rid of the bread). There is nothing like Jewish Soul Food!

Bialy with Bagel Boss Cream Cheese,
Belly Lox
Baked Salmon (Kippered Salmon)

Baked (or Kippered) Salmon

Loaded with the proper sustenance, we went to work on playing with food for the Seders!

More Fun Playing With Gefilte Fish

As Passover continues, I hope you enjoy these reposts from 2008 on how I make some of my favorite things! Next up - Gefilte Fish! Once again, in 2011, Mister Brisket outdid himself with splendid raw fish mixture that we are now finishing. It seems to get better every year!

Fun Making Gefilte Fish

I make no secret of the fact that, as a child, I foolishly missed out on sharing the joys of Jewish holiday cooking with my grandparents, older sister and mother. At that time in my life, it just didn't interest me. It was not until about 1990, after I had finished school and moved out to New Jersey, that my mother's Multiple Sclerosis worsened to the point where she could no longer cook her traditional holiday meals. I had just begun to explore the joys of cooking, having taken my first Chinese cooking classes through the Montclair Adult School, and I was determined to keep my mother's traditions alive by learning how to cook her dishes.

Every year, I consider changing my Passover menu. And other than tinkering a little with the spices, I always wind up keeping my preparations true to the tastes and smells I grew up with. For mom.

Since I moved to Cleveland, Gefilte Fish has been a challenge. Is it well neigh impossible to purchase any quality fish at retail here. However, when I first moved here over 12 years ago, there was a supermarket called Gale's located in Beachwood that catered to the Jewish community, and which could be counted on for all of the raw ingredients I would need to recreate mom's dishes. Gale's left us a number of years ago (and became a Wild Oats - feh!). There is a fish store in the Orthodox part of town that became my source for a few years - but they weren't interested in serving my needs. Yes, they'd get and grind my fish - but no onion ground in and no carp. My mother's recipe calls for 1 part whitefish, 1 part pike, and 1/2 part carp (for fat and texture more than taste). But their rules were not negotiable.

So, I tried another recently (at the time) opened local fish store that the newspapers raved about, in Cedar Center (long gone now). I will never forget the time I ordered 5# of fish according to the formula - and they handed me a bag with over 20 pounds - the kid who took the order had written "20" instead of "2" for one of the fishes - it was a disaster!

Finally, about 5 years ago, I learned that Cleveland's storied Mister Brisket (AKA Sanford Herskovitz) had begun to offer ground fish for the Jewish holidays. The first time I ordered from him, he said "no carp" - I guess there is an aversion to carp in Cleveland! But after I explained that "this is how my mommy makes it" - he relented. As you will see below, the fish he special orders, fillets, and grinds is pristine. And - Mister Brisket delivers - such a deal!

And so, yesterday, I made my 2008 Passover Gefilte Fish. I began with five pounds of fish fillets, which were ground with an onion by Mister Brisket, and one whole fish (sans fillets). I neglected to photograph the fish before I put it in the pot, so that is where we begin:



The first step in making this dish is to create a fish stock. The fish parts are placed in a large pot with sliced onion and good water, and brought to a gentle boil. After skimming, salt, pepper and sugar are added. How much? I don't know - I never measure.


Plumps When You Cook 'Em!

While the stock is simmering (for about 30 minutes), I make the fish ball mixture.


2# Whitefish, 2# Pike, 1# Carp Fillets, Ground with Onion


Blue Eggs from Breychak's Blue Egg Farm


Kosher-for-Passover Matzo Meal, Sugar, Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt

I only use Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt (which is so prevalent in professional kitchens, it even got a cameo in the film "Ratatouille"). The other major player, Morton's, contains a chemical anti-caking agent (and I think it tastes nasty).


White Peppercorn from Heather's Heat & Flavor


Organic Carrots

That's all there is to it, folks!

First, de-shell the eggs. For five pounds of fish, mom used 6 eggs; I used 7 because many of the Blue Eggs are a little smaller than USDA "large":



Beat until frothy; I use a handmixer:



Add the ground fish, and remember to treat it as you would ground meat for meatballs - you want to work it as little as possible.



Here is where I made a small mistake - it is easier to incorporate the seasonings into the mix with less handling if you whirl them into the eggs. But I forgot - so I added the seasonings here and gently mixed them in. How much? I start with a tablespoon of sugar, and I eyeball the salt and pepper.



I am always conservative with the seasonings and matzoh meal at first, because every batch of fish is different, and there is only one way to know if it is right - taste it (and too much matzoh meal will turn the fluffy balls into lead ballons)! The matzoh meal is next - and again, I add a bit at a time and work it in, until the mixture "feels" right.



Once the mixture feels right, it is time to taste. Unfortunately, it is no longer safe to taste this kind of fish raw, as my mother and grandmother did (even though I know that these farm eggs are safe!) - and really, tasting it raw wouldn't give you the best feel for it anyway. So, I boil water in a small saucepan, pinch out a small ball of the mixture (which lets me test the matzoh meal-iness) and cook it for a few minutes. After tasting the cooked fish, I adjust the seasoning to taste - this time, I got it perfect on the second try!

No photos of the next step, because it takes two hands and makes a mess of them! I put some Kosher for Passover cooking oil in a dish, and dip into it periodically to keep the mixture from sticking to my hands. (Its not even Seder night and I'm dipping already!) I form the fish into ovals, which is how mom made them, and gently deposit each oval into the fish stock, which is now at a strong simmer. Once all of the fish balls are in the pot, I put on the lid and cook 1.5 hours.



During the first cooking time, I prep the carrots. After 1.5 hours, I add the carrots to the pot and re-lid. The fish balls are floating happily! I cook it another 1.5 hours (which is longer than mom cooked it, but I saw an elderly grandma make fish with Joan Nathan on PBS a few years ago, and she swore by a 3 hour cooktime). When cooking time is over, I use a slotted spoon to carefully remove the fish and carrots, taking care to examine for shrapnel from the skeleton. My mother said, as a girl, nibbling fish bits off of the bones was her favorite part of making this dish - me - even though I'm always tempted to save the stock and meaty bits for another use - they always wind up in the compost. The house just smells too much like fish after the cooking is done for me to find it appealing.






Cooking for the Jewish holidays brings me great joy; my only sadness is that I cannot share this food with mom, who still lives in NY 450 miles away. But, as this post demonstrates, making your own Gefilte Fish is not so hard as you might think (provided you have a good fishmonger, or a moonlighting butcher!), and you will never eat jarred fish again after you have tasted this!

Fun Playing With Passover Food 2010

Once again, we have completed another round of Seders. This year, both were served at our house. And, we had a marvelous, if exhausting, time playing with the traditional - and some not-so-traditional - Passover foods. If you search my blog for "Passover" - you will find a number of posts detailing the preparation of most of my Passover favorites, so I'm not going to repeat them here.

However, with the "give me back that Filet O Fish" jingle still playing incessantly on the TV, it was fun to go from whole snappers and halibut filet to that precursor to the modern processed fish product: Gefilte Fish. The whitefish, pike and yes, carp, that I received from Mister Brisket this year was the best yet - beautifully fresh and sweet.

Meaty Skeletons and Fish Heads Go Into the Soup Pot to Make Fish Stock

Ground Fish Mixture (with onion) Meets Plum Creek Farm Fresh Eggs

Add some matzoh meal (which we grind from whole matzoh in the food processor):

Form into quenelles, poach in the stock with garden carrots, and the fish is ready to chill!

These carrots are from our 2009 garden; they survived the winter in the ground very nicely, thank you.

 

Seder Table

Seder Plate

This year, the part of the lamb shank bone was played by a shoulder bone from our Breychak Farm lamb.

Ah - there's that fish! Astride a big bowl of Bob's garden horseradish, which had a serious kick this year!

Garden Hot Peppers From the Freezer

 

Matzoh Ball Soup

In this blog post on soup-making from 2008, I recounted how I learned about the importance of never letting my soup boil. This year, due to a number of reasons, my soup pot boiled twice - briefly, but enough to cloud the soup a bit. It was, however, one of the best tasting soups we've made - I used the "double stock" method described by Barbara Tropp in her book "China Moon Cookbook." Bob had just made a beautiful chicken-turkey stock the week before. I used that in place of a bunch of the water in the soup pot. The matzoh balls came out very nicely, though a tad more toothy than I like them.

The first night of Passover, our guests included Linda and Fred Griffith, who are accomplished cooks and cookbook authors. (I just saw on Amazon.com that the Garlic book can be downloaded to Kindle - cool!) Linda is cooking less these days, since a car accident left her with lingering injuries, and her kitchen downsized. But on Jewish Holidays, we have great fun each contributing different elements to our festive dinners together. In addition to her signature chopped liver-pate and a lovely North African seasoned brisket (with tomato and coriander), Linda brought a hearty tzimmes (which translates to "stew" or "pudding") in a gorgeous serving vessel:

Tzimmes of Carrot, Sweet Potato, White Potato, and Dried Plums

Linda also made this lovely Spinach Pie:

Sorry, I was too pooped to picture the pate and the meat. Guess that means we'll have to do this again, right? I made my usual Farfel Pudding, and Bob made Brisket and Potato Kugel for our second night; follow the links to see prior incarnations.

For dessert, Linda brought a light, airy Banana-Almond Cake that I wouldn't have believed was for Passover if she hadn't told me so:

Since I had a little more time at the front end this year, I decided to play with desserts a bit myself. I started by making a Creme Anglaise I read about on Michael Ruhlman's blog. Unfortunately, for the second time this holiday season - my attention was pulled from the pot for a few seconds too many, and it boiled. Tasted delicious, but, as you will see below, the texture was ruined.

My motivation in making the anglaise was to, as Mr. Ruhlman suggested, have it accompany David Lebovitz's Chocolate Idiot Cake. Fortunately for me, this cake lives up to its name, and came out beautifully.

Even though I've never made Passover desserts before, I reasoned that so long as the anglaise would use 7 egg yolks, and a macaroon recipe I'd happened upon used 7 egg whites - why the heck shouldn't I make my own macaroons?

Coconut Macaroons 

I've never been a huge coconut fan - and now I know why. As with shrimp - the quality of this ingredient is crucial. We sought out preservative-and-chemical-free product (the heck with "Kosher for Passover") and wound up purchasing Bob's Red Mill Shredded Coconut at Mustard Seed Market in Solon. WOW! What a difference good coconut makes. It costs more and it's hard to find - but it is so worth it!

My Dessert Plate Seder #2: Chocolate Idiot Cake, Anglaise, Macaroon

A sweet end to a lovely set of Seders, filled with good friends, great foods and lots of fun!

And now, a brief look at some of the leftovers, which made for fun eats also.

Tuesday Brunch

Linda's brisket is resplendent atop her Spinach Pie, with a hearty dollop of Garden Horseradish. Yum!

Wednesday Brunch

Gefilte Fish, Carrots, Hard Cooked Plum Creek Farm Egg, Garden Horseradish, Matzoh



The eggs were cooked using Alton Brown's steaming method: 12 minutes over steam. Creamy, delicious, and a perfect end to this tale of Passover goodness. I wish you all a joyous Spring holiday of your choice - make sure that you play with some food, ok?