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?

Fun Playing With Passover Food 2009

We are in the midst of the Passover holiday. I have always loved Passover, because of the special food memories that go with it. Many foods eaten during Passover are made and consumed just this once a year. Since moving to Cleveland 13 years ago, I usually make the traditional two Seders (unless we go to NY to visit the family). This year was a Cleveland Seder year.

The week before Passover turned out to be exceptionally hectic - as a result, I was too exhausted to take any Seder photos. However, you can see a wonderful narrative of our first Seder on my friend Tom's Blog, Breads My Way. Seder: Part 1, Part 2. Also, if you have a Facebook account, you can see the gorgeous photography of my friend Chris here.

So this year, I can offer you some photos of prep steps from some different perspectives than in my previous posts (I hope), and photos of some items in "leftover" mode.

We begin with the creation of one of the best pots of chicken soup I've ever made. I was lucky to have a Breychak Farms pullet in the freezer. This young lady still had her feet and neck intact:



In these two photos (above and below) - she has one food manicured - I realized after I snipped off the first set of toenails that I should take a picture before continuing!





By this point, I've finished the manicure, removed the feet, and removed the neck. Unfortunately, the neck was the only giblet - no poopick (gizzard), liver or heart. I did have an extra supply of feet and the back and bones from a recently cooked Breychak chicken, so I wasn't worried.


My secret weapon for skimming.




Soup Greens

Carrots, Onion, Celery, Parsnip. Flat and curly parsley will be added later.









I start with just the chicken and parts - remembering how long the feet take to give their all, I decide to leave the pullet whole.



That amazing alchemy happens - and after skimming and simmering (NEVER allow it to come to a boil) - the soup clears.




Everything is in the Pot!

While the soup simmers, I prepare the matzoh ball mixture. Since Kathy is no longer in the egg business, I needed to locate a new source for farm fresh eggs. I am very fond of Aaron Miller's eggs, but I was advised that they were in short supply.

None other than Hank Kornblutt at Mister Brisket supplied my answer! He pointed me to Hensbury Farm, where I hooked up with the owner, Jennifer. She agreed to meet me and provided me with all of the many dozen fresh eggs I needed - and these are truly wonderful eggs!



These eggs dated 3/15/09 were deliberately a little older, for making hard-cooked eggs. They peeled like a dream!






Yolks for Matzoh Balls

Some of these eggs are not Kosher, because of the bloody specks. Jews who keep Kosher are not permitted to consume any blood from any animal. I, however, have never let a blood speck get in the way of enjoying a farm fresh egg, so into the Matzoh Balls they went.


Whipped Yolks




Whites - Beaten to a Stiff Peak

The soup, meanwhile, simmers for many hours, until the feet have given up all of their collagen. Once chilled, the soup shimmers and shimmys like Jello.






The Final Product - Matzoh Ball Soup

Next up was the Gefilte Fish. As usual, I sourced my fish from Mister Brisket. Hank made sure I got some heads this time!

Bag 1 contains the stock making parts:



These are rinsed, put in a pot with onion, covered with water and brought to a simmer. As with the chicken soup, the fumet begins cloudy:



But through the magic that comes from the stove - it clears.



Skimming helps!

In the meantime, I beat several Hensbury Farm eggs in the bottom of a pot, then add my fish mixture. Hank has ground 1 part Pike, 1 part Whitefish and .5 part Carp fillets with onion, which looks like this:





My seasonings are simple - salt, white pepper and sugar. And a little matzoh meal to hold it together.

I form the mixture into quinelles (ovals) and poach them in the fish stock. After the first hour, I add carrot sections. I then poach for another 1.5-2 hours. I scoop the cooked fish out into one pan, and the carrots into a dish. Everything else, I'm sad to say, becomes compost - we never have the energy to save the fish fumet.

Bob makes horseradish from a root dug up from our garden, a little salt and vinegar:



The fish is eaten with carrots and horseradish - and, after the Seders - accompanied by buttered matzoh. Yum!









Another Seder delight is the Charosis - a mixture of walnuts, apples, Passover sweet wine and seasonings. Although I am always tempted by descriptions of exotic Sephardic preparations including dried fruits, dates, other kinds of nuts and seasonings - I can't bring myself to change this - because I LIKE it so much. We eat the leftovers as matzoh spread (since we don't eat peanut butter during Passover).

I have started adding a little cardamom and tumeric in recent years - but it's still mostly seasoned with cinnamon and Ohio Honey.





Looks like mortar, but tastes delicious!


Another Seder item that is just as yummy cold is the Sweet Farfel Pudding with Apricots; the Hensbury Farm eggs really kicked this up:





Finally, the "Day After" plate:


Brisket with Gravy & Onions, Potato Kugel, Sauteed Asparagus with Lemon-Grapeseed Oil Spritz



I hope that you are also playing with the Holiday foods of your choice - or if you do not celebrate a Spring holiday, that you playing with the bounty of the burgeoning Spring!