eggs

Grandma’s Swedish Meatballs and Lingonberry Sauce

May 9, 2013

Author: Chef Zane Holmquist

Watch Video Here. 

The Holmquist family came to Utah at about 1910, as Mormon immigrants to Utah as Mormon pioneers they got homestead land from the church and had a dry farm. They went from being boat builders, building motors and engines for boats, to farming and a few had cattle. They eventually moved to Salt Lake City. But the family came here because of their religious beliefs and then ended up going back to Sweden for a while as missionaries and then returned to Utah. But a big group of Utahans are Swedish and all the Utah Holmquists are related and one family.

Ingredients:

Swedish Meatball Mixture:

2 lbs ground pork

1 lb ground veal

1/2 yellow onion

10 springs parsley

2 oz. Utah honey

Kosher salt/ pepper to taste

2 whole eggs

1/4 cup Panko bread crumbs

Lingonberry Sauce:

8 oz. of lingonberry jam

3 cups veal demi-glaze (can be found in specialty food stores)

3/4 cup heavy cream

*Combine all ingredients, simmer and reduce until sauce has a nappe consistency.

Preparation:

Small dice the yellow onion, pick parsley leaves from stems and finely chop.

Combine all ingredients together, mix thoroughly and place in refrigerator to rest overnight.

Roll mixture into 1 inch uniform meatballs. Place meatballs, evenly spaced, on a non-stick sheet pan.

Cook at 300 degrees Fahrenheit for approximately 8-10 minutes. Remove from oven and place in lingonberry sauce.

Serve & Enjoy!

 

Cheesy Salmon Quiche

May 9, 2013

Author: KosherScoop

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Quiches are such an easy dish to serve any time of day for any meal. This quiche is light and fluffy with a rich taste. The walnuts add an unusual and delightful twist to this wonderful dish. Originally published in Kosher Scoop.

Ingredients:

Crust:

1½ cups all-purpose flour

½ tsp salt

½ cup butter

1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese

½ cup finely chopped walnuts

Filling:

3 eggs

1 cup grated mozzarella or Swiss cheese

¾ cup sour cream

½ cup finely chopped onions

½ cup mayonnaise

¼ tsp salt

2.5 oz. (213 g) can of salmon, drained and flaked

Preparation:

1. For crust: Combine flour and salt in a large mixing bowl. Cut in butter until mixture is crumbly. Stir in Cheddar cheese and nuts. Set aside half the mixture for the topping and press the remaining mixture into the bottom of a well-greased 9-inch round Pyrex dish. Refrigerate until chilled.

2. For filling: Beat eggs in a bowl. Then blend in grated cheese, sour cream, onions, mayonnaise and salt. Fold in salmon. Pour salmon mixture into prepared pie shell and sprinkle reserved flour mixture on top.

3. Bake at 375° F for 35 to 40 minutes or until knife inserted in center comes out clean. Serve warm.

VARIATION: I sometimes substitute the onions in the filling for finely chopped chives. It adds a beautiful color.

Tags: all-purpose flour, butter, cheddar cheese, eggs, flour, grated mozzarella, grated mozzarella cheese, Kosher Scoop, mayo, mayonnaise, mozzarella, mozzarella cheese, onions, Salmon, salt, Shavuot,shredded cheddar cheese, sour cream, swiss cheese, walnuts

 

Ruth Levy’s Apple Chrimslech for Passover

October 2, 2012

Author: Myrite

Ruth Levy left Germany soon after Kristalnacht as a child but took this special passover tradition with her. Chrimslech are like apple latkes and in her family they were always served on a green plate. Her four sons devoured them for breakfast, and she passed on this tradition to her family. The original Green plate cracked years ago, but she glued it together and still serves chrimslech on it for her grandchildren (who have also mastered the recipe). You can see Ruth’s video making chrimslech with her granddaughter Raphaelle Levy- soon! For now check out the trailer of Dishing up The Past.

Ingredients:

2 Matzah

3 eggs

1 grated apple

a few tbsp. of chopped almonds (can be bought whole and chopped in food processor)

sugar (to taste)

cinnamon

salt

Matzah Meal (if needed)

Olive or vegetable oil or butter

Powdered Sugar

Preparation:

1. The night before – soak the 2 pieces of Matzah in water. Let sit overnight. In the

morning, squeeze out all the water.

2. Separate egg yolks and whites. Reserve whites. Place yolks in a bowl and beat.

3. Place egg whites in a second bowl. Beat until stiff. Place in refrigerator.

4. Add soaked, drained Matzah, apple, almonds, a few tsp. of sugar, a pinch of

cinnamon and a dash of salt. Mix well.

5. Fold in egg whites. If the mixture is very liquid, add some matzah meal

6. Heat up oil or butter

7. Cover the bottom of a pan with oil or butter, when it is hot spoon the batter into

circles as you would a pancake. Flip over when brown.

8. Place cooked Chremslach onto paper towel-line to drain oil

9. When ready to serve, heap onto a plate and sprinkle with powdered sugar.

Posted in Appetizers

Tags: almond, almonds, Apple, Apple Chrimslech, Apple Chrimslech for Passover, apples, butter,Chrimslech, Chrimslech for Passover, cinnamon, egg, eggs, matzah, matzah meal, Matzah, Matzah Meal, matzos, matzos meal, oil, olive oil, Passover, Pesach, powdered sugar, salt, sugar, vegetable oil

 

Grandma Sylvia Abraham’s Holupchus (Sweet and Sour Stuffed Cabbage)

October 26, 2012

Author: Chadley

Grandma Sylvia always advised me, “If you can read, you can cook.” Her mother died when she was very young and she was raised by her father, so when she married Grandpa Alex, she’d never learned to so much as boil an egg. After her wedding, she came home and cracked open her newly purchased Joy of Cooking, and the rest was history. Over fifty years of marriage, and even to the end of his life when cancer curbed his appetite, my grandfather refused to leave even a morsel of Grandma’s cooking — from anyone’s plate — uneaten. Although the reason may have been Grandpa’s Depression era mentality, I prefer to think it was because the cooking was so delicious.

In the kitchen of their Bethesda, Maryland house which I visited every Friday throughout my childhood, the dishwasher was Grandpa’s domain as he had a highly complex loading strategy which we all tried and failed to grasp. Everything else in that narrow, formica-covered space with the mushroom-patterned wallpaper, however, was Grandma’s turf. One of her specialties which I have searched for ever since, to no avail, was a big heaping dish of little fried, salty, whole fish called smelts. How she managed to get a 5-year-old to gobble down plates of whole fish, with the dead eyes staring out at you, is even more of a mystery to me now that I’m a parent of two picky eaters.

Like so many Bubbes, Grandma single-handedly prepared Passover dinners for a dozen hungry mouths with barely so much as a sit-down. But I don’t believe any other Bubbe in the world ended a Seder with her particular party trick. Once the plates were cleared and put into the dishwasher according to Grandpa’s incomprehensible mathematical algorithm, my grandmother would finally collapse at the table, pull off her apron, and roll back her sleeve. From there I can only describe what she did from the perspective of the child I was — My grandmother became a female, Jewish Popeye. With her palm placed lightly on her forehead, her bicep flexed, she then proceeded to pop and bounce her exceedingly large arm muscle in a staccato rhythm so that it danced like a Mexican jumping bean. This was a crowd pleaser for the whole family, and the grandchildren were left to wonder what made their Grandma so well-endowed in the bicep area. Maybe it was her cooking.

Ingredients:

1 lb Lean, raw beef chopped (i.e. hamburger meat), salted and peppered

2 Large Onions 1 chopped fine, 2nd onion chopped medium

2 Cup(s)s Rice cooked (1 cup cooked rice to put in stuffing, prepare 2nd cup cooked rice to accompany servings of holupchus)

1 tablespoon Water

1 Eggs slightly beaten

1 whole Cabbage (one head)

2 Cup(s)s Tomatoes canned, broken up a bit so that tomatoes aren’t whole

1 tablespoon Matzah meal optional

1/2 cup(s) Golden raisins or to taste

4-6 Tablespoons Dried mint or to taste

Pinon nuts optional; to taste

1 tablespoon Honey or more; to taste

Several pinch Ginger

2 Tablespoons Brown sugar or more; to taste

1 Lemon (juice of 1 lemon)

Preparation:

Boil enough water in a large pot to cover about 2/3 of the cabbage head, the goal being to steam it and soften the leaves. Put cabbage in and cover pot. Pull off outer leaves as they soften. This will probably have to be repeated several times as you work towards the middle. All leaves should be soft enough to fold but not overcooked. This is best to do a little ahead so that the cabbage cools enough to work with.

Mix together the raw beef, 1 onion chopped fine (save the other onion for later), 1 cup cooked rice (prepare and save the 2nd cup rice to serve with the holupchus), the tablespoon of water, the egg, and the optional matzah meal. Roll up the meat mixture into small balls for filling little cabbage leaf packages that should be folded up like envelopes, open side down.

When all cabbage rolls have been put into a large pot, put in on top the tomatoes, the second onion (chopped into medium sized chunks), the honey, the ginger, the brown sugar, and the juice of one lemon.

Cover and simmer on low heat 1 hour – 1 1/2 hours approximately, tasting as you go.

Serve the holupchus with the cup of cooked rice. You can prepare more rice to accompany this if you want to serve the holupchus as a main course rather than as an appetizer.

Enjoy the sweet and sour goodness!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pandesal, Filipino Sweet Dinner Rolls

December 10, 2012

Author: Michael Milan

So, the food experience from childhood that most reminds me of my Bubbie would probably be enjoying Pandesal (usually buttered, occasionally with Pimento cheese or used to make a sandwich with corned beef, or even sometimes simply dunked in coffee, or hot chocolate). For me, key component to this memory was the always the bread – when it came fresh from the baker’s oven, Pan de sal had a tendency to get intact while taking a moment to recharge.

Ingredients:

2 cups all purpose flour

2 cups bread flour

1/2 cup white sugar

5 tbsp butter, melted

1 tsp baking powder

1 1/4 cup fresh milk, warm

1 pouch rapid rise yeast

1 tsp salt

1 cup bread crumbs

1 piece raw egg

1 tbsp cooking oil

Preparation:

1. Combine the yeast, sugar and warm milk and stir until the yeast and sugar are fully disolved

2. In the mixing bowl, combine the dry ingredients starting with the flour then the sugar, salt and baking powder. Mix well by stirring.

3. Add the egg, butter, cooking oil, and yeast-sugar-milk mixture in the mixing bowl with the dry ingredients then mix again until dough is formed. Use your clean hands to effectively mix the ingredients.

4. In a flat surface, knead the dough until the texture becomes fine.

5. Mold the dough until shape becomes round then put back in the mixing bowl. Cover the mixing bowl with a damp cloth and let the dough rise for least 1 hour

6. Put the dough back to the flat surface and divide into 4 equal parts using a dough slicer

7. Roll each part until it forms a cylindrical shape

8. Slice the cylindrical dough diagonally (These slices will be the individual pieces of the pandesal)

9. Roll the sliced dough over the bread crumbs and place in a baking tray with wax paper (makes sure to provide gaps between the doughs as this will rise later on)

10. Leave the sliced dough with bread crumbs in the tray for another 10 to 15 minutes to rise

11. Preheat the oven at 375 degrees fahrenheit for 10 minutes

12. Put the tray with dough in the oven and bake for 15 minutes

13. Turn off the oven and remove the freshly baked pandesal

14. Serve hot. Share and enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

Ruth’s Kreplach

February 1, 2013

Author: Mo Rocca

Grandmother and math teacher Ruth Teig teaches Mo Rocca how to make classic Jewish cuisine on My Grandmother’s Ravioli. On the menu is kreplach (or Jewish ravioli.) Ruth surprises Mo with a large live Carp in her bathtub to teach him how generations of Jews in Europe would keep their fish fresh before the invention of refrigeration. Mo also gets to taste Ruth’s magical coffee cake that she uses as currency to feed household workmen and to allows her to skip to the front of long lines at the DMV.

Ingredients:

Filling:

• 2lbs Boneless Chuck or Brisket

• 1 bottle of dry red wine

• 1 large onion chopped plus 3 large onions sliced

• 2 carrots chopped

• 2 celery stalks chopped

• canola oil

• salt and pepper to taste

Dough:

• 3 cups flour

• 4 large eggs

Preparation:

1. Place the meat, the chopped onion, carrots and celery in a large dutch oven. Add the bottle of red Wine and cook in a 375 degree oven until meat is fork tender. This should take about 1-2 hours. Let cool.

2. In a large skillet, over a medium flame, sauté the 3 sliced onions in canola oil until they are completely caramelized. remove from heat and let cool.

3. Chop cooled meat into large pieces that will fit into the spout of a meat grinder. Using a meat grinder, alternate grinding the meat and the caramelized onions until it has all been ground together. taste mixture and if necessary, adjust for seasoning with salt and pepper.

4. Place all of the flour and the eggs in a food processor and let it run until it forms a dough.

5. Remove the dough from the food processor, cover it with a dry dishtowel, and let it rest on the counter for a half hour.

6. While the dough is resting, bring a large pot of water to a boil. Once it’s come to a boil, lower the flame so the water is simmering.

7. Cut the dough in quarters. Leaving the other sections covered, take one of the sections and on a well-floured board roll it out until it’s approximately 1/4” thick.

8. Using a knife, cut the dough into approximately 2” squares.

9. Place a teaspoon of filling onto the center of each piece of dough.

10. Wet the sides of the dough with water and fold the dough corner to corner crimping the dough together with your fingers to form a triangle.

11. Join the two ends together like a little ring, as with tortellini or wontons. Repeat with the rest of the dough.

12. To cook the kreplach, in small batches place them carefully into the pot of simmering water. when they rise to the top of the water cook for another 5 minutes.

13. When the kreplach are cooked, remove with a strainer and place them in a bowl with a little bit of oil. This will prevent them from sticking together.

14. Serve in chicken soup, as a side dish, or put them in a 350 degree oven until they get crisp and brown around the edges.

 

 

 

Joan Nathan’s Mother-in-Law’s Gefilte Fish

February 1, 2013

Author: Joan Nathan

The gefilte fish in Joseph Wechsberg’s mouthwatering description is unfortunately a dish of the past. Today, most people buy frozen or bottled brands. Good cooks, however, insist on preparing the homemade variety for Friday night and the holidays. My late mother-in-law, Peshka Gerson, made it twice a year, at Passover and Rosh Hashanah. She used her mother’s recipe, handed down orally, from Zamosc, Poland. Her only concession to modernity was making individual patties rather than stuffing the filling back into the skin as described by Wechsberg. In addition, her filling was less elaborate. Years ago, when I asked Peshka for her recipe, two of her sisters-in-law were present. They all agreed that the rule of thumb is one pound of fat fish to one pound of thin. They also preferred the Polish custom of adding a little sugar. (Lithuanians say sugar is added to freshen already unfresh fish. Needless to say, Lithuanians do not add sugar to their gefilte fish.) Peshka, Chuma, and Rushka disagreed, however, on the seasonings. Chuma insisted on more salt, and Rushka explained that a little almond extract would do the trick. They both took me aside, promising to show me the “real” way to make gefilte fish. I have used their two suggestions as variations on Peshka’s basic recipe. Make your fish Lithuanian or Polish, with sugar or without, but just remember—it’s the carrots and horseradish that really count! I have been making this recipe since the mid-1970s. The only difference is that I cook the fish for twenty minutes. My mother-in-law cooked it for two hours!

Ingredients:

Fish:

• 3 pounds carp (meat)

• 1 1/2 pounds whitefish, pickerel, or rockfish (meat)

• 1 1/2 pounds yellow pike or buffel (meat)

• 6 onions

• 2 tablespoons salt, or to taste

• 6 eggs

• 3 tablespoons sugar

• 1 /2–1 cup matzah meal

• 3/4 cup water

• 1 teaspoon almond extract or 1/4 cup ground almonds (optional)

• 1 1/4 teaspoons pepper

• Horseradish (bottled or fresh)

 

Stock:

• 4 stalks celery, cut in 4-inch slices

• 3 onions, sliced

• 6 carrots, sliced on the bias

• 8 cups water, or enough to cover bones with 1 inch to spare (use less rather than more)

• Bones of fish (and heads, if desired)

• 1 tablespoon salt

• 1/2 tablespoon freshly ground pepper

• 1 tablespoon sugar

Preparation:

1. Place all the stock ingredients in a large kettle with a cover. Bring to a boil, then partially cover and reduce the heat to a simmer. While waiting for the pot to boil, begin preparing the fish.

2. In a wooden bowl, add to the ground-up fish all the other ingredients listed under Fish, carefully chopping very fine and blending. You can also use the grinder on a mixer. Wet your hands and form the fish into fat, oval-shaped patties, carefully sliding each into the simmering stock.

3. Simmer over a low flame slowly for 20 to 30 minutes or for 2 hours. Allow to cool in the pot and carefully remove all the patties, placing them on a platter.

After the fish has been removed, strain off the cooking liquid. This stock should then gel when chilled; if it does not, simply add a package of unflavored gelatin, following instructions on the package.

4. Serve the chilled gefilte fish with the jellied fish stock, horseradish, and of course the carrots.

 

Chopped Liver

February 25, 2013

Author: Varda

Elizabeth wasn’t her real name. The daughter of Lithuanian immigrants, her Hebrew name was Hasia Leah. Her “greener” parents called her, “Lizzie.”

When it came time for Grandma to go to school, the teacher took the roll. When she came to “Lizzie Schaffer,” she told my grandma, “From now on, your name is Elizabeth.”

And so it was.

I didn’t have Grandma for very long. Grandma died when I was five. She had rheumatic fever as a child, and only later on did they discover that it had affected her heart.

She was always frail and spent a great deal of time in the hospital. One night, she told my mother, “I’ve had enough,” and in the morning, she was gone.

But I still managed to store up some treasured memories of Grandma. I remember how I used to love to ride around her apartment in her wheelchair (by that time, she was too weak to walk) and how she always had a china dish of nonpareils on a corner table in her living room. This was the only place I ever saw those chocolate discs adorned with the little white candy shots. Nonpareils are indelibly linked for me with my Grandma, she of the careworn face and hair that was whiter than snow. Only much later did I see nonpareils at a shop in Israel, where I now live, and immediately thought, “Grandma!”

Grandma used to save ribbons from gifts in a heart-shaped candy box, from some Valentine’s Day long ago. These, she took out whenever I came for a visit, and I would play with them. Today, the thought seems so odd and out of place to me, that a collection of ribbons could hold my interest. My children play with iPads and iPods. If I gave them a box of ribbons, they would be bemused, to say the least.

But for me, this was something so special, this box of ribbons. It was sheer luxury to run my hands through the satiny ribbons, to note the details that made one ribbon different from another, this one shot through with silver, that one silky, another one stiff and gauzy. And the colors! Every color a girl could love: orchid, candy pink, fuchsia.

I wish I knew more about my Grandma, but I don’t. So I filled in the blanks by asking my mother. “Did you learn to cook from Grandma?” I asked her. My mother laughed.

“Grandma gave us pasta with ketchup and never heard of garlic. But she made three things well: fudge, sugar cookies, and chopped liver. No one could make them like Grandma. And no one ever will. She never wrote her recipes down.”

“Grandma cooked the way people did in the old days. She put in half an eggshell of this, and a handful of that. That’s why no one will ever be able to duplicate those recipes. I miss her fudge!” my mother exclaimed.

I never got a chance to taste my grandmother’s cooking because she was already so fragile when I knew her. But at least my mother was able to preserve the simple Jewish recipes that my Grandma used to make for the holidays. I learned to make chopped liver just as my Grandma did, just as my mother did and does. Everyone who tastes it says it’s the best chopped liver they ever had. Even those who don’t like chopped liver love mine.

I once had a family over for Shabbos. The wife said she was on a diet, so she’d only have a taste of the chopped liver, liver is so fattening. She took a smidgen on her plate, declared it delicious and said, “Just another little taste.”

I discreetly watched as she slowly carved away a sliver at a time until there was a small neat square of liver in the center of the serving plate. It was now time to clear this course and bring out the next, the main course. But something told me to leave the liver on the table.

By the end of the meal, sure enough, she had polished off the entire plate of chopped liver. Well, we had helped. But most of it went to my lady guest, who talked the good talk about diet, but simply couldn’t resist my Grandma’s chopped liver. No one could.

It begins with schmaltz. You simply cannot make real chopped liver without a generous amount of schmaltz. Is it healthy? Of course not.

Do I have time to make schmaltz, with its necessity for long, slow simmering? Of course not—I’m a working mother, a communications writer at http://www.kars4kids.org

But personally, I wouldn’t want to die without having tasted chopped liver with real schmaltz and so I do from time to time, at least on holidays and special occasions. It’s well worth those extra minutes off my life. What would I do with them anyway? What’s an extra minute without having tasted chopped liver??

Ingredients:

Fat and skin (the choicest selection for this purpose is on either side of the chicken breast), about half a cup (I save it up as I cook chickens, freezing in plastic wrapped bundles until I have an amount sufficient to make schmaltz)

1 small onion, thinly sliced

1 small bay leaf

3 whole peppercorns

Pinch of salt

1 lb. kashered* calves liver

2 hardboiled eggs

1 small onion

Salt and pepper to taste

Preparation:

For the schmaltz, cut up the fat and skin into postage stamp-sized pieces. Place in small saucepan. Add rest of ingredients. Cook on very low heat, carefully swirling pan every so often to prevent the cracklings (griebnes) from sticking to the bottom of the pot.

Schmaltz takes long, careful cooking. It is done when the griebnes are almost brown. Pour the contents of the pot into a strainer over a heat-resistant bowl. Leave the pot inverted over the strainer to capture every last drop. Discard bay leaf and peppercorns from griebnes in strainer. Cool and then store schmaltz and griebnes separately in refrigerator while making the liver.

For the chopped liver, put the liver, eggs, and onion through a meat grinder. Grind twice. Add enough schmaltz to pleasantly moisten the mixture and make it spreadable. Add salt and pepper to taste (you won’t need much as the liver and schmaltz are already salty). Chill. Spread on a flat plate. Score with a knife into serving-sized squares. Sprinkle griebnes over the top and serve

Note: Griebnes are also delicious sprinkled over a bowl of chicken soup.

*Consult a rabbi on how to Kasher liver, if you cannot purchase liver already kashered. The kashering process involves broiling, so the liver is already fully-cooked after kashering and may be used in any recipe requiring cooked livers.

Varda Epstein is the mother of 12 children, a blogger at The Times of Israel and Judean Rose, and a Communications Writer for Kars4Kids http://www.kars4kids.org, the car donation charity.

 

Chremsels

March 12, 2013

Author: Gloria Kobrin

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My Mother made chremsels for Passover every year that I can remember. When my husband and I started taking our family away for Passover, she used to freeze a few for me to eat when we got back. My mother hates to cook; but for some reason this was a recipe to which she was committed.

Warning: these chremsels are not crepe like or even pancake like. They are dense and relatively heavy but full of flavor. This recipe has been handed down from my Great Great Great Grandmother Ida who was born in Russia. I’ve adjusted it a bit-but have retained the integrity of the original recipe.

Ingredients:

6 eggs

1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon salt

8 ounces water

4 tablespoons melted schmaltz plus ½ cup schmaltz for frying

3 cups matzah meal

Equipment

1 medium mixing bowl

1 skillet

1 cookie sheet lined with parchment paper

Preparation:

1. Beat eggs in mixing bowl. Add sugar, salt, melted fat and water. Mix well. Stir in matzah meal. My forebears say that the consistency should be “thick-but not too thick-like mustard”. Chill mixture for one hour.

2. Preheat oven to: 350 F.

3. Place two tablespoons schmaltz in skillet over medium heat. Wait until fat starts to sizzle a bit and then drop chremsel batter into fat with a wooden spoon. Scrape all the batter off the spoon and then flatten chremsels a bit with a metal spatula. Fry about two minutes on one side and then flip chremsels to the other side. Make sure chremsels are golden brown on each side even if you have to turn them again. As chremsels are browned, place them on parchment paper.

4. Place browned chremsels in oven and bake for 20 minutes. Serve hot.

Note: My family eats them plain. My husband’s family eats them with white horseradish.

Yield: 24

Posted in Appetizers

Tags: Chremsels, eggs, Gloria Kobrin, matzah meal, matzah, Passover, salt, schmaltz, sugar, water

Mother’s Chicken Escarole Soup with Matzo Balls

July 16, 2012

Author: Joan Nathan

My ninety-eight year old plus mother loves order and hates chaos. She is precise and unwavering about everything – the way she runs her family, her house, her kitchen. And for her, there is only one way to prepare for holidays: she cooks a week, two weeks, sometimes a month ahead, freezing the rugelach, the chicken, the plum pies, but never, never the matzo balls.

Just before she turned 90, my mother switched from using a whole chicken, to chicken legs in her chicken soup because she finds more flavor in the legs, and besides, the legs are often on special in her supermarket. From an Italian restaurant in Providence, she learned to swirl in escarole at the last minute, before she adds her matzo balls.

Ingredients:

6 whole chicken legs

20 Cups water

2 celery stalks sliced into 2 inch chunks

2 whole carrots cut into 2 inch chunks

1 large onion peeled and quartered

1 parsnip cut into 2 inch chunks

2 Tablespoons chopped fresh dill

2 Tablespoons chopped fresh flat leaf parsley

Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

8 Ounces escarole

 

Matzo Balls

3 Tablespoons chicken fat or vegetable oil

6 Large eggs, separated well beated

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg

1 3/4 Cup(s)s matzo meal

1 tablespoon chopped fresh flat leaf parsley

12 Cup(s)s water

Preparation:

To Make the Soup:

1. Put the water in a soup pot, add the chicken legs and bring the water to a boil Simmer slowly for 2 hours, uncovered, skimming off the fat and foam as they rise to the top of the soup.

2. After 2 hours, add the celery, carrots, onion, parsnip, dill and parsley. Continue cooking slowly, uncovered, for another hour.

3. Set a strainer over a large bowl and strain the soup. Season it to taste with salt and pepper. Refrigerate the soup, covered, overnight.

4. The next day peel off the layer of fat that has formed on the soup’s surface. Bring the soup to a boil in a large pot (or freeze it for another day). Before serving, swirl in the escarole and add the matzo balls (recipe follows), cooking for a few minutes.

To Make the Matzo Balls:

1. In a medium bowl, mix the chicken fat or vegetable oil with the eggs, salt, nutmeg, matzo meal and parsley. Refrigerate for a few hours or overnight.

2. Bring the water to a boil in a large pot. Take the matzo mix out of the refrigerator and, after dipping your hands into a bowl of cold water, gently form balls the size of large walnuts. Add salt to the water, and drop in the balls. Simmer slowly, covered, for about 20 minutes, remove from water with a slotted spoon, and add to the soup.

 

 

 

 

 

Dilly Leek Croquettes

April 4, 2014

Author Liz

Leeks are often used as a symbol of Spring on the Passover Seder plate. Their bright green color and gradation of tone from white to wintery dark green, reminds us of our transition to a new season and rebirth as the earth awakens.

If you use leeks on your Seder plate, buy extra so that you will have them handy for this easy side dish. If you don’t, pick them up when stocking your vegetable bin so you can enjoy the mellow onion flavor of these delicious croquettes (a latke by another name, I know).

Originally published in 4 Bloggers Dish: Passover: Modern Twists on Traditional Flavors.

Ingredients:

4 medium leeks, dark green tops (1-2 inches) removed and discarded. Clean very well under running water to remove the trapped dirt. Rough chop.

2 medium-large Idaho potatoes, peeled and quartered.

3 eggs (1 set aside)

¼ cup matzah meal

2 Tb. fresh dill, washed, dried and chopped (must be fresh)

salt and pepper to taste

canola oil for frying

Preparation:

Place chopped leeks and potatoes in large pot of water. Fill water to 1 inch over the vegetables. Simmer 35-40 minutes or until fork pierces through potatoes.

Drain vegetables in mesh strainer. When cool enough, use hands to press as much water as possible out of the veggies. Pat dry with paper towels.

Place cooked leeks and potatoes in a large mixing bowl and use an egg masher to smash the veggies.

Beat 2 eggs and add to the mixture. Add matzah meal , salt and pepper and fresh dill.

Heat ¼ inch of oil in large, non-stick pan until hot but not smoking.

Beat last egg. Arrange bowl of mixture and egg near frying pan.

Form 2 inch patties with your hands and flatten slightly. Carefully dip into egg and allow excess to drip back into the egg bowl.

Gently place the patties in frying pan and cook until lightly browned. Flip and cook second side.

Remove from pan and place croquettes on a plate lined with paper towels. Serve hot.

Tip: These tasty croquettes may be served with a squeeze of lemon alongside any chicken, fish or meat dish.

For a dairy meal, consider serving them topped with a dollop of sour cream or plain yogurt.

Prep Ahead Guide: They may be made 1-2 days in advance and re-heated on a foil lined tray in a 350 degree oven.

Freezer Instructions: Flash freeze these tasty croquettes by placing them in a single layer on a foil lined tray on an even surface in the freezer. After 2 hours, place them in a Ziploc bag and seal well. Flash freezing prevents them from sticking to each other, allowing you to remove a few at a time. Re-heat in 350 degree oven on a foil lined tray.