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April 2, 2004
Passion for Passover ... food
New cookbooks offer creative suggestions for elegant and tasty
dishes.
RAHEL MUSLEAH SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH BULLETIN
Before you journey back to Egypt at this year's Passover seder,
let your fingers do the walking through the pages of these glossy
new kosher cookbooks brimming with creative suggestions for elegant
and enticing Passover dishes. Whether you are planning your seder
menu, looking for a memorable Passover gift, or you just want a
break from cleaning, salivate over the scrumptious recipes in these
cookbooks from food writers and those passionate about Jewish food
from all corners of the globe.
A lovely addition to any kitchen, The Jewish Kitchen: Recipes
and Stories from Around the World, by food and travel writer
Clarissa Hyman (Interlink), is a glossy, full-color collection interspersed
with the evocative stories of nine Jewish families and their communities.
Cull the three sections – meat, dairy and pareve – for
recipes from Cuban Jews in Miami, Polish Jews in Australia, Iraqi
Jews in England, Norwegian Holocaust survivors and others. Special
Passover dishes include Egyptian coconut jam, Ashkenazi beet jam
and carrot candy, Greek and Turkish leek patties, Baghdad beef with
okra and Moroccan tagines of lamb or chicken with prunes. At Pesach's
end, Moroccan Jews celebrate Maimouna, and you will find recipes
for foods like muflita, thin wheat pancakes laden with butter and
honey.
Also from Interlink, British kosher caterer Carole Sobell's New
Jewish Cuisine: Contemporary Kosher Cooking from Around the World
offers gourmet international flavors. Prepare colorful roasted vegetable
towers, halibut with a potato crust, chocolate truffle hearts with
berries and raspberry coulis, and you will probably hear, "I
can't believe it's kosher for Passover!"
Kosher by Design: Picture-Perfect Food for the Holidays and
Every Day (Mesorah), by Susie Fishbein, features a stylish
collection of more than 250 recipes broken down by holiday. Fishbein
presents traditional recipes with a contemporary twist, like stuffed
matzah balls, tzimmes souffle, chocolate sorbet and praline strips,
as well as recipes with ingredients you might not have considered,
like spiced quinoa. Portobello pesto stacks would be a refreshing
addition to a seder meal, as would baked chicken rolled in chopped
pistachios and served with blackberry sauce. Tips for setting an
elegant table, sample menus and a chart listing recipes from other
sections that can be used for Passover are thoughtful bonuses.
Marlene Spieler's richly photographed Jewish Food for Festivals
and Special Occasions (National Book Network) begins with
introductory explanations of each holiday. Pesach recipes range
from lamb with artichokes to a Jewish-Italian tuna, Sephardi stuffed
vegetables, traditional chrain (horseradish), a tropical
fruit salad and almond cakes.
Following on the heels of The New York Times Passover Cookbook,
Linda Amster has broadened her scope with The New York Times
Jewish Cookbook (St. Martin's), a collection of 825 recipes
from around the world. With an introduction by food critic and cookbook
author Mimi Sheraton, and organized by course, choose from dishes
contributed by chefs and food writers, like Geoffrey Zakarian's
salmon with smashed cucumber-date salad, and Argentine roast chicken
with vegetables and chimichurri sauce. So that you do not have to
sift through the entire book to find Passover-appropriate recipes,
an additional index by holiday lists the dishes, but you still have
to look for the page numbers in the main index.
In Feast from the Mideast: 250 Sun-Drenched Dishes from the
Lands of the Bible (HarperCollins), Faye Levy guides readers
through the storied history, robust flavors and fresh ingredients
that characterize Middle Eastern cuisine. The author of 20 cookbooks
and the food columnist for the Jerusalem Post magazine, Levy's
recipes are fragrant with the spices that Moses and Miriam might
have tasted. Try chicken in Persian pomegranate walnut sauce; roasted
salmon with garlic, lemon and coriander; savory stewed onions; figs
in fennel syrup. If you are Sephardic, revel in Levy's comprehensive
sections on legumes and rice. A pantry guide for the American kitchen
is a nice addition.
Inspired by the seasons and seven species of the land of Israel,
The Essential Book of Jewish Festival Cooking by
Phyllis Glazer with Miriyam Glazer (HarperCollins) begins with Passover.
Try Nanuchka's fabulous walnut-and-herb stuffing as a base for salads,
a filling for fresh vegetables or a spread for matzah, or cream
of root vegetable soup as a first course. Shoulder of veal stuffed
with carrots, celery, apple and mushrooms would make an elegant
entree, accompanied by braised "bitter herbs" – cilantro,
parsley, romaine and chicory – and fresh beet salad in honey
dressing. Offer a sweet ending of dates stuffed with homemade marzipan,
otherwise known as "Moshe b'tayva" – Moses
in the basket.
Andras Koerner takes an excursion into his great-grandmother's kitchen
in A Taste of the Past: The Daily Life and Cooking of a 19th-Century
Hungarian-Jewish Homemaker (University Press of New England)
with 85 recipes adapted for the modern home. The Passover section
describes the seder itself, and features a seltzer-spritzed matzah
ball recipe made from broken matzah pieces instead of fine matzah
meal; two recipes for deep-fried matzah fritters; jam-filled potato-matzah
dumplings; meringue almond clusters and more. Koerner, an architect
and passionate amateur cook, evokes an old-world feeling with his
own pen-and-ink illustrations.
Imagine taking all your family favorites and binding them in a book
– that's the idea behind the Heirloom Cookbook: Recipes
Handed Down by Jewish Mothers and Modern Recipes from Daughters
and Friends, compiled and edited by Miriam Lerner Satz (Lerner/Kar-Ben).
This practical collection doesn't stray far from the traditional
– Passover popovers to sponge cake.
From food processor maven and Canadian cookbook author Norene Gilletz
comes Healthy Helpings: 800 Fast and Fabulous Recipes for
the Kosher (or Not) Cook (Woodland Publishing). Bridging
the gap between good taste and good health, Gilletz's collection
of heart-healthy, low-fat, quick and simple recipes, each with nutritional
analysis, is indispensable for the busy, kosher, diet-conscious
cook. The sections are organized by course, but a special Passover
chapter offers a fattoush salad made from farfel, appetizers of
chopped chicken and veggies baked in muffin tins, cabbage rolls
in cranberry sauce, brisket marinated in diet cola, spaghetti squash
"noodle" pudding, crepes, eggplant roll-ups, lemon squares,
fudge squares and more.
Moosewood Restaurant Celebrates (Clarkson Potter)
gathers vegetarian recipes for occasions from Father's Day to Ramadan,
and includes sections on Passover and Chanukah. A vegetarian matzah
ball garlic-peppercorn soup broth is studded with asparagus bits,
dill, thyme and turmeric. The famous Ithaca restaurant has even
created a Jewish brown betty, dubbed "brown bubbie," filled
with spiced pears and raisins, and crowned with a crisp matzah meal
topping. For a dairy lunch, whip up the matzah cas-serole with spinach,
mushrooms, cream cheese and grated Monterey Jack. Many other recipes
can be adapted for Passover: try stir-fried eggplant or a crisp
green salad with savory, citrusy or minted vinaigrettes.
Like Moosewood's format, The Kids Holiday Baking Book
by Rosemary Black (St. Martin's) features 150 easy-to-make dessert
recipes for 19 holidays, including Passover and Rosh Hashanah. Passover
chocolate cake, brownies, butter cookies, raspberry jam cookies,
chocolate meringues, apple crisp and orange-and-nut cake should
keep the kids in dessert heaven.
Also specifically for children, Tasty Bible Stories: A Menu
of Tales & Matching Recipes by Tami Lehman-Wilzig (Lerner-Kar-Ben)
cleverly pairs biblical stories and recipes. Pharaoh's daughter
rescues baby Moses ... and Pharaoh's family feasts on eggplant omelette
and "fatoosh" bread salad. God passes over the Israelites'
homes ... and you can recall their haste by preparing matzah brie
and Granny Fannie's cold egg soup.
A simple picture-book, Passover Holiday Cookbook by
Emile Raabe (Rosen/Powerkids Press) explains the Exodus story, the
seder plate, matzah and chametz, and customs from around the world,
with recipes for matzah brie, chocolate macaroons, charoset and
sweet potato kugel.
Newly expanded with dozens of recipes, Matzah Meals
is a Passover cookbook for kids by Judy Tabs and Barbara Steinberg
(Kar-Ben). Enjoy a seder menu beginning with gefilte fish kabobs
and horseradish salsa, and ending with peach kugel, strawberry layer
cake and grape spritzer. During the week, snack on farfel granola,
grilled cheese "sandwiches," frozen fruit yogurt popsicles,
fruit shakes and chocolate egg creams. Meals from around the world
include tostados, matzah egg foo young, Hawaiian matzah fry and
cheese fondue. The kids might even stop complaining that there's
nothing to eat!
I don't know about you, but suddenly I'm raring to get into the
kitchen. With these guidebooks and a little creativity of your own,
Passover dishes can be delicious, eclectic, elegant, easy and appetizing.
Rahel Musleah is the author of Why on this Night?
A Passover Haggadah for Family Celebration (Simon & Schuster)
and presents programs on the Jewish communities of India, where
she was born. Please visit her Web site, www.rahelsjewishindia.com.
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