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 Myer USA Prime Brisket

This year, the Jewish High Holy Days came early (as you surely know by now - they are never on time!). Since I was busy with Regional Gathering food preparation, I wound up rushed and only made a small Rosh Hashonah holiday dinner for a few friends. I'm glad that I did, though, because I got to work with  (and then to eat) the most amazing brisket I have ever tasted. 

I initially ordered straight from my comfort zone: one first cut brisket flat, please. Then, Hank at Mister Brisket told me of a new product they carry - Myer USDA Prime Whole Briskets. I'd never cooked the whole brisket before, and the ones I've seen others cook always look sooo big.  But because Myer raises their Angus cattle without antibiotics or hormones, on grass and feed until "corn finishing," the product is smaller than commercial beef. Was I willing to take a chance on cooking it? Hell yes!

This is the whole brisket, but was about the size and weight of a conventional first cut. 

I had parsnips left over from soup-making, so they joined the sliced onions in the bottom of the roaster.

This is how my Mommy made it - rubbed with garlic granules (from Heather's Heat and Flavor), Sweet Paprika (ditto), Telicherry Pepper (ditto), Kosher Salt, and a bit of hot Hungarian Paprika made from our garden peppers (ok, I lied - my mother would never put anything remotely spicy on anything she cooked).

Here, we see the brisket covered with Mom's secret brisket weapon: Manischewitz Tomato-Mushroom Sauce. But since we also had an abundance of perfectly ripe tomatoes (and since I thought it might balance nicely with the parsnips) - we also added lots of fresh tomato to the pan. Cover with parchment paper and heavy-duty foil, then roast at 325 degrees for a bunch of hours.

Once the brisket is cooked about halfway - it will look like the above photo (after you slice it, of course).  And then - back into the pan to finish!



Unfortunately, I didn't see the episode of The French Chef where Julia Child cooks brisket until the day after I made this (on the Cooking Channel), so I didn't know that you are supposed to separate the flat from the rest of the brisket before you slice them, because the grain runs in a different direction in each section of the meat. And do you know what - this meat was so incredibly tender and tasty that it mattered not at all.



This lovely slice came from the flat. I marveled at the exquisite taste of the meat and the amazingly silky taste of the fat (which I would normally cut away and discard).



This slice was from the "other" part of the brisket, and though it is clearly sliced with and not against the grain - it was tender and delicious.

This post is about brisket, but I am so happy with my chicken soup and kreplach (meat dumplings) that I can't resist showing them off here:



My potato kugel (first one that I've made in years - Bob usually makes it) also came out fluffily wonderful:



By Yom Kippur (a week later), we'd finished the kugel, though we'd saved brisket and kreplach in the freezer. We decided to fry up some kreplach as a side dish to have with our brisket (this is how I'll get us back to brisket) -





A hearty meal to help prepare for the fast. And that brisket just kept getting better and better with each day that it lasted.



And now it's all gone.

But I know where I can get more: Cleveland's very own Mister Brisket! And the Meyer's product costs the same as the conventional first cut brisket - such a deal! This was the most fun I've ever had cooking  a brisket and the result was nothing short of spectacular - between the quality of the meat and the addition of fresh tomatoes, it rates as the tastiest brisket I have ever bitten into.

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!