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 Passover Food With Family

And so we come to the reason for the trip east in the first place - preparing Seder delectibles to share with my family! My nephew came home from school and the game was on.

First order of business for Saturday: a 20 quart pot of chicken soup. 

While the soup bubbled, and before starting on the Gefilte Fish, we paused for an amazing lunch treat. My parents have new neighbors in the house behind theirs. The neighbors have chickens, which are allowed to free range all over their properties. This morning, the doorbell rang and we were presented with a half-dozen just-collected eggs by the two adorable children of the neighbors, with a delightful hand drawn card that made Mom's day. Those eggs did not last long:

Soft Boiled Fresh Egg

On Sunday, we turned our attention to the brisket, matzoh balls, and hard boiled eggs. Cleveland's own Mister Brisket provided the beef:

Here, the meat has cooked a bit over half way, and we sliced it then chilled it, to finish cooking before the first Seder. This is the first cut or flat. I also brought some of the deckle, or point, just to be sure we'd have enough (we had plenty, so I brought that back home with me).

Here's a look at the finished matzoh ball in soup; I took this after I got back to Cleveland:

And finally, the eggs. Yoda, um, Mom took charge of those; even she marveled at how hard it is to peel farm fresh eggs even if you cook them perfectly (Mom's Passover claim to fame was hard cooking and peeling over 500 eggs at a time for the Hebrew School Model Seders when I was kid):

And so, it was time for the first Seder in my parents' house in . . . I don't know how many years.

Mom, Justin, Andrea, Jeff, Stan, Daniel, Bob

The only family member missing is my sister Chaya. She couldn't make it up from Florida. But it was great to see my two nephews!

Seder Plate

Charosis

Dad made the salad

Baked Cauliflower with Scape Pesto (no cheese)

Unfortunately, here is where I got too busy serving to take pictures.

Potato Kugel

This leftovers photo came after I got home; I never did take a picture of the Farfel Pudding, which is one of my Passover staples. Because I couldn't get apricots at the two stores I looked in (who knew apricots in natural juice were so rare?) I used a can of mango instead - and liked it a lot better; mango and coconut oil (in place of margarine) will now be de rigueur in my Farfel Pudding.

We enjoyed two holiday breakfasts with my parents before we left. First, Dad made Matzoh Brei; note the coconut oil taking the place of the traditional onion Nyafat that is no longer made.

Perhaps Bain Capital, who's Sankaty Advisors Unit just bought Manischewitz (which had bought up Rokeach, maker of Nyafat, several years ago), will bring Nyafat back. Who needs Nyafat? I sweated some onions in the coconut oil to simulate the Nyafat, and it wasn't a bad knock off.

At Dad's request, I scooped the onion pieces before out of the pan before he put the raw food into the fat, and then served them on the side. Delicious!

For our last meal Wednesday morning, Dad asked me to make Matzoh Pancakes. We served these with berry jam and strawberries, neither of which wound up in the photos.

Matzoh Meal Pancakes

And then we left.

Fun Playing With Food and Family - I could not ask for anything more. Wishing you the best of this spring and holiday season!

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?