Pesach food so far:
- The sibs were talking about trying to have a shared seder menu, and one of the items my older bro's family wanted all of us to have was brisket. I concurred! I used all my coupon points at the store that sells kosher meat (but not the actual kosher store, Omnitsky's, because they are ridiculously priced) to buy a 3 lb. brisket. I bought it Sunday night and didn't want it to be frozen for too long, so I simply put it in the fridge when I got home. I cooked it Friday morning, after asking Mom's advice. Her recipe: put it in a pan, cover with water, slather witih BBQ sauce, cover it with carrots and onions, then 350 for (time varies by weight of meat).
I didn't buy BBQ sauce b/c I'm not interested in most of them due to allergens. I made up my own cooking liquid for flavoring and it rocked!! I used about 3 c chicken broth (didn't get KP other kinds of broth) with mixed-in dijon mustard, pomegranate molasses, salt, pepper, granulated toasted onion, granulated roasted garlic, and rosemary, plus maybe 1-1.5 c red wine (didn't measure it), so that this all was just about as deep as the brisket. Then I added a sliced onion, thickly sliced carrot, and quartered mushrooms to the pan, so that the brisket was barely showing and most of the veggies were in the drink. Into the oven at 325 for 2 hrs, and then rested for a while, and it sliced like a dream. The texture was more like roast beef than the fall-apart brisket I recall, but it was still awesome and satisfying and repeatable. Win!
- Mom sent us a recipe for a sweet potato and parsnip kugel: no potato, no matzah, uses almond flour. Recipe:
Sweet Potato and Parsnip Kugel
1 and a half pounds sweet potatoes ( about 2 medium ones), coarsely ground or spiralized
1 and a half pounds parsnips (about 2 large ones), coarsely ground or spiralized
1 large sweet onion, diced
1 large Honey Crisp apple, pealed, cored and sliced thinly
4-6 large dates, chopped
one half cup pecans, halved
6 whole eggs, beaten well
one half teaspoon Sea Salt
one fourth teaspoon white pepper, finely ground
One teaspoon cinnamon
one fourth cup olive oil
one fourth cup almond flour
one half teaspoon baking powder
Directions: Preheat oven to 350 and place cast iron skillet in it. In a large mixing bowl, combine the sweet potatoes, parsnips, onion, apples, dates, pecans, eggs, salt pepper, cinnamon and olive oil until well combined. Sprinkle in the almond flour and baking powder and fold in until just combined. Remove the pan from the oven and brush with more olive oil. Add the potato mixture and even it out as much as possible. Bake for one hour at 350 or until kugel is golden brown and crunchy on top so the center is tender.
I spiralized the parsnip and sweet potato, did all the things, actually think I followed the recipe as written. Maybe they didn't specify the size of the cast-iron pan, but the 10" deep pan I used did NOT cook the onions all the way through. next time, I'll saute the onions first until translucent, prepping everything else while they cook, so that it's all mixed and then we add the onions so they don't cook the egg. I also didn't use baking powder, so if it was going to get lighter at all, mine didn't do that. Otherwise, the taste was good! Worth trying again.
- I made a Persian charoset. I LOVE it. I varied from the recipe. Here's the recipe:
Persian Charoset
From Gil Marks’ Encyclopedia of Jewish Food
½ to 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ to ½ teaspoon ground ginger or 1 to 2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger
¼ teaspoon ground cardamom or to taste
¼ teaspoon ground coriander or to taste
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves or to taste
2/3 cup pomegranate juice
2 medium apples, or 1 medium apple and 1 medium pear, cored and grated
1 cup pitted dates, ground
½ to 1 cup raisins
½ cup ground almonds
½ cup ground pistachios
½ cup ground walnuts
Juice and zest of ½ lemon, or 2 tablespoons red wine or cider vinegar
About 2/3 cup sweet red wine
In a medium bowl, combine the cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, coriander, and cloves, then stir in the pomegranate juice to dissolve spices. Mix in the remaining ingredients.
I used 1/2 c of pitted dates, skipped the raisins (Benito is not a fan), used almond flour instead of "ground almonds," skipped the walnuts (not a fan), used 3/4 c pistachios and 3/4 c almond flour instead. I tasted before adding anything resembling "sweet red wine" (also, I couldn't find any sweet red wine and didn't want to use grape juice), and I thought it tasted AMAZING and perfect without it. This is a lot more labor intensive than apple/walnut/spices/juice, but it's SOOOO worth it. I used this throughout the holiday: on matzah with cream cheese, on top of matzahbrei, in my cottage cheese for breakfast. Maybe I should check the carbs, actually do the math, to see if I'm over or under in my typical serving size per meal.
- Baked gefilte fish in vegetable sauce. WIN.
1 loaf frozen gefilte fish
1 carrot, 1 onion, 1 celery stalk, diced
1 c sliced mushrooms
1 large tomato, cubed
salt & pepper
juice of 2 lemons
0. Preheat oven to 375F degrees.
1. Sautee carrot, onion, celery in 1 T oil for 5 minutes.
2. Add mushrooms, cook for 5 minutes (releasing liquid).
3. Add tomato, spices, lemon juice, bring all to boil. Simmer 5 more minutes.
4. Remove paper wrap from frozen fish loaf under running cold wate. Place half of the veggies in your baking dish, then fish, then cover with remaining veggies. Cover the baking dish, bake for 45-60 minutes. Turn fish over, spoon veggies on top, bake uncovered for another 30 minutes.
I've made this before and loved it. This time I subbed about a cup of diced zucchini in place of the chopped tomato (to try and avoid an allergen) and added a little bit of fake-chicken broth to replace its liquid. This still came out great, though a bit more lemony than I usually like. I also think your brand of gefilte fish should be noted - I didn't like the one I got this time as much as my regular brand. I'll try that one soon and see if it makes a significant difference.
- Chicken soup with knaidelach: the matzah balls finally came out right! I'm fairly sure I posted the recipe before, and have it on an actual recipe card, so I'm not writing it here again. Point is, the recipe actually says to use a rounded 1/2 teaspoon and let it cook at least 25 minutes. I used an actual measuring spoon and made them that small, and left the pot to simmer for ~35 minutes after making the very last one (75 matzah balls from half of the half-recipe), and they came out 95% perfect. I think they could've cooked another 10 minutes and been even more perfect. (Yes, I know.)
The broth was the dirt simplest: I took 2 packages of chicken bones, plus the 1 little baggie of bones I'd put in the fridge from a cooked chicken a while back, covered it all in ~7-8 c water, and let it come to boil, then simmer for ... a long time? Honestly, I don't remember. I didn't add carrot or celery or onion; I was going to do that at the end. I tossed in some salt, granulated onion and garlic towards the end, but that was it. Benito appreciated the mostly-empty broth; the bits of chicken fat floating around almost offended him enough to not eat all the broth itself. Sheesh, that kid. At least he ate the matzah balls!
- Chicken schnitzel. This is a favorite any time of year. The challenge this week was the initial flour coating, to which the egg could stick, to which the matzah meal can stick. No flour! I used a glass mustard jar to crush matzah meal to make it even finer. I then used the normal, un-crushed matzah meal as the top coat. It took extra time but it worked out. I could've tried using the almond flour in some way for that meal, but it just didn't occur to me and I'm not sure how it would've worked out.
- I didn't buy KP mayo. I told myself last year that I should, but I chose not to. I only broke out a can of tuna on day 7, and I didn't make any egg salad. I didn't even hard-boil any eggs after the initial batch that got eaten by day 2-3. The eggs were primarily in the form of matzahbrei, of which I made one sweet and one savory, neither of which were enough spiced in their opposite directions. Always err on the side of "more cheese" or "more sweet spices."
This entry was originally posted at https://avivasedai.dreamwidth.org/744659.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
I didn't buy BBQ sauce b/c I'm not interested in most of them due to allergens. I made up my own cooking liquid for flavoring and it rocked!! I used about 3 c chicken broth (didn't get KP other kinds of broth) with mixed-in dijon mustard, pomegranate molasses, salt, pepper, granulated toasted onion, granulated roasted garlic, and rosemary, plus maybe 1-1.5 c red wine (didn't measure it), so that this all was just about as deep as the brisket. Then I added a sliced onion, thickly sliced carrot, and quartered mushrooms to the pan, so that the brisket was barely showing and most of the veggies were in the drink. Into the oven at 325 for 2 hrs, and then rested for a while, and it sliced like a dream. The texture was more like roast beef than the fall-apart brisket I recall, but it was still awesome and satisfying and repeatable. Win!
- Mom sent us a recipe for a sweet potato and parsnip kugel: no potato, no matzah, uses almond flour. Recipe:
Sweet Potato and Parsnip Kugel
1 and a half pounds sweet potatoes ( about 2 medium ones), coarsely ground or spiralized
1 and a half pounds parsnips (about 2 large ones), coarsely ground or spiralized
1 large sweet onion, diced
1 large Honey Crisp apple, pealed, cored and sliced thinly
4-6 large dates, chopped
one half cup pecans, halved
6 whole eggs, beaten well
one half teaspoon Sea Salt
one fourth teaspoon white pepper, finely ground
One teaspoon cinnamon
one fourth cup olive oil
one fourth cup almond flour
one half teaspoon baking powder
Directions: Preheat oven to 350 and place cast iron skillet in it. In a large mixing bowl, combine the sweet potatoes, parsnips, onion, apples, dates, pecans, eggs, salt pepper, cinnamon and olive oil until well combined. Sprinkle in the almond flour and baking powder and fold in until just combined. Remove the pan from the oven and brush with more olive oil. Add the potato mixture and even it out as much as possible. Bake for one hour at 350 or until kugel is golden brown and crunchy on top so the center is tender.
I spiralized the parsnip and sweet potato, did all the things, actually think I followed the recipe as written. Maybe they didn't specify the size of the cast-iron pan, but the 10" deep pan I used did NOT cook the onions all the way through. next time, I'll saute the onions first until translucent, prepping everything else while they cook, so that it's all mixed and then we add the onions so they don't cook the egg. I also didn't use baking powder, so if it was going to get lighter at all, mine didn't do that. Otherwise, the taste was good! Worth trying again.
- I made a Persian charoset. I LOVE it. I varied from the recipe. Here's the recipe:
Persian Charoset
From Gil Marks’ Encyclopedia of Jewish Food
½ to 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ to ½ teaspoon ground ginger or 1 to 2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger
¼ teaspoon ground cardamom or to taste
¼ teaspoon ground coriander or to taste
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves or to taste
2/3 cup pomegranate juice
2 medium apples, or 1 medium apple and 1 medium pear, cored and grated
1 cup pitted dates, ground
½ to 1 cup raisins
½ cup ground almonds
½ cup ground pistachios
½ cup ground walnuts
Juice and zest of ½ lemon, or 2 tablespoons red wine or cider vinegar
About 2/3 cup sweet red wine
In a medium bowl, combine the cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, coriander, and cloves, then stir in the pomegranate juice to dissolve spices. Mix in the remaining ingredients.
I used 1/2 c of pitted dates, skipped the raisins (Benito is not a fan), used almond flour instead of "ground almonds," skipped the walnuts (not a fan), used 3/4 c pistachios and 3/4 c almond flour instead. I tasted before adding anything resembling "sweet red wine" (also, I couldn't find any sweet red wine and didn't want to use grape juice), and I thought it tasted AMAZING and perfect without it. This is a lot more labor intensive than apple/walnut/spices/juice, but it's SOOOO worth it. I used this throughout the holiday: on matzah with cream cheese, on top of matzahbrei, in my cottage cheese for breakfast. Maybe I should check the carbs, actually do the math, to see if I'm over or under in my typical serving size per meal.
- Baked gefilte fish in vegetable sauce. WIN.
1 loaf frozen gefilte fish
1 carrot, 1 onion, 1 celery stalk, diced
1 c sliced mushrooms
1 large tomato, cubed
salt & pepper
juice of 2 lemons
0. Preheat oven to 375F degrees.
1. Sautee carrot, onion, celery in 1 T oil for 5 minutes.
2. Add mushrooms, cook for 5 minutes (releasing liquid).
3. Add tomato, spices, lemon juice, bring all to boil. Simmer 5 more minutes.
4. Remove paper wrap from frozen fish loaf under running cold wate. Place half of the veggies in your baking dish, then fish, then cover with remaining veggies. Cover the baking dish, bake for 45-60 minutes. Turn fish over, spoon veggies on top, bake uncovered for another 30 minutes.
I've made this before and loved it. This time I subbed about a cup of diced zucchini in place of the chopped tomato (to try and avoid an allergen) and added a little bit of fake-chicken broth to replace its liquid. This still came out great, though a bit more lemony than I usually like. I also think your brand of gefilte fish should be noted - I didn't like the one I got this time as much as my regular brand. I'll try that one soon and see if it makes a significant difference.
- Chicken soup with knaidelach: the matzah balls finally came out right! I'm fairly sure I posted the recipe before, and have it on an actual recipe card, so I'm not writing it here again. Point is, the recipe actually says to use a rounded 1/2 teaspoon and let it cook at least 25 minutes. I used an actual measuring spoon and made them that small, and left the pot to simmer for ~35 minutes after making the very last one (75 matzah balls from half of the half-recipe), and they came out 95% perfect. I think they could've cooked another 10 minutes and been even more perfect. (Yes, I know.)
The broth was the dirt simplest: I took 2 packages of chicken bones, plus the 1 little baggie of bones I'd put in the fridge from a cooked chicken a while back, covered it all in ~7-8 c water, and let it come to boil, then simmer for ... a long time? Honestly, I don't remember. I didn't add carrot or celery or onion; I was going to do that at the end. I tossed in some salt, granulated onion and garlic towards the end, but that was it. Benito appreciated the mostly-empty broth; the bits of chicken fat floating around almost offended him enough to not eat all the broth itself. Sheesh, that kid. At least he ate the matzah balls!
- Chicken schnitzel. This is a favorite any time of year. The challenge this week was the initial flour coating, to which the egg could stick, to which the matzah meal can stick. No flour! I used a glass mustard jar to crush matzah meal to make it even finer. I then used the normal, un-crushed matzah meal as the top coat. It took extra time but it worked out. I could've tried using the almond flour in some way for that meal, but it just didn't occur to me and I'm not sure how it would've worked out.
- I didn't buy KP mayo. I told myself last year that I should, but I chose not to. I only broke out a can of tuna on day 7, and I didn't make any egg salad. I didn't even hard-boil any eggs after the initial batch that got eaten by day 2-3. The eggs were primarily in the form of matzahbrei, of which I made one sweet and one savory, neither of which were enough spiced in their opposite directions. Always err on the side of "more cheese" or "more sweet spices."
This entry was originally posted at https://avivasedai.dreamwidth.org/744659.html. Please comment there using OpenID.