Eastern European-Jewish

Recipes From “The Book of Jewish Food”, by Claudia Roden

Poppy-Seed Hamantashen

From page 192

Makes about 20

The dough crumbled and we couldn’t pinch it into hats. Had to put one round on top of another. Use more milk and make moister (it will dry out in fridge.)

Dough:

1-3/4 Cups flour

Pinch of salt

2 TB Sugar

2-3 Drops vanilla extract

5 oz* Unsalted butter [*use more, 1 more TB]

1 Egg yolk

2-3 tsp* Milk, if necessary [used about this much…but use more]

1 Egg, lightly beaten, to glaze

Mohn (Poppy-seed) filling:

1 Cup Poppy seeds

3/4 Cup Milk

2 TB Honey

4 TB Sugar

4 TB Raisins

Zest from 1 lemon

1 TB Lemon juice

1-1/2 TB Unsalted butter

In a bowl, mix the flour with the salt, sugar and vanilla extract. Cut the butter in pieces and rub it into the flour. Mix in the egg yolk and press into a soft ball. Work very briefly, adding a little milk if necessary to bind it. [Definitely] Wrap in plastic wrap and cool in the refrigerator. For the filling, put the poppy seeds in a pan with the milk and simmer for about 15 minutes, or until thick. Add the honey, sugar, raisins, and butter and cook 5 minutes more. Add the lemon zest and juice and the butter and mix well. [Not sure why the butter is mentioned twice, and not sure it matters when you put it in.]

Divide the dough into 4 for easier handling. Roll out each piece on a floured surface with a floured rolling pin until it is 1/8 in thick. Cut into 3-inch rounds with a pastry cutter. Take the scraps, roll out again, and cut into rounds. (Another way is to take a lump of dough a bit bigger than a walnut and to flatten the dough by pressing it in the palm of your hand.) Put a heaping teaspoon of filling in the center of each round. Lift up the edges on 3 sides and fold over the filling to form a triangular pyramid, pinching the sides together to seal them but leaving the top open. Arrange on a greased tray and brush with beaten egg. Bake in a preheated 375° oven for 15-20 minutes or until golden. Do not try to remove the pastries from the tray while they are hot, or they will crumble. Let them cool and lift them very carefully off with a spatula, because they are fragile.

Egg Cream

Milk

Seltzer Water

Chocolate Syrup

Add little seltzer and syrup to milk to taste.

Cholent

From p. 149

Serves 6

Cholent:

2 lb fatty beef—brisket, breast, or rib

3 Tb light vegetable oil

2 Large onions, sliced

3-5 Garlic cloves, peeled and left whole

2 Marrow bones (optional, but we used them)

2 Lb potatoes, peeled, whole if small, quartered if medium

½ lb dried white haricot or butter beans, soaked for an hour

½ cup Pearl barley (optional, but we used)

Salt and pepper

Water

Onion skins

Knadlach:

1 Egg

1 cup Flour

4 Tb Chicken fat

2 Tb Grated onion

Salt and pepper

1 Tb Finely chopped parsley

In a large heavy pot or casserole with a tightly fitting lid, brown the meat in the oil. Remove it, and fry the onions till soft. Add the garlic and fry till the aroma rises. Return the meat to the pot, add the marrow bones, and arrange the potatoes, beans, and barley around it, sprinkling each layer with salt and pepper.

Cover with water. Top with some onion skins*. Make the knaidlach** and place on top of everything. Bring to the boil. Remove the scum, then put the lid on and leave in the lowest oven (225°) overnight. [Can cook up to 18 hours, but at least 6, which is what we did.] Remove the lid at the table so that everyone can get the first whiff of the appetizing smell which emanates.

* Some people put onion skins on top of the stew to give it a more pronounced brown color. We did that.

** For a cholent knaidlach (dumpling) also referred to as “cholent kugel” (pudding), work 4 TB finely chopped chicken fat into 1 cup flour with your hands, add 1` egg, 2 Tb grated onion, salt and pepper and if you like, 1 Tb finely chopped parsley or 1 tsp paprika. Add a little water if the dough is too dry, or a little flour if it is too sticky. Roll into a fat oval loaf or ball and place on top of the other ingredients in the stew. When serving, cut in slices.

Borscht (Cold Beet Soup)

Serves 6-8

I combined the recipe on p. 88 of “The Book of Jewish Food” with some of the ingredients from a Latvian/Ukrainian recipe from Rcipezaar at http://www.recipezaar.com/38311

2 lbs Raw beets

Salt and pepper

2 TB Butter

1 Small onion, finely chopped

1 Carrot, sliced

½ Parsnip, sliced

6 Peppercorns

3 Allspice berries

3 Bay leaves

Fresh parsley, chopped

1 TB Red wine vinegar

2 TB Sugar or to taste

6 peeled boiled potatoes (optional) [I didn’t use]

1 Cup sour cream to pass around

Peel the beets and dice them. If they are young, that is easy to do. If they are old and too hard to dice, simply cut them in half, and when they have softened with boiling, lift them out and cut them up and put them back in the pan. Put the beets in a pan with 9 cups of water and salt and pepper. In a small pan, heat the butter, mix in the onion, carrot and parsnips and sauté until a little tender. Add vegetable sauté and peppercorns, allspice, bay leaves and parsley to soup and simmer for 4-1/2 hours. Let the soup cool, then chill, covered in the refrigerator. Add the lemon and sugar to taste before serving. (These could be added when the soup is hot, but it’s more difficult to determine the intensity of the flavoring.) Remove some of the beet pieces with a slotted spoon if they seem too much and keep them for a salad. Serve, if you like, with a boiled potato, putting one on each plate. Pass around the sour cream for all to help themselves.