Gahntze Tzimmes

Tzimmes, a sweet, heavy, root vegetable side dish, is made gahntz--whole, full--when cooked with beef or chicken. It is served at most holidays, especially Passover, when the high fiber content is particularly welcome. This New England adaptation makes use of one of our most beloved local vegetables: the butternut squash.

If you happen to dislike slow cookers (but why?), you could prepare this the old-fashioned way by blasting it in a 400 degree oven for an hour, and then turning it down to 300 and blasting it for 4-5 hours more. (Yeah, I'll take the slow cooker.)

Obviously, this thoroughly Yiddish dish can be prepared kosher (fleishig).

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 small (2 - 2 1/2 lb) butternut squash, peeled, seeded and diced
  
• 1 1/2 lbs sweet potatoes, peeled and diced
• 1 lb. carrots, peeled and sliced (or baby carrots)
• 2 lbs. flanken or brisket, chopped into pieces (or cut the meat off 4 lbs. of short ribs)
• 1 lb. dried fruit (usually prunes and apricots)
• 1 cup orange juice
• 2 tbsp. brown sugar
• 2 tbsp. flour
• 2 tbsp. lemon juice
• Several cups boiling water
  
• Ground cloves
• Ground nutmeg
• Ground allspice
• A dash of ginger (optional)
  

DIRECTIONS (LAZY):

1. Put the beef, carrots, squash, potatoes and dried fruit in the slow cooker.
2. Combine the brown sugar, flour and spices. Add some of the boiling water so it all dissolves.
3. Pour this over the tzimmes. Pour enough boiling water in that it's near the top of the tzimmes. Turn heat to low and let cook for 8-10 hours.

DIRECTIONS (AMBITIOUS):

1. Preheat the oven to 400.
   
2. Place the vegetables and dried fruit at the bottom of a casserole and combine.
   
3. Brown the beef in a deep skillet, then place on top of fruit and vegetables.
   
4. Add the orange juice to the skillet and deglaze with a spatula. Transfer to a bowl and whisk in brown sugar, flour and spices.
5. Pour over tzimmes. Pour enough boiling water in that it's near the top of the tzimmes.
6. Bake, covered, at 400 for an hour.
7. Reduce heat to 300 and bake for another 4-5 hours.

Serve hot. Even better left over.

Barley and Fava Beans

Before you ask, no, there isn't a better name for it; and no, I have no idea what ethnicity it ought to be. I made it up a couple of years ago and make it a little differently each time. It makes a fantastic lunch with some pressed dates and white cheese.

Vidalia onions are sweeter than most other onions, and make an absolutely beautiful flavor when sautéed. They play very nicely off the buttery fava beans and the rough barley, and add a certain grandeur to the whole ensemble.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 lb. dry fava beans, reconstituted
• 1 lb. barley
• 6 cups chicken broth
• 2 vidalia onions, sliced
  
• 2-3 tbsp. butter or schmaltz
  
• 3 tbsp. capers, chopped
• 3 tbsp. lemon juice
  
• 1 tin flat anchovy fillets, chopped
• Freshly ground pepper to taste
  

DIRECTIONS:

1. Reconstitute the fava beans by whatever method suits you best. (I usually throw beans in the slow-cooker on high for 4-6 hours.)
2. Rinse the barley and place in a pot with the broth. Bring to a boil, then allow to simmer, covered, for 45-60 minutes or until all the broth is absorbed.
3. Meanwhile, heat the butter or schmaltz in a deep nonstick pan. Once hot, add the onions.
4. Sauté the onions over medium-high heat.
5. When the onions begin to soften, add the chopped anchovies. Continue to sauté.
6. Add the capers and black pepper when the onions begin to brown.
7. When the onions have caramelized, add the fava beans and combine thoroughly, mashing slightly if necessary.
8. Mix in the lemon juice and allow to cook on medium heat for several minutes.
9. Add the onion-bean mixture to the barley and combine thoroughly.

Serve warm with feta cheese or other soft brined cheese (such as chêvre or Tek-Süt) and pressed dates or other dried fruit. Also good with olives. Makes an outstanding carry-in lunch.

Short ribs

This slow-cooker recipe works well with many stewing meats, so long as they are rich enough not to dry out. Short ribs and their boneless counterpart (known in Yiddish as flanken) are far and away the most impressive, but a shoulder chuck roast will hold up pretty well, too.

The single most important seasoning here is cloves; this cannot be omitted.

But as I think I mentioned in an earlier post, the real secret ingredient in sweet red sauces for beef in Yiddish-American cooking is soda: cola for dark sauces, and ginger ale for light ones. I have also experimented with cranberry and orange juices to good effect. (Orange juice ends up tasting like tzimmes.)

It's impossible to provide proportions here as it is completely a matter of personal preference. Since the sauce contains no raw meat, you can taste it until it "seems right"--and remember, of course, that it will be made far richer and milder by stewing with the beef.

INGREDIENTS (SAUCE):

• 1 can (6 oz.) tomato paste
• Plenty of molasses
• Ground cloves (this is essential)
• Spicy brown mustard
• Cider vinegar
• Chopped garlic
• Allspice
• Nutmeg
• A little cola or ginger ale
• Salt

INGREDIENTS (BRAISE):

• 4 beef short ribs --or-- 2-3 lbs. flanken or shoulder chuck roast
• 2-3 russet potatoes, peeled and sliced
• 1 onion, sliced

Arrange the potatoes at the bottom of the pot, followed by the onions, and then the short ribs, then apply the sauce to the top of the ribs. It will drip down as it cooks, so don't worry too much about spreading it around. It's OK to put some ribs on top of others; if you do that, put some sauce on top of the first layer before putting the second layer on. Cook in the slow cooker for 8-10 hours on low. Serve warm with kashe or rice.

Shepherd's Pie

This is one of my favorite comfort foods, and it's very easy if you have leftover potato knish filling (or any mashed potatoes, really). I find that the knish filling really made a perfect topping for the shepherd's pie.

The potato knish filling is essentially just mashed potatoes prepared a particular way, and I don't feel like writing it again, so I refer you to that recipe.

If prepared appropriately, this recipe can be kosher (fleishig).

INGREDIENTS:

• 6 cups potato knish filling (see below)
  
• 1 lb. green peas, fresh or frozen
• 1 lb. lean ground beef
• 2 tbsp. brown mustard
• 3 tbsp. ketchup
• 1 tbsp. molasses
• Worcestershire sauce
• Yolk of one egg

RECIPE:

1. Preheat oven to 425.
   
2. If peas are frozen, defrost in the microwave.
3. Crumble and brown the beef in a frying pan, stirring frequently.
4. When the beef is brown on the outside, add the mustard, ketchup, molasses, and Worcestershire sauce to taste. Cook for another minute or so.
   
5. Transfer beef mixture to a casserole dish.
6. Top beef with peas.
   
7. Spread knish filling evenly over the peas using a spatula.
8. Beat the egg yolk together with some more worcestershire sauce or some water; brush onto top of pie.
9. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until the top is somewhat crisp and the egg mixture has turned golden brown.

Serve warm with a green salad.

PAIRINGS: Goes well with a bitter stout such as Guinness.

The caramelized onion trick

I have had far too many onions that were just soft(ish) when they should have been caramelized, or burnt beyond any recognition of tastiness. So let me splain something.

There's some kind of magical chemistry that happens with caramelization that my mother could explain because she went to culinary arts school. For my money, the thing is that the onions spend about 15 or 20 minutes being 'soft' before they quickly start to get golden and very soft--this is what's called 'browned.'

At that point, they will begin to burn very quickly unless you are stirring them constantly (before that, frequently is fine), and even then will burn if your heat is too high. So watch very carefully when they really start to turn gold.

(If you're going all the way and you want garlic in there, the point at which they start to brown is when you want to throw your garlic in, because garlic does all this same stuff, but ten times faster.)

Very quickly after turning gold, they will start to turn brown. Now you're reaching the sweet spot, and it's up to you to decide how far you want to go with this. If you really caramelize the bejesus out of them, you might actually feel that they have become too sweet and too insubstantial.

But everything progresses with extraordinary speed from the gold stage on up, so be diligent and keep your eye on the onions. You'll get exactly what you want if you do.

Kreplach (pierogi)

Update (02/02/08): What started out as a disappointing knish experiment turned into a startlingly excellent kreplach experiment. The dough is essentially a schmaltzy egg pasta: too dry to be baked, but perfect for boiling. Fortunately, I had half a batch left uncooked in my freezer to try this experiment out on.

These are more like pierogi that I've had in that the dough is thicker and eggier than most kreplach, which have an almost translucent, angelic quality. They are delicious by themselves with mustard or goat cheese, and I am sure they would also make an outstanding contribution to chicken soup.

I still haven't figured out how to make knishes, alas.

INGREDIENTS -- DOUGH:

• 3 medium eggs, beaten
  
• 2 tbsp. schmaltz
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• About 1 1/2 cups flour (see instructions below)
• An extra egg yolk (for glazing)
  

INGREDIENTS -- FILLING:

• 3 lbs. russet potatoes
• 1 lb. onions, thinly sliced
  
• 1 tbsp. chopped garlic
• 8 oz. sliced mushrooms
• 3 tbsp. schmaltz
• 1 medium egg, beaten
  
• Salt and pepper

OVERALL STRATEGY:

Slice the potatoes ahead of time. Bring some water to a boil while working on the first steps of the dough. Throw the potatoes in while you're doing that. Then you can prepare the onions and mushrooms. While they are still in their early stages of sauteeing, mash the potatoes and add the egg (while stirring onions occasionally). That way, it's all ready to be combined when the onions are done. After you've done that, get to work rolling out the dough. Finally, boil as much as you'd like to eat now and freeze the rest for later.

DIRECTIONS -- DOUGH:

1. Beat the eggs together with the schmaltz, salt and baking soda.
2. In a mixing bowl, add about 3/4 cup of flour and combine thoroughly with a spatula. This will have a sticky, pasty consistency.
3. Add more flour a very little bit at a time--2 tablespoons at most--mixing very thoroughly, just until the dough is no longer sticky. You will have to use your hands after it starts to thicken up.
4. Knead until it's a totally even, dense ball of dough. Cover the mixing bowl and let stand for about 45 minutes (about the time it will take to make the filling).
   

DIRECTIONS -- FILLING:

1. Bring a pot of water to a boil. Slice the potatoes into 3/4"-thick rounds but do not peel them. Boil them to desired consistency.
2. Meanwhile, heat the schmaltz in a saucepan. (WARNING: schmaltz burns faster than vegetable oil.) When the schmaltz is hot, add the mushrooms and onions.
3. Sauté the onions and mushrooms on medium-high heat, stirring frequently, until they begin to turn gold.
4. Add the garlic and continue to cook until the onions caramelize, stirring constantly.
5. Mash the potatoes and stir in the egg thoroughly. Add a bit more schmaltz if it's not smooth.
6. Once the onions and mushrooms are ready, add them to the potatoes. Season with plenty of salt and pepper.

ASSEMBLING YOUR KREPLACH:

1. Knead the dough a bit to warm it up.
   
2. Roll out the dough as thin as you possibly can. For me, it helped to roll it as much as I could, then cut that much into quarters and roll that as much as I could, and finally to cut those quarters in half and roll each eighth to the appropriate thinness.
3. Cut the dough into 3" diameter circles. Put a dab of filling in the middle of one, then put another over it and pinch at the edges. You can curl the edges back over onto themselves, too, and then pinch them down with a fork.
4. Brush the top of each kreplach with a bit of egg yolk.

FREEZE 'EM OR COOK 'EM:

You only want to cook as many kreplach as you're going to eat immediately. Fortunately, kreplach freeze beautifully in an airtight container.

FREEZE: You want to minimize the exposure to air, while also laying them flat so they don't freeze together or deform. A trick I use for this sort of thing is to lay a zip-loc bag on top of a baking sheet, and then to put the kreplach inside the bag and freeze them. Once they're frozen, you can remove the baking sheet.

BOIL: Bring some water to a rolling boil. Place the kreplach in gently. They will sink straight to the bottom. They are almost done when they begin to rise to the top, after 4-6 minutes. Give it another minute or so more. Remove from the water. Serve immediately.

DO NOT DEFROST! You can boil them directly from the freezer; it just adds an extra minute or so to the cooking time.

A Note on Schmaltz

A few weeks ago, I was describing something that I made to someone and mentioned schmaltz. "Come on," he said, "now you're just making stuff up."

Schmaltz is rendered chicken fat, and it's a fundamental ingredient in Jewish cooking, as goose fat is in Polish cooking and lard is in (very non-Jewish) food from the American south. (Lard, incidentally, is called khazer schmaltz in Yiddish and is used in unflattering expressions about ideas that are foreign in origin but are presented as Jewish, like a drummer at shabbes services.)

Anyways: schmaltz is easy to come by if you ever make broth. The fat on a chicken is not a single, uniform substance, but is made out of many different molecules with different properties. Schmaltz, like ghee ("clarified" butter) consists of the fat that turns into a liquid at the lowest temperatures.

By far the easiest way to get schmaltz, at least in my life, is to carefully skim it from chicken broth after it's prepared. It will rise to the top naturally, and will be all the more easy to remove if you let the broth cool in the refrigerator first. Schmaltz keeps very well in the freezer and can be warmed easily in the microwave.

If you don't make much broth, there are other strategies to extract it available, and you can also buy it pre-packaged at kosher delicatessens.

Schmaltz is what gives Jewish foods like matzo balls and knishes their signature flavor.

Chocolate Banana Cake

This is essentially a banana bread that I have managed to make eminently unhealthy. I think it would be very excellent with a cream cheese frosting, but I don't have any cream cheese, so I'm just going to have to imagine that for the moment.

Influenced by this banana bread recipe.

INGREDIENTS:

• 6 large ripe bananas, mashed
• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• 2 1/4 cups flour
• 1 cup chopped walnuts
• 1 cup bittersweet chocolate (as always, 60% cocao recommended)
  
• 2 medium eggs, beaten
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
  
• 1 tbsp. vanilla
• 2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp. ground nutmeg

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
   
2. Combine the mashed bananas, sugar, melted butter, eggs and vanilla in a mixing bowl.
3. Add the eggs and mix thoroughly.
4. Add the baking soda, salt, nutmeg, and flour. Mix thoroughly and evenly so that no lumps exist.
   
5. Finally, add the walnuts and chocolate chips.
6. Butter (or spray with cooking spray) a nonstick baking pan. Transfer the batter to the pan.
7. Bake for 35 minutes or until set. You can tell that it's set if you stick in a toothpick or a knife and it comes out clean (except maybe for a little butter or chocolate).
8. Remove from oven and allow to cool for 45 minutes before serving.

If anyone wants to try making this with cream cheese frosting, please apprise me of the results.

Fletcher Wortman's Mom's SNICKERDOODLES

We love these. We asked Fletcher's mom twice for the recipe. The salt is important to the taste. These are Elliot's favorite.She says it is from a Monroe, LA cookbook.

You will need:

1 stick salted butter
1 stick salted Fleishman's margarine
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 large eggs, well beaten
2 3/4 cups sifted flour
2 tsp Cream of Tartar
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt

sugar and cinnamon to roll cookies in

Greased cookie sheets
Preheat oven to 375

• Cream butter, and margarine with sugar. Add eggs, beat well.
• Mis together flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt.
• Mix dry ingredients into butter mixture.
• Refrigerate 2 or more hours.
• Roll into balls, roll in cinnamon and sugar.
• Bake 8-10 minutes, better less time than more.

Makes 5-6 dozen