#jewish cuisine

• champagne
• Pok Pok Som drinking vinegars, sparkling water, & various aromatic bitters for non-al mocktails
• (That’s chicory instead of romaine, but it’s one of the allowed bitter vegetables allowed in the Talmud. And yes, we put an orange on the seder plate.  The lamb shank is in the leg of lamb nearby.)

SEDER

• Whole wheat shmurah matzah (SO GOOD)
• Turkish-style charoset: dried apricot, dried cherry, pistachios, coconut, cardamom, Muscat, orange flower water
• Iraqi charoset: date syrup with almonds (We forgot to pick this up.)
• Chicory & arugula salad with blood oranges (GET IT? BLOOD), grapefruit, fennel, and hard-boiled eggs; olive-oil, honey, and meyer lemon dressing.

SOUP

• bouillabaisse consommé with tiny gefilte fish balls on a stick (like a non-shellfish concentrated bouillabaisse martini)
• fingerling potatoes (1 per person) sliced & roasted, dabbed with a touch of rouille and salmon caviar

DINNER

• Strong but not too strong reds: Highway 12 Reserve Syrah, a portuguese, and a TJ reserve merlot.
• roast bone-in leg of lamb (opposite of vegan)
• stew of fava beans, lemon, and dill (vegan)
• carrot-zucchini ribbon salad with mustard vinaigrette (vegan)
• salad of roasted beets and spring peas with minty-lemony avocado dressing (vegan – pureed with a little water to get a creamy green-goddess style texture)

DESSERT

• coconut-cardamom-vanilla “panna cotta” with rose confit centers and rose petals on top and a splash of rosewater (vegan) (THESE ARE SO GOOD – just drop a teaspoon of jelly or jam into each serving.)
  
• French macarons
• rose, pomegranate-pistaschio, and honey-almond Turkish Delights (vegan)
• Espresso
• Slivovitz Dry Creek Distillery blue plumb brandy
  

– Post-dinner. Those bottles are aromatic bitters that we added to seltzer & pok pok som drinking vinegar mocktails. And maybe I added some of the lavender bitters to my sip of plum brandy.

Family friends are coming over. Her family is South African by way of Eastern Europe. His side is Sephardic. My husband’s family is Mizrahi and I’m an American of the rebellious Californian persuasion. So traditional Eastern European food is straight-up too meaty and starchy for my taste.

This menu has some Ashkenazi tendencies – pot roast, a potato dish, a fish dish, and matzoh ball soup. However, I’ve removed the schmaltz and made the soup mostly-vegan (broth is vegan, matzoh balls have egg) and a vegan potato dish modeled after the French potato cake “La Truffade”. 

Challah.Half whole wheat honey and olive oil challah. (Parve. Not vegan, it has eggs.)

Wines. A Pouilly-Fumé (French sauv blanc) and a California Syrah. (We don’t typically worry about officially Kosher wine; since wine today is 99.999999% not produced for idolatry we’re fine drinking commercially available wines. The past has a vote, not a veto.)

Soup course: Matzah ball soup. Made with Earthy Roast Vegetable Broth, some ribbons of multicolored carrots, and my rustic whole-wheat and herb matzoh balls. Broth is vegan, matzoh balls have egg in them. And no, I haven’t tried making them sans egg. There are some things you just don’t fuck with and eggy sticking power is irreplaceable.

Vegan / Parve “La Truffade”. Layers of sliced potatoes with some layers of leek. Seasoned with thyme, pepper, smoked salt, and truffle oil. Topped with a truffle oil breadcrumb crust. 

Sablefish en papillote. Simple – fillets of sablefish (black cod) smothered in leeks that have been sauteed with olive oil and white wine. Salt, pepper. (It’s better with butter, but you know.) Bake covered in oven for ~15 - 20.

Elegant pot roast. Beef ball-tip roast, marinated for a day in red wine, onion, garlic, herbs, tomato. Reduce the marinade. Strain over the meat into slow cooker for ~4 hrs on high. Remove meat; add a bit of starch and reduce the juices / sauce further. Et voilá.

Kale / red cabbage salad. Steam for 3-4 minutes in the microwave; mustard vinaigrette. 

Spinach & tomato salad. Some fresh veggies.

Dessert:Coconut panna cotta(vegan) with raspberry coulis. Chocolate covered almonds. 

Great for Pesach! Creamy, velvety, reasonably light, and no dairy.  Serves 6 - 10 depending on the size of the molds you use.

• 2 cans light coconut milk
  
• ¼ c + 2 tbps sugar
  
• 1 tbsp vanilla
  
• ½ tsp ground cardamom 
  
• 2 tsp agar powder (or 2 tbsp agar flakes if you’re using those)
  
• 2 tbsp arrowroot powder
  
• Silicone molds – you can use cupcake molds, cannelé molds,pyramid molds, or any shape you’d like. But use silicone – it will make your life much easier. You can also use individual ceramic / glass dessert cups or soufflé cups without unmolding them at the end.
  

Whisk all the ingredients into a 2-quart pot. Let it rest for 10 minutes; this gives the agar a chance to soften. Turn the heat on low; bring to a boil. Boil for about 5 minutes. 

Put your molds on a metal tray – you won’t be able to move them individually once they’re filled with liquid! Fill each mold with the coconut milk mixture. (A soup ladle works well for this.) Cover the molds with plastic wrap. Place in the fridge for at least 6-8 hours. 

Unmold onto plates. You can put sauce under the individual panna cottas (if you’re using a decorative shape this can be nice), or spoon sauce over them. Be creative!

Berry coulis

• 1-2 packs of frozen (organic) berries
  
• 1 tbsp arrowroot powder
  
• 1-2 tbsp sugar, depending on the berry; to your taste
  
• 1-2 tbsp liquor, per your preference.
  
• Other seasonings – try black pepper with strawberry or cardamom with blueberry.
  

Put everything in a pot. Gently bring to a boil. The berries will break down. Blend with a hand blender and strain through a mesh colander to make a coulis. Or don’t bother and serve a rustic sauce. Let it cool for a bit so the arrowroot powder can thicken it up a little.

This makes a great substitute for beef broth and is a fantastic base for French Onion Soup.

A traditional non-veg, non-kosher onion soup is made with beef broth and probably some bacon or pork, which gives is a rich, smoky flavor and gelatinous mouthfeel. To recreate the deep, rich flavor with a veggie stock, I have four techniques:

• Pre-roast and caramelize the vegetables. (Smoke them if you have time.)
  
• Use earthy vegetables – onions, mushrooms, and potato peels – to provide depth.
  
• Add agar for a velvety gelatinous texture.
  
• Use smoked salt.
  

You’re going to need a pretty large pot. I use a 12-quart Le Creuset dutch oven. If you don’t have something that big, reduce ingredients accordingly.

Roast these veggies

• 6-8 carrots
  
• 2-3 onions
  
• 4-5 portobello mushrooms
  
• 1 lb shitake or porcini mushrooms
  
• 1 head garlic
  
• Peels from 3-4 lbs potatoes*
  

Chop the vegetables roughly. Toss them in olive oil and salt. Spread evenly on 2 roasting pans. If your oven has a “Roast” setting, use that; switch the top and bottom pans halfway through the roast cycle. 

Otherwise, preheat the oven to 350F. Turn the broiler on. Put both pans in the oven. Broil the top pan for 6-10 minutes, until the vegetables are brown and caramelized. Swap the pans; broil the second – it will take less time since it’s had a chance to heat up in the oven. Turn the broiler off and put the oven back to about 375F. It will probably take another 30 - 45 minutes to fully roast the veggies.

The Stock Pot 

• 1-2 packets of dried mushrooms
  
• Green tops from 2 - 3 leeks
  
• Stalks from fennel bulbs
  
• Celery stalks
  
• Another carrot and onion, per your tastes
  
• The roasted vegetables from above – scrape them into the pot
• 1 tbsp Smoked Salt
• Pepper
• Bay leaf
• Thyme, savory, whatever you like
• White wine (for deglazing the pan)
• 1 - 1.5 tsp agar powder

Once your vegetables are roasted, add them to the stock pot. Deglaze the roasting pan with white wine and pour that into the stock pot. Cover the vegetables with water. Bring to a boil. Turn down and simmer for 3-4 hours.

Suspend a (large) mesh colander over another large pot. Carefully pour the broth and vegetables into the colander. The broth will obviously flow through to the pot underneath, and the large vegetable chunks will remain in the colander. Let it drain for 10 - 15 minutes; you can press on the veggies with a wooden spoon to get all their tasty veggie juices out. 

Take the broth you’ve extracted. Whisk in a teaspoon of agar powder. Bring it to a low boil. Taste. The texture should be velvety. If it’s not, whisk in another half teaspoon of agar and repeat. 

Adjust the seasoning as necessary – more salt may be necessary. You may also want to add a tablespoon at a time of apple cider vinegar or sherry vinegar to balance the flavors. The stock should not taste like vinegar; just add a little and the flavor has a little j'ne sais quois without a noticeable acidity.

Variation: French Onion Soup Gratineé (Dairy)

• Make a batch of earthy roast vegetable broth, above.
• Caramelize about 2 lbs sweet and / or red onions in butter. (Try Cook’s Illustrated if you need help with the technique.)
• Divide the onions between individual footed soup bowls. Fill each bowl with broth.
• Organize the footed bowls on a baking tray.
• Add a slice of toasted baguette to the top of each bowl. Top with grated gruyere cheese. 
• Put the tray under the broiler for a few minutes, until the cheese is bubbly and lightly browned.

Two of my dear friends are in town and staying with us. The husband, B., is strict vegetarian (as opposed to my stepdaughter, who could be described as a “cheating” vegetarian). I’ve also recently returned from France – I was staying in Paris a block from Place de Republique during the rally a few weeks ago.

So I wanted a menu that was wintery, French, and vegetarian. Alsatian French food is Germanic in tone; traditionally I think of it as combining lots of pork, beef, butter, cheese, potatoes, onions, carrots, and cabbage. Vegetables that survive well in winter; animal-based products.

Oftentimes a good substitute for pork in many recipes is duck. For example, my husband smoked a duck a couple of Thanksgivings ago. We used the smoked duck fat to roast Brussels sprouts, per recipes that call for roasting the sprouts in bacon fat. Here, however, that’s not going to work since the menu had to be veg; on the other hand, this gave me opportunity to play with the rich cheeses and dairy of Northern France.

Challah – Half-whole wheat olive oil & honey challah

1st course – Roasted Mushroom Onion Soup (vegan/pareve; can be dairy if you sautee the onions in butter, which is tasty. I didn’t add cheese because this is just a first course and I wanted to keep it light.)

Entrée – Individual cauliflower, potato, and olive gratins (vegan / pareve; can be enriched for a dairy meal with parmesan)

Main – Poached eggs on a bed of steamed kale, with Dijon vinaigrette

Salad – Shredded purple Belgian endive with walnuts and Roquefort. Dressing of white wine vinegar and walnut oil.

Dessert – Meyer lemon and olive oil yogurt cake “cannelés” (i.e. a traditional French yogurt cake baked in cannelé molds)

Wine pairings – Mostly robust but lighter reds – Cotes du Rhone, Burgundy, California Pinot Noir.

(And yes, I serve meals in courses. It’s actually easier as you don’t have to time everything to be on the table at the same moment.)

Image from Epicurious

We are having a larger dinner party with friends on Friday to celebrate Rosh Hashana / Shabbat, so our Wednesday night dinner was just us to keep things sane. We went to the Emanu-El 8:30 pm service and when we finally got home it was quite late — as planned — and we had our festive meal at midnight.

An Italian-style brisket (braised in wine, with lots of onion, dried fruit, and rosemary) is our traditional Rosh Hashana dinner and it feeds a crowd so I planned that for Friday. In order to keep the brisket feeling special, and to honor our vegetarian daughter, I made it a milk meal. And since my husband’s family are Iraqi Jews I was inspired by Persian and modern Israeli cuisine.

• Homemade apple challah. Half whole wheat, with olive oil and honey. Based on Maggie Glezer’s “My Challah” recipe in A Blessing of Bread. In an Infinity Braid shape. Made it on Monday and froze it to keep it fresh.
• Beet & pomegranate salad with chopped preserved lemons. Simple small-dice roasted red beets (roasted the night before) tossed with pomegranate seeds and half a preserved lemon. A little red vinegar too.
• Wattercress, herb, pistachio, and orangeflower water salad. From Yotam Ottolenghi’s Plenty cookbook. Bright acidic bitterness to balance the sweetness.
• Magic Chickpeas. Veggie main dish. My own recipe, named by my daughter, mild but glowing heat. Simple stewed chickpeas with cumin, coriander, smoked sweet paprika, a touch of chipotle, Mediterranean oregano; onion & garlic; lots of olive oil; a good sploosh of white wine. After they’re done cooking add a bag of frozen spinach & let it sit for 20 - 30 min while the beans are still hot. Made these in the slow cooker, which the kids plugged in afterschool.
• Ottolenghi’sSea Bass in Harissa with Rose Petals.
• Avocado blossom honey (local! California!) and apples
• Cheese plate – 9-month Manchego (the kids’ favorite) and Humboldt Fog.

I love celebrating the holidays and creating a magical experience for friends and family. So I can cook — I’m glad it can help transform the day into a sacred space and experience. May you be inspired too. L'Shanah tova!