andrew@amdahl.UUCP (Andrew Sharpe) (09/05/85)
<>
Hi. My wife has asked me to ask all of you out there if any
of you have authentic Jewish recipes that you would like to
post. Anything would be greatly appreciated: bagels, latkes,
main courses, desserts, etc.
Andrew
--
Andrew Sharpe ...!{ihnp4,cbosgd,hplabs}!amdahl!andrew
***************************************** ___________
* The views expressed above are solely * ,/| _____ |
* my cat's opinions, and do not reflect * | | |___ /| |
* the views of the employees, nor the * | | | | | |
* management, of Amdahl Corporation. * | | | | | |
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***************************************** ~~~~~~~~~~~seb@mtgzz.UUCP (s.e.badian) (09/06/85)
Grandma's Potato Latkes (Pancakes for those not in the know) 2 eggs 1 small onion 1 teaspoon salt 2 T flour 1/4 teaspoon baking powder 3 cups grated potatoes Grate the potatoes using a food grater or food processor. Be careful not to reduce them to mush. You want some substance here! Grate the onion into the potatoes. Mix together. Mix the rest of the ingredients into the potatoes. Heat oil (Grandma uses chicken fat; but corn oil will work just as well) in a skillet over medium heat. Place globs of potato mixture in skillet and smush down into pancakes. Cook until golden brown and crisy. Flip and do the same thing on the other side. Remove and drain. Serve with applesauce or ketchup. A note: don't skimp on the oil. You need a lot of it. It's kind of like french fries. Obviously you don't want to submerge the pancakes, but you don't want a thin coating of oil either. Don't worry about the calories. If you have to worry, you shouldn't be eating these in the first place! Sharon Badian ihnp4!mtgzz!seb ...you can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need....
root@bu-cs.UUCP (Barry Shein) (09/07/85)
First, those that don't like my intuitive, rambling recipes can leave the room now, go get one of the cook books. 1. Latkes: Start frying a bunch of onions in oil till golden brown, just put aside if they get done first, no harm if they cool for this. How much depends on taste, ya know, fry a few chopped onions, try a cup or two. Or just add chopped raw to the recipe below, not that much difference. Take a bunch of potatoes and shred or grate them into a bowl (those four sided knuckle busters are traditional, not too many cuisinarts in the shtetl, but you can take your chances :-) You should notice massive amounts of liquid, depending on the potatoes you use, get rid of as much as you can (squeezing clumps over the sink as you transfer the mess into another bowl works, delicate flowers could try cheese cloth or colanders.) Add a few eggs, whole, to the potatoes (use your common sense, say one large egg for every quart of potato mush.) Add some salt and pepper (I guess optional) to the mush. Add the fried onions [say the following to all present: "if you put fried onions on s**t I would probably eat it"] Correct to a reasonable consistency with (preferably) potato meal (available in supermarkets if they have a 'jewish' section or I guess any flour, you won't use much as we're just correcting consistency here, not trying to rise or anything, don't be dumb and use self-rising flour or some such, that's not flour.) By reasonable consistency I mean just that you can make patties. Heat some oil in a skillet, make oval, flat patties about 3" X 4-5" by less than 1/2" thick, or circular or who cares. Just make them thin enough that they fry through before they burn (remember, we're working with raw potatoes here.) Maybe drain, serve with sour cream and/or apple sauce. 2. Matzo Brie (no relation to cheese, just a transliteration of a word I have only heard spoken, mabye 'Bry' is closer? rhymes with dry.): Take a bunch of matzo, break it up,soak it in water, drain it, add a few eggs, add some salt, mush it together, fry it as one large 1" thick pancake in a medium fry pan, gather everyone around to be amused as you hopelessly try to flip it, remark how it tastes the same even if you did break it. Serve with sugar or maybe jam, or just plain. A breakfast dish usually. 3. CHICKEN SOUP (interferon optional :-) Take some backs, wings, necks, ya know, cheap parts (I remember little feet, blecch, they loved em), cover with water (lotsa chicken in a big pot, double the height or less with water.) Start it boiling very slowly. Add whole, small (yellow) onions, quarter them if too large, add carrot chunks, celery, a little parsely, they used to throw in some kind of large white turnip or something, I never have tho. Let it simmer a couple of hours, add some salt. Serve over boiled egg noodles. I hate the resulting boiled chicken parts, do what you like with them. (chicken salad? garbage disposal salad?) If you're smart you'll get a recipe for kreplach to go in the soup (ground meat filled dough boiled with the soup) or knaidlach (dumplings I think, I don't believe I've ever had a 'dumpling', hmm, dough balls boiled with the soup.) 4. Chopped liver Fry up a bunch of chicken livers and onions (lotsa onions), boil some eggs (just a few.) Cool, mash it all together (they used to use a big wooden bowl with one of those two-bladed hand held choppers.) Traditionally, this would be fried in chicken fat (known as schmalz, hence the word you may have heard, also, if you render your own the solid fried stuff you scoop out and put on bread is called grivenes [griv-eh-nuhs], not my favorite.) Serve it with crackers on individual beds of lettuce or whatever. -- Just a list of dishes I grew up with you may want to look in indices for (I could probably manage these on my own, but I doubt I would write them down right): 1. Blintzes - sort of a sour cream/farmer's cheese filled crepe. 2. Tzimmes (warning: starts with beef and prunes as ingredients) 3. Chalent (I dunno why people write it this way, we pronounced it Chunt, warning: overnight cooking of a meat, to avoid having to cook on saturday.) 4. Unfortunately, many potted meat and chicken recipes. 5. Ptcharr (I think this is more a russian dish...warning: involves boiling calves feet to get a jelly out and then adding massive amounts of garlic and serving cold...hah! I dare you.) 6. Cold jellied Carp, sweet with prunes and carrots, a warning shouldn't be necessary. 7. Potato Kugel - sort of like a latke mash baked in a casserole 8. Knishes - dough wrapped mashed potatoes or kasha (see below) 9. Borscht (cold beet soup), esp with sour cream or boiled potato, sometimes used more generically for various cabbage soups I am told. 10. Schav, not sure, cold beet green soup? I hated it. 11. Gefilte Fish - ground fish balls, served cold (usually pike, carp mixtures.) Served with horseradish (Charein), eh. 12. Sweet and sour (as in prunes and citric acid, bought crystallized) cabbage soups. 13. Stuffed Cabbage (large cabbage leaves stuffed with ground beef mixed with rice, tomato juice in the boiling liquid, raisins and citric acid involved, get a recipe, german also) 14. Various boring roasted chickens 15. Various non-meat menus, like herring in cream sauce w/ onions, cheeses, dark breads (rye, pumpernickel, bagels), lox, cream cheeese etc, served buffet style.) 16. Stuffed Derma (Kishke) - fried, potato filled intestine, its actually great, I think if you buy it you'll just get something akin to the skin they use for frankfurters which may ease your mind. 18. Kasha - 'buckwheat groats' is what they may be called, I have no idea what a 'groat' is. You fry some onions in a big pot and then stir fry the dry 'groats' (I am amusing myself with the word) as you mix in a scrambled egg, add water like you would for rice, boil till absorbed, serve with gravy and maybe boiled 'bowtie' pasta (all together sometimes known as Kasha Varnishkes, someone once told me Kasha is russian for 'garbage', can't imagine why the relation, a very innocous dish, probably a lie.) First, my background is Russian (orthodox, kosher), so opinions here may vary, at the very least this is all Ashkenazic (east european.) Sephardic, native isreali dishes are vastly different. I guess some of this may be actually american jewish, but I was not that far removed from the 'old people'. Second, big deal. I like a lot of the stuff, but it really ain't the best cuisine in my opinion, just very practical dishes with maybe some weird ideas about spicing (citric acid??) I guess the various cold fish dishes are an exception here, I love 'em and they certainly aren't std american fare (and they are barely 'jewish', all identified with the countries they lived in.) Also remember recipes were often driven by dietary laws, custom and poverty. We all know the good lord gifted the chinese and italians with the great recipes :-):-), enjoy. -Barry Shein, Boston University
mr@hou2h.UUCP (M.RINDSBERG) (09/09/85)
> Grandma's Potato Latkes (Pancakes for those not in the know) > > 2 eggs > 1 small onion > 1 teaspoon salt > 2 T flour > 1/4 teaspoon baking powder > 3 cups grated potatoes > > Grate the potatoes using a food grater or food processor. Be careful > not to reduce them to mush. You want some substance here! Grate the > onion into the potatoes. Mix together. Mix the rest of the ingredients > into the potatoes. Heat oil (Grandma uses chicken fat; but corn oil > will work just as well) in a skillet over medium heat. Place globs Hint: Before placing them into the pan squeeze out some of the water to reduce splattering. > of potato mixture in skillet and smush down into pancakes. Cook > until golden brown and crisy. Flip and do the same thing on the other > side. Remove and drain. Serve with applesauce or ketchup. > > A note: don't skimp on the oil. You need a lot of it. It's kind of like > french fries. Obviously you don't want to submerge the pancakes, but > you don't want a thin coating of oil either. Don't worry about the > calories. If you have to worry, you shouldn't be eating these in the > first place!
dbb@fluke.UUCP (Mr. Pither) (09/11/85)
My wife made latkes recently, grating the potatoes in a Cuisinart
using the shredding disc (finer holes than the grating disc) and
they came out *wonderfully*, and all this without spending time
grating my knuckles into the potatoes... No, I don't know her
recipe, but I'm sure it's similar to the others posted.
--
Dave Bartley UUCP: {decvax,ihnp4}!uw-beaver!
John Fluke Mfg Co. {sun,allegra}! fluke!dbb
Everett, WA USA {ucbvax,hplabs}!lbl-csam!susan@sftig.UUCP (S.Eisen) (09/12/85)
> > Hi. My wife has asked me to ask all of you out there if any > of you have authentic Jewish recipes that you would like to > post. Anything would be greatly appreciated: bagels, latkes, > main courses, desserts, etc. > I'm disappointed that I still haven't seen a response that says there's no such thing as *AUTHENTIC* Jewish cooking. What exists is any number of different styles of cuisine that have been adapted to the laws of keeping kosher. What we often think of as Jewish cuisine is predominantly of Eastern European origin, and it's popular due to the large concentration of Ahkenazic (Eastern European) Jews on the East Coast and other major US cities. However, Jews from Sefardic (Spanish) origin, or Oriental (Middle Eastern) descent cook foods that don't resemble the types of food posted as *AUTHENTIC* Jewish recipes at all, like falafel, borekas, various curried stews, etc. There are a number of cookbooks out, like "The Cookbook of Italian-Jewish Cuisine" (I think that's the title) that includes a bit of history of the Jews that settled in Italy several centuries ago. I have a book simply called "Jewish Cookery" by Florence Greenberg, the editor of a column of kosher recipes in a British Jewish publication. I assure you that the recipes reflect a British/Continental influence, despite the fact that many of the dishes have names similar to ones my family makes. Another book I have, "A Lexicon of Jewish Cooking" has recipes of Jews from all over the world, with a little synopsis of the origin of each. Most of the recipes are unusual, and the book is enjoyable to read. By default, all vegetarian cookery is kosher. Therefore, many of the vegetarian restaurants in NYC are frequented by Jews who keep kosher, and I would say that American-Kosher cooking, a new development, is heavily vegetarian. And, of course, why so many Chinese Kosher restaurants? Because, as so many people who post to the net pointed out, there is are no dairy products mixed with the meat, and since one of the laws of keeping kosher is the separation of meat and dairy products, it is simple to turn a Chinese dish into a kosher meal. All you need is kosher meat. I and most of my friends who like to cook own woks, and at least one or two Chinese cookbooks. The recipes adapt easily. I am a little disappointed that Barry Shein chose to be so tongue-in-cheek in his response, since I'm also very fond of Eastern European cookery. I assure you, my stuffed cabbage is exactly the same as my Polish-Catholic friend's, only I use kosher chopped meat and she doesn't. The list of dishes are also very variable - tzimmes, to point out one, doesn't have to be made with meat, or prunes, and if you get a Jewish Cookbook that is geared towards Eastern European style cooking, you might find at least 4 ways to make things that have the same name. I also don't know why he thinks the spicing is strange, and I've never seen a recipe that called for citric acid! Sorry I've been so long winded, but I believe that if you can make it kosher, it becomes part of your repertoire of Jewish cooking.
figmo@tymix.UUCP (Lynn Gold) (09/13/85)
> > Grandma's Potato Latkes (Pancakes for those not in the know) > > > (recipe omitted for brevity's sake) > > Serve with applesauce or ketchup. > Applesauce or ketchup!!!??! NO WAY! WE always eat them with sour cream! --Lynn
figmo@tymix.UUCP (Lynn Gold) (09/13/85)
Thanks to Barry Shein for such a great letter. I say this before I add MY two cents. > First, those that don't like my intuitive, rambling recipes can leave > the room now, go get one of the cook books. > Cookbooks, feh! I call my grandmother in Florida when I want recipes. > 2. Matzo Brie (no relation to cheese, just a transliteration of a word > I have only heard spoken, mabye 'Bry' is closer? rhymes with dry.): > > Take a bunch of matzo, break it up,soak it in water, drain it, add a few > eggs, add some salt, mush it together, fry it as one large 1" thick > pancake in a medium fry pan, gather everyone around to be amused as you > hopelessly try to flip it, remark how it tastes the same even if you did > break it. > > Serve with sugar or maybe jam, or just plain. A breakfast dish usually. > I've always seen it spelled "brei." This is one recipe that is made differently by everybody's mother/grandmother/etc. My family's recipe is a bit different... For one thing, we always dispensed with the pretense of calling it "brei" because we were all American-born and none of us spoke yiddish, save for what we picked up from TV and friends. Anyhow, here goes... FRIED MATZOH This recipe varies depending upon how much you want to make. For two servings, it goes about like this: 2 eggs (3 if they're small) 6 squares matzoh 1 T either rendered chicken fat* or rendered vegetable fat 1 T either margarine or butter (note: do NOT make it with chicken fat and butter if you want it to be authentic/kosher) salt and pepper to taste Take each square of matzoh and dampen under the faucet using warm water. Place on top of each other and allow to sit as you beat beat the eggs together in a bowl large enough to hold them and the matzoh. Add salt and pepper to taste. Break up matzoh squares into bite-sized pieces (don't worry if they look to small) and add to eggs. Mix well; allow the matzoh to absorb the eggs. While the matzoh is soaking, heat up a frying pan and melt the fat and butter/margarine. When fat is melted (eggs should be absorbed by now; if there isn't enough liquid for them, add either another egg or some water), dump matzoh-egg mixture into pan. Cook on medium heat, turning and stirring so the matzoh flakes cook - they should clump a little, but should not be so solid that you could flip the whole thing. When they are almost but not quite dry (about the way you'd like scrambled eggs to be), empty pan onto serving plates. Serve with salt and pepper (so people can add as they see fit). This dish is traditional Passover breakfast fare, although we sometimes have it other times of the year. *Rendered Chicken Fat - Put some chicken skins and onions into a medium-low frying pan. Allow to cook until skins look like all the fat that was in them isn't any more. Drain fat into container; refrigerate. > 3. CHICKEN SOUP (interferon optional :-) > > ... I hate > the resulting boiled chicken parts, do what you like with them. > (chicken salad? garbage disposal salad?) > > If you're smart you'll get a recipe for kreplach to go in the soup > (ground meat filled dough boiled with the soup) or knaidlach (dumplings > I think, I don't believe I've ever had a 'dumpling', hmm, dough balls > boiled with the soup.) > You just answered the question in the first of these two paragraphs with the second one. Kreplach is also the only good use I've ever heard of for (yuck) pot roast. Another thing my mother did with soup meat (besides feed it to the dog) was to make croquettes. I don't have her recipe on me though; this is largely because I have yet to attempt to make Chicken Soup out here. Knaidlach are matzoh balls; you eat them in place of kreplach on Pesach. > Just a list of dishes I grew up with you may want to look > in indices for (I could probably manage these on my own, but I doubt I > would write them down right): > > 1. Blintzes - sort of a sour cream/farmer's cheese filled crepe. I owe my grandmother a call anyway, so I'll have her recipe within a few days. > 2. Tzimmes (warning: starts with beef and prunes as ingredients) Not one of my favorites, but it's appropriate for Rosh Hashanah (literally - "The Head of the Year"). There was a recipe for it in a recent magazine; I believe it was "Woman's Day's Great American Cooking." It looked pretty close to what my family makes. > 7. Potato Kugel - sort of like a latke mash baked in a casserole Either my mother or my grandmother ought to have this one. Mom used to make this instead of latkes on Chanukah because she felt that latkes were "too greasy" (as was anything else that was fun to eat). > 8. Knishes - dough wrapped mashed potatoes or kasha (see below) > sometimes used more generically for various cabbage soups I am told. This is hardly authentic, but a good appetizer recipe. MINI-KNISHES Mashed potatoes (I confess to cheating; I use one recipe of instant) Cheese (American or Cheddar; about 4 ounces) Onions (fried - 1 medium) 2 cans of refrigerator crescent dough Mix potatoes, cheese, and onions together; keep warm, mixing occasionally, until cheese melts. Allow to cool. Take one square (2 attached triangles) of dough and roll it into a flatter, smoother square, making sure to smooth out the perforations. Cut into 9 smaller squares. Fill each square with 1 tsp. of the potato mixture, seal each one into a small ball, and put it, folded side down, onto a baking sheet. Bake 10-15 minutes or until golden brown on top. Serve warm or at room temperature. > 16. Stuffed Derma (Kishke) - fried, potato filled intestine, its > actually great, I think if you buy it you'll just get something > akin to the skin they use for frankfurters which may ease your mind. If anyone knows of a place were I can get kishka out here in the SF Bay Area, PLEASE let me know! I have not been able to find it anywhere. Waaaaaa! > > First, my background is Russian (orthodox, kosher), so opinions here may > vary, at the very least this is all Ashkenazic (east european.) > Sephardic, native isreali dishes are vastly different. I guess some of > this may be actually american jewish, but I was not that far removed > from the 'old people'. > My background is half non-Jewish Slovak (my mother), 1/4 Russian Jew (my father's father's parents; they came over during the Pogroms in the late 1800's), and 1/4 Egyptian Jew (my father's mother's parents; they came here from Alexandria, Egypt. My Egyptian great-grandfather, I am told, either came to Egypt from Germany or his parents did). I don't know whether I'm all Ashkenazic or part Sephardic. > Second, big deal. I like a lot of the stuff, but it really ain't the > best cuisine in my opinion, just very practical dishes with maybe some > weird ideas about spicing (citric acid??) I guess the various cold fish > dishes are an exception here, I love 'em and they certainly aren't std > american fare (and they are barely 'jewish', all identified with the > countries they lived in.) Also remember recipes were often driven by > dietary laws, custom and poverty. > I always disliked gefilte fish myself. Give me blintzes and latkes any day! --Lynn Gold Tymnet, Inc. UUCP: ...tymix!figmo ARPA: FIGMO@MIT-MC.ARPA
root@bu-cs.UUCP (Barry Shein) (09/14/85)
>From: susan@sftig.UUCP (S.Eisen) >Subject: Re: Authentic Jewish recipes? >I'm disappointed that I still haven't seen a response that says >there's no such thing as *AUTHENTIC* Jewish cooking. What exists is >any number of different styles of cuisine that have been adapted to >the laws of keeping kosher. Stop being disappointed, I think if you re-read my note you will see I said this at the end almost to the word, it sounds like you quoted me. >I also don't know why he thinks the spicing is strange, and I've >never seen a recipe that called for citric acid! Perhaps you have seen it called 'Sour Salt'? At any rate, I think if you look a little wider you will find I didn't make it up. And that is all I meant by strange, few cuisines I know of use citric acid. I certainly remember the bottles on the shelf from one of the common kosher food companies (like Rokeach.) I doubt they were making it only for me. >...I believe that if you can make it kosher, >it becomes part of your repertoire of Jewish cooking. I think this is reductio ad absurdum, I doubt very much a recipe for kosher Ma Pou Tofu or some such is what the requestor was looking for (make your favorite Ma Pou Tofu recipe, use kosher meat...??) I think you are confusing kashruth with the traditional recipes of some of the several Jewish ethnic groups Americans are familiar with and associate recipes with (mainly Ashkenazic and Sephardic), a much more useful definition when the term 'Jewish recipes' comes up. And as far as my being tongue in cheek...tongue is also a traditional Jewish dish, sliced cold with mustard on rye bread, mmmm-mm, keep :-) -Barry Shein, Boston University
susan@sftig.UUCP (S.Eisen) (09/18/85)
> > Stop being disappointed, I think if you re-read my note you will see > I said this at the end almost to the word, it sounds like you quoted me. > > -Barry Shein, Boston University Barry's flame at me is quite correct -- I mailed him an apology and wish to post a public one. The requester was indeed probably looking for Eastern European Jewish cooking, and after having several local friends of Ashkenazic background (including my husband) call me to task on my statement, I admit I was wrong. An entire wealth of Jewish cooking, in fact, is very specific to the Passover holiday, and that is what brought about things like gefilte fish (much better homemade than from the jar or can) and matzoh balls (kneidlach, pronounce the "k"). Sorry, Barry. You score on this one. So, no one has posted a recipe for tzimmes yet. Here's mine (I just made it for Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and it got rave reviews) Susan's Carrot/Sweet Potato Tzimmes (No meat, no prunes) two large sweet potatoes five large carrots one can of unsweetened pineapple chunks one cup of raisins orange juice (about 1/2 cup) Slice the potatoes and carrots. Put everything into a pot, about 4 quart size. Bring to a boil, then turn on a very low light and simmer until carrots and sweet potatoes are tender, and raisins are plump. No extra sweetening is needed. This recipe is also best made in advance and refrigerated so all the flavors blend together. Reheat on a very low light or in a warm oven. This is one of those "it tastes better than it sounds" recipes.
keesan@bbncc5.UUCP (Morris M. Keesan) (09/19/85)
In article <512@tymix.UUCP> figmo@tymix.UUCP (Lynn Gold) writes: . . . >> 7. Potato Kugel - sort of like a latke mash baked in a casserole > >Either my mother or my grandmother ought to have this one. Mom used to >make this instead of latkes on Chanukah because she felt that latkes were >"too greasy" (as was anything else that was fun to eat). . . . >My background is half non-Jewish Slovak (my mother), 1/4 Russian Jew . . . These two statements go together, as her being non-Jewish excuses your mother from knowing any better. Your mother obviously misunderstood the reason for latkes, and confusedly thought that Chanukah and potatoes have something to do with each other. The entire reason for latkes being a Chanukah food is that they're "too greasy". They, and some other fried foods, are eaten during Chanukah because they're fried in oil, to commemorate the miracle of one day's lamp oil lasting for eight days. -- Morris M. Keesan keesan@bbn-unix.ARPA {decvax,ihnp4,etc.}!bbncca!keesan
dkatz@zaphod.UUCP (Dave Katz) (09/21/85)
As an option to the LATKE recipe that Sharon Badian posted, one can also add: 1 clove of garlic, also grated into the rest of the ingredients. Great idea for all you garlic lovers. Also, I find it good to let the grated potatoes, etc., stand for about 10 minutes and then drain off any excess water that has collected. Another way to serve is with cold sour cream. D.Katz
andrew@amdahl.UUCP (Andrew Sharpe) (09/21/85)
> ... The requester was indeed probably looking for >Eastern European Jewish cooking, and after having several local friends >of Ashkenazic background (including my husband) call me to task on my >statement, I admit I was wrong. Well. Being the aforementioned requester, I assure you all that I wanted *any* Jewish recipes, regardless of origin. I realize that I said 'authentic Jewish recipes', which was probably misleading. If your grandmother made Jewish recipes, I would consider that to be authentic enough. It is very nice, however, to have seen such a large response to my query. Thanks to all of you who responded, and go ask your grandmothers. -- Andrew Sharpe ...!{ihnp4,cbosgd,hplabs}!amdahl!andrew ***************************************** ___________ * The views expressed above are solely * ,/| _____ | * my cat's opinions, and do not reflect * | | |___ /| | * the views of the employees, nor the * | | | | | | * management, of Amdahl Corporation. * | | | | | | * * | | |__| | | * * | | / | | ,| * * | ~~~~~ |/ ***************************************** ~~~~~~~~~~~