My father with the Barry Sisters, regulars on the American-Jewish Caravan of Stars radio show, 1950s.

For my dad, Jan Bart—singer, raconteur, cantor—whose magnificent Catskill hotel seders (complete with a choir that included my mom Lillian’s glorious contralto) set the bar for Passovers to come. No wonder it’s my favorite holiday. —J.B.K.

THE PERFECT PASSOVER COOKBOOK

Family-Tested Recipes for Matzoh Ball Soup, Kugel, Haroset, and More, Plus 25 Desserts

BY JUDY BART KANCIGOR

Copyright © 2011 by Judy Bart Kancigor

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced—mechanically, electronically, or by any other means, including photocopying—without written permission of the publisher. Published simultaneously in Canada by Thomas Allen & Son Limited.

The Perfect Passover Cookbook is a condensation of material previously published in Cooking Jewish: 532 Great Recipes from the Rabinowitz Family by Judy Bart Kancigor

ISBN 978-0-7611-6564-4

Cover design by Jean-Marc Troadec

Cover photograph by Jon Edwards

Workman books are available at special discounts when purchased in bulk for premiums and sales promotions as well as for fund-raising or educational use. Special editions or book excerpts can also be created to specification. For details, contact the Special Sales Director at the address below or send an e-mail to specialmarkets@workman.com.

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CONTENTS

Introduction

Getting Started: A Passover Checklist

Ashkenazi Haroset

Sephardic Haroset

Yemenite Haroset Truffles

Goat Cheese and Pine Nut Mini Cheesecakes with Cranberry Haroset

Gefilte Fish

Lou Bower’s Horseradish for the Holidays

Salmon Gefilte Fish

Mama Hinda’s Passover Noodles

Beet Eingemacht (Preserves)

Chicken Soup (Jewish Penicillin)

And What About the Chicken?

Matzoh Balls (Knaidlach)

Shiitake Mushroom Matzoh Balls

Mahogany Chicken with Figs and Cranberries

Sephardic Chicken with Olives and Honey

Moroccan Spicy Apricot Lamb Shanks

My Mom’s Killer Brisket with Tsimmes

Mina de Espinaka (Matzoh, Spinach & Cheese Pie)

Elaine Asa’s Spinach Lasagna

Matzoh Stuffing

Garden Veggie Matzoh Schalat (Kugel)

Apple Matzoh Schalat (Kugel)

Apricot Matzoh Kugel

Oma’s Bubbelach

Passover Bagels

Matzoh Meal Rolls

Passover Fruity Muffins

Matzoh Brei

Banana Cheese Chremslach (Fritters)

BAKING FOR PASSOVER

My Best Passover Sponge Cake

Lemon Fluff

Estelle’s Famous Passover Sponge Cake

Strawberry Cream Filling

Chocolate Frosting

Passover Banana Sponge Cake

Grandma Sally’s Passover Chocolate Nut Cake

Chocolate Glaze

Mama Hinda’s Passover Nut Cake

Passover Pecan Date Torte

Too Good to Call Passover Cake Bête Noire (Flourless Chocolate Cake)

Chocolate Fudge Pecan Pie

Chocolate Hazelnut Caramel Tart

Lemon Angel Pie

Passover Chocolate Chip Mandelbrot

White Chocolate Sprinkle Cookies

Judy Zeidler’s Farfel-Nut Thins

Spago Pistachio Macaroon Sandwiches with Chocolate Ganache

Chocolate Macaroons

Joan Friedman’s Chocolate Meringues

Pecan Cookies

Rita Berlin’s Mock Oatmeal Cookies

Passover Apricot Squares

Helen Rubin’s Brownies

Linda Gomberg’s Mocha Nut Bars

Chocolate-Covered Matzoh Toffee

Grandma Ruchel’s Pesach Carrot Candy

Imberlach (Ginger Candy)

Stuffed Prunes

MORE ON COOKING KOSHER

INTRODUCTION

Ask most Jewish children, “What’s your favorite holiday?” and you’d think “Hanukkah” would be the quick response. For me all the blue and gold beribboned gift boxes in the world can’t hold a shammos to Passover. To my mind, you just can’t beat the cuisine.

The festival of Passover commemorates the exodus of the Hebrew slaves from Egypt. In their haste to depart they could not wait for their bread to rise, so the dough was baked in flat cakes. As a reminder of our passage to freedom, Jews throughout the world eat matzoh for the eight-day holiday (seven in Israel).

This poor bread that sustained our ancestors in the desert we call the “bread of affliction,” to remember that once we were slaves in Egypt. But through the miracles of God, we were led into freedom, enabling us to use our ingenuity, skill, traditions, and collective memory to create a glorious celebration around it. To focus on what we do without for those eight days is to see the glass half empty.

During the Seder (the word means “order” in Hebrew), we eat matzoh with haroset, the fruit and nut mixture resembling the mortar the ancient Hebrews used when they were slaves in Egypt—you’ll find both Ashkenazic and Sephardic versions here. We combine it with bitter herbs—usually horseradish—to remember the bitterness of slavery and the sweetness of freedom.

Imaginative Jewish cooks through the ages, like a million Iron Chefs all working with the same surprise ingredient, have molded, crumbled, whipped, layered, fried, baked, infused, and combined matzoh with an astonishing variety of other ingredients to produce a tempting feast. The fact that we base a glorious celebration on the bread of affliction illustrates that we have the freedom to do so.

Passover is the most celebrated of all Jewish holidays, and even those who rarely step into a shul all year knock themselves out cooking for this one. We mix it up with dishes that honor our traditions and just enough new stuff to keep it interesting.

While the Seders get all the glory, this is an eight-day holiday, and our family has all the bases covered, from breakfast muffins, “rolls,” and “bagels” to latkes, matzoh brei, and fritters, even a Spinach Lasagna for a dairy meal.

And yes, you can have dessert! Sure, no flour is permitted during the holiday, but Jews love a challenge. Where leaven fears to tread, to the rescue comes the incredible, edible egg!

A note on keeping kosher: The label KLP, for Kosher L’Pesach (“kosher for Passover”), means that a particular product has been certified by a rabbinic agency for use during Passover. While some foods do not require Passover certification, many do. As guidelines may change from year to year, it’s best to consult your own rabbinic authority. Two websites have been especially helpful to me in this regard: www.kosherquest.org and www.kashrut.com.

All ingredients listed here—chocolate, cocoa powder, brown sugar, whipping cream, maple syrup, wine, liqueurs, even sprinkles—are available (at least as of this writing) and assumed to be KLP. For more information on cooking kosher, see the primer at the end of this e-book.

A Family Cookbook

Because I love my family and because I love food, I decided to write the family cookbook that eventually became Cooking Jewish, the opus from which this e-book short is culled. It would be more than a cookbook, I envisioned. It would hold precious old photos of our family and the Russian town my grandparents had left almost a century before, some of the documents and maps I had collected fifteen years earlier when my hobby/obsession was genealogy, an updated family tree, and most important, as many stories as I could gather.

I would try to tell, with laughter and with love, the history of our family from the shtetl to the suburbs. And I’d do it where Jewish families always gather, of course—in the kitchen!

So I sent letters to my Rabinowitz aunts, my first cousins, and their adult children, asking them for their signature recipes and for stories. The response was overwhelming! In-laws of in-laws begged to be in the cookbook, and my answer was a resounding “yes!” Anyone related to the Rabinowitzes by blood or marriage was eagerly welcomed, which meant I would include my dad’s family and my husband Barry’s family as well. My little project was growing. By print time over 200 family members were included (not to mention some talented friends who slipped in through the back door).

I started Cooking Jewish as a tribute to my family, but as the recipes and remembrances poured in, it soon morphed into a tribute to others’ mamas, grandmas, imas, omas, and nonas as well. Like a well-worn snapshot, it captures a moment in time, a legacy to pass along as we each create our own traditions. Like our family, this cookbook is inclusive, reaching out to embrace in-laws of in-laws in an ever-widening circle of the extended Rabinowitz clan, and like our family, it is big and boisterous, filled with laughter and love. For more on Cooking Jewish, flip or click through to the back of this e-book.

“Seder was always special because of the family hoopla, getting together, laughing, singing and of course the delicious food, coanchored by Mama Hinda and the aunts. We all stuffed ourselves into their tiny living room, candles lit, scents of holiday delicacies, the mountain of pots in the teeny kitchen—and of course Mama had no dishwasher—babies crying and cooing, Papa chanting, the Rabinowitz women serving and never, ever complaining that they were tired or anything was too much.”

—PHYLLIS EPSTEIN (COUSIN)

Tradition! Tradition!

We have a lovely custom in our family. At the end of the Seder, each participant dates and signs the inside back cover of her or his Hagaddah. It’s fun to look back and see the changing handwriting of the children, the divorced (and, alas, deceased) family members or friends, and guests whose names are a complete mystery. (Who was that masked man?) Some people, like our friend Sylvan Swartz, write little notes like “Nice Seder, but not enough food!” (Very funny, Sylvan.) Or my personal favorite from my friend Helaine’s witty son, Max: “Nice tune, but can you dance to it?” And the food stains do lend a certain charm. Chag Sameach!

Getting Started: A Passover Checklist

For the Seder Plate

Maror: Bitter herbs (e.g., horseradish)

Haroset: Fruit and nut mixture

Karpas: Green vegetable, such as parsley

Betzah: Roasted egg

Zeroah: Roasted shank bone

Orange: Optional

Some Seder plates contain a sixth cup for:

Hazeret: Bitter lettuce or Romaine

NOTES AND TIPS:

• To roast an egg, hard-boil it first. Otherwise it tends to shatter in the oven, making a mess. Then roast the hard-boiled egg in the oven along with whatever you are roasting or baking until it turns dark and speckled, about 1 hour.

• I’ve been using the same shank bone for my Seder plate for about thirty years. Right before the Seder it comes out of the freezer, and right afterwards it goes back in. (It doesn’t get eaten. Sheesh!) We call it the Kancigor Family Shank Bone. Upon my demise my daughters-in-law will just have to fight over it.

• Vegetarians, take heart: We are commanded to place two roasted elements on the Seder table: the roasted egg (symbol of the second offering brought to the Temple) and the shank bone (reminder of the paschal lamb). Some vegetarians substitute an avocado pit for the roasted egg and a roasted beet for the shank bone, leading to lively discussion.

• And why an orange on the Seder plate, another recent innovation? A widely circulated myth has it that Dr. Susannah Heschel once addressed a convocation of Orthodox rabbis, one of whom supposedly commented, “A woman belongs on the bimah (podium) like an orange belongs on the Seder plate.” Actually, Heschel began the tradition as a gesture of solidarity with gays and lesbians and other marginalized groups. Hardly traditional, but a great conversation starter.

At the Table

Candelabrum and candles

Haggadahs

Yarmulkes

Pitcher of water, bowl, and towel for Urchatz

Pillow on left arm of leader’s chair

3 whole matzohs wrapped in matzoh cover

Extra matzoh for the table

Saltwater for dipping the karpas

Kosher wine

Wine goblets for each guest, plus extra goblet for Elijah

Extra chair for Elijah

Extra dishes of haroset, bitter herbs, and karpas for passing

Hard-boiled eggs

Miriam’s cup and water pitcher

NOTES AND TIPS:

• Hard-boiled eggs are passed because Passover celebrates spring and rebirth as well as freedom. But let’s face it: With all that glorious food awaiting us, do we really want to start the meal filling up on a hard-boiled egg? My mother solves that problem neatly by using tiny quail eggs.

• A new custom has developed of late: remembering Miriam, Moses’ sister, a prophetess whom God honored for her bravery by bestowing upon her a miraculous well that sustained the Israelites in their forty years of wandering through the desert. Customs vary as to its use. In some homes, participants pour a little water from their own glasses into Miriam’s cup. We fill Miriam’s cup with water and pass it around, asking each guest to pour off some water into her or his own drinking glass. Everyone at the table, man or woman, then receives symbolically the life-giving force this brave woman gave our people.

A Note on Coding

These recipes have been marked M for meat, D for dairy, and P for pareve, as of this writing. (Note that some supermarket brands contain ingredients that are pareve one year and dairy the next.)

Pesach: Spring Cleaning on Steroids

Mama Hinda was a burier. No, not an undertaker. Okay, spell it berye—Yiddish for major-domo cleaner extraordinaire. As in white-glove test above the door frame. As in you could eat off the floor. As in using the basement oven to keep the upstairs kitchen clean. And if Mama was thorough during the year, before Passover she was a fanatic. Passover preparation is spring cleaning on steroids—a joyous frenzy to ready the house for the holiday and remove all chometz (bread or any food containing leaven). So stringent is the prohibition that Jews are forbidden not only to consume, but even to possess bread or leaven during the holiday.

Weeks before, she would scrub, scour, scald, polish, and shine. As the holiday approached, her Passover dishes—one set for milchig (dairy) and one set for fleishig (meat)—would be brought from the basement and washed. My Aunt Sally remembered that when she was a child in the 1920s, Mama would soak glasses for three days for use during the holiday. No closet, no shelf, no corner evaded her purification ritual.

On the night before Passover, Papa Harry and the children would search the already scoured home for any remaining crumbs of chometz, which would be swept up with a feather and burned.

Downstairs in the cold cellar, the earthen crock of russel (fermented beets) Mama had started weeks before stood ready to infuse her crimson borscht, and eggs by the crate awaited whisking by her practiced hand into ethereal sponge cakes and irresistible nut tortes.

Once the house was proclaimed chometz-free, the newly lined shelves would be filled with a dizzying array of Passover groceries, including matzoh meal for hundreds of knaidlach soon to be floating in gallons of soup, farfel (crumbled matzoh) for her kugels, and, of course, boxes and boxes of matzoh.

Ashkenazi Haroset

Haroset is a fruit and nut mixture that symbolizes the mortar used to bind the stones and bricks used by the ancient Hebrews when they were slaves in Egypt. I always made lots because my kids liked it on matzoh for breakfast, as a switch from matzoh brei. Every country makes its own from local fruits and nuts, and one year, bored with the Ashkenazi haroset we were all used to (and probably having way too much time on my hands), I made a variety of them and had everyone vote for their favorite. Guess which won? The Ashkenazi, of course! Old habits die hard.

What to do with leftover haroset? Add some to your matzoh brei, or freeze it, and after Passover try haroset instead of applesauce in breads and cakes.

Walnuts are traditional, but I take my cue from my Atlanta cousins and use pecans. But whichever you choose, please, please, toast thy nuts! (I’ve never seen this instruction on any haroset recipe anywhere, but trust me, you won’t believe the difference!) Makes 2⅓ cups    P

3 medium-size crisp sweet or tart apples, or a combination, peeled, cored and cut into eighths

1 cup pecans or walnuts, or a combination, toasted (see box)

2 tablespoons sweet red wine

3 tablespoons honey

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1. Place the apples in a food processor and process until chopped. Transfer them to a mixing bowl.

2. Place the pecans in the food processor and chop them. Add them to the apples, and stir in the wine, honey, and cinnamon.

3. This is best served the day it’s made, but it will keep, covered, in the refrigerator for up to 5 days (the nuts will soften after the first day).

Toast Thy Nuts!

If you asked me to suggest just one simple thing you could do to improve your cooking, it would be to toast nuts. It doesn’t take very long, and the difference it makes in your salads, pastas, cookies, and cakes is amazing. There is just no comparison. Untoasted nuts are like a limp handshake—lifeless and dull, all form and no substance. Toasting them brings out their intoxicating, aromatic oils—which you will smell as they perfume your kitchen—and yields a deeper, more intense flavor and crunch. Conduct your own taste test and see. Here’s how:

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F.

2. Spread the nuts in a single layer in an ungreased baking pan. Bake, shaking the pan and stirring occasionally, moving the nuts from the outside in, until they are fragrant and lightly browned, 5 to 10 minutes, depending on their size. Whole nutmeats take longer to toast than smaller pieces. Watch carefully, as nuts can turn from golden brown to black in a matter of seconds. Pine nuts, small in size and with a high oil content, take even less time—3 to 5 minutes—and should be stirred more often and watched very carefully.

3. As soon as they are toasted, transfer the nuts to a plate to stop the cooking, and allow to cool.

Sephardic Haroset

According to Oded Schwartz (In Search of Plenty: A History of Jewish Food), there is no mention of bee-keeping in the Bible, and scholars believe the honey referred to (as in “the land flowing with milk and honey”) must have been extracted from fruits such as dates.

My friend Janet Thaler’s mom, Rachel Levy from the Isle of Rhodes, makes her traditional haroset with lots of dates. No added sweetener is necessary. Rachel uses a pressure cooker and then presses the mixture through a ricer to separate out the date skin. My food processor version gets chunked up with a generous dose of toasted pine nuts and pistachios. Makes 4 cups    P

2 medium-size crisp sweet apples, peeled, cored, and cut into eighths

1 pound pitted dates

1 cup (6 ounces) raisins

½ cup (3 ounces) dried apricots

¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 cup pine nuts, toasted

1 cup roasted unsalted pistachio nuts

1. Combine the apples, dates, raisins, apricots, and cinnamon in a medium-size saucepan and cover with 2 cups water. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, and simmer, covered, stirring occasionally, until quite soft, about 45 minutes. Most of the liquid should have boiled away. If not, simmer uncovered for a few minutes more. Set aside to cool to lukewarm.

2. Transfer the mixture to a food processor and pulse until smooth. Stir in the toasted pine nuts and pistachios.

3. This is best served the day it’s made, but it will keep, covered, in the refrigerator for up to 7 days (the nuts will soften after the first day).

Yemenite Haroset Truffles

Two recipes in Faye Levy’s 1,000 Jewish Recipes—her Yemenite Haroset and Haroset Truffles—inspired me to create these pretty little haroset balls. They are so sweet, spicy, and festive, they really belong on the dessert table, but I like to serve them during the Seder, where they won’t get lost amidst that ostentatious display of sponge cakes, tortes, cookies, and pastries. (Ah yes, poor us. No bread for a week. Thus we remember the sufferings of our ancestors!) Makes 16 to 20    P

FOR THE TRUFFLES

⅓ cup (2 ounces) pitted dates

⅓ cup (2 ounces) dried figs

⅓ cup (2 ounces) raisins

⅓ cup (2 ounces) dried apricots

2½ tablespoons honey

1½ teaspoons ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon ground ginger

⅛ teaspoon ground cloves

⅛ teaspoon ground cumin

¾ cup toasted coarsely chopped pecans

¾ cup slivered almonds, toasted

1½ tablespoons orange liqueur

FOR THE COATING

½ cup slivered almonds, toasted and finely ground

1. Combine the dried fruit, honey, and spices in a food processor and pulse until smooth. Add the pecans, slivered almonds, and orange liqueur, and process until just combined.

2. Form the mixture into balls 1 to 1½ inches in diameter. Roll them in the ground almonds, and place them in individual fluted foil or paper candy cups. Refrigerate, covered, until firm, at least 3 hours. These will keep for up to 5 days in the refrigerator.

Goat Cheese and Pine Nut Mini Cheesecakes with Cranberry Haroset

These delicate mini cheesecake puffs can be served as an appetizer or atop a mixed green salad. The sweet-tart flash of cranberry stands in lively contrast to the tangy goat cheese resting on a bed of crunchy pine nuts—all in one delicious bite. Makes 24    D

Vegetable cooking spray, for greasing the muffin cups

FOR THE CRUST

6 tablespoons matzoh meal

¼ cup pine nuts, ground

2 tablespoons butter, melted

2 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan cheese

¼ teaspoon salt

⅛ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

FOR THE FILLING

6 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature

5 ounces goat cheese, at room temperature

1 large egg, beaten

1½ teaspoons dried dill

¼ teaspoon ground cumin

¼ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

About ½ cup Cranberry Haroset (recipe follows)

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease 24 mini muffin cups (unnecessary if they are nonstick).

2. Prepare the crust: Combine all the crust ingredients in a bowl, add 1 tablespoon water, and mix thoroughly. Spoon 1 teaspoon of the crust mixture into each muffin cup, and press it down firmly.

3. Prepare the filling: Beat the cream cheese and goat cheese together with an electric mixer on medium speed until thoroughly combined. Scrape the bowl and beat in the egg, dill, cumin, salt, and pepper.

4. Divide the cheese mixture evenly among the prepared cups—about a heaping tablespoon each—and smooth the tops.

5. Bake on the center oven rack until the cheesecakes are rounded and puffy, about 15 minutes. Allow them to cool in the pan set on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Then run a thin knife around the edges (unnecessary if the cups are nonstick) and carefully guide each one out with a small spoon. Garnish with a tiny dollop of Cranberry Haroset, and serve warm or at room temperature.

Cranberry Haroset

I developed this haroset as a sweet garnish for my Goat Cheese and Pine Nut Mini Cheesecakes, but of course you can use it for your Seder as well. Omit the nuts and it makes a wonderfully thick, preserve-like spread. Great! Something new to slather on matzoh. And next time Purim rolls around, try it as a filling for hamantaschen. It makes a dynamite filling for rugelach too. Makes 2¾ cups    P

1 small sweet or tart apple, peeled, cored, and finely chopped

1 small pear, peeled, cored, and finely chopped

½ cup sweetened dried cranberries

¼ cup pitted dates, chopped

¼ cup golden raisins

½ cup sweet red wine

2 tablespoons honey

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon

¼ teaspoon ground ginger

¼ cup pine nuts, toasted and ground

¼ cup slivered almonds, toasted and ground

1. Combine the apple, pear, cranberries, dates, raisins, wine, honey, lemon juice, cinnamon, and ginger in a medium-size saucepan. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat, cover, and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the fruits are very soft and the liquid is reduced, about 1 hour.

2. Set the mixture aside to cool to room temperature. (The mixture can be prepared up to this point a day or two ahead and refrigerated, covered. When you are ready to serve it, bring the haroset to room temperature.)

3. Stir in the ground pine nuts and almonds, and serve.

Salt & Pepper

You don’t have to be kosher or even Jewish to use kosher salt, which most chefs prefer to table salt. Most of the recipes in this book were tested using kosher salt. (I use fine sea salt or table salt for baking.) If you do use table salt where I have indicated kosher salt, you will need about half the amount given. (Remember that kosher meat has already been salted.) Salt is such an important ingredient—too little and even the best recipe falls flat, too much and it is inedible. Yet one’s preference for salt is such a personal thing. Let your taste buds be your guide.

Freshly ground black pepper is preferred to preground. Instead of a pepper mill I use my Peppermate (www.peppermate.com), which has a convenient container for catching the ground pepper so you can measure it.

Gefilte Fish

The serving of gefilte fish has been a Sabbath tradition since the Middle Ages—fish being seen by Jewish mystics as signaling the coming of the Messiah. Fish was expensive in Europe, and the recipe was developed as an economical way to stretch it so that every family member could get a taste. It became a particularly traditional Sabbath dish, made on Friday because to remove the flesh from the bone was viewed by the devout as “work.”

The word gefilte is actually German for “stuffed.” The original recipe called for seasoned, ground boned fish mixed with eggs and fillers, such as vegetables and crumbs, which was then stuffed back into the fish skin and cooked. Over the centuries the skin was eliminated, with cooks shaping the mixture into balls or patties and poaching them.

Canned or bottled gefilte fish, while convenient, cannot compare to authentic homemade. Its preparation need not be daunting. Preground fish is available at kosher food markets, or (although Aunt Sally vehemently disagrees) the food processor does the job easily.

The best gefilte fish is made from whitefish, pike, and a little carp—but maybe I think so because I come from New York, where all are readily available. You go ahead and try whatever firm white fish swims near you. The carp adds flavor, but Aunt Estelle warned to use it sparingly, as the less carp used, the whiter the finished product. For a more elegant presentation, Aunt Estelle and Aunt Sally always discarded the well-worn carrots after cooking the fish and steamed an additional batch separately, sliced on the diagonal, to serve on the side. Makes 32 to 36    P

TO FLAVOR THE COOKING LIQUID

Fish bones, fish heads, and skin from the fish used

5 large onions, quartered

4 large carrots, cut into 2-inch-thick slices

4 ribs celery, cut into 2-inch-thick slices

2 tablespoons kosher (coarse) salt

½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

FOR THE FISH

3 pounds whitefish

2 pounds yellow pike

1 small piece (about 4 ounces) carp

2 medium-size onions, grated

4 large eggs, beaten

2 tablespoons matzoh meal

2½ tablespoons kosher (coarse) salt, or to taste

1¼ teaspoons freshly ground black pepper, or to taste

FOR SERVING

Lettuce leaves

Cooked carrots, thinly sliced on the diagonal

Lou Bower’s Horseradish for the Holidays (recipe follows)

Matzoh

1. Bring 5 quarts of water to a boil in a 12- or 16-quart pot.

2. Place the fish bones, heads, and skin in the boiling water, and add the onions, carrots, celery, salt, and pepper. Simmer for about 1 hour.

3. Meanwhile, finely grind the whitefish, pike, and carp (or ask your fish man to do it for you). Alternatively, divide the fish into 3 batches and pulse in a food processor until ground.

4. Thoroughly combine the ground fish with the onions, eggs, matzoh meal, salt, and pepper. Add about 1 cup water ¼ cup at a time, to form a soft but manageable mixture, and combine thoroughly. Cover and refrigerate until the broth is ready.

5. Wet your hands and, using a rounded ⅓ cup of the fish mixture at a time, form the mixture into ovals. One at a time, place each oval on a wet plate and slide it gently into the boiling water.

6. Simmer, partially covered, for 1½ hours, adding more boiling water as needed. Occasionally push the ovals below the water level, as they tend to rise to the top.

7. Allow the gefilte fish and broth to cool to room temperature. Store the fish in its cooking liquid, covered, in the refrigerator. (Leftover cooking liquid can be frozen for 1 month. It makes a nice fish stock.)

8. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the chilled gefilte fish to a bed of lettuce.

Arrange the carrot slices alongside. Pass the horseradish and matzoh.

—from Estelle Robbins, Sally Bower

Lou Bower’s Horseradish for the Holidays

First, some words of warning from Harold Dubin: “The main ingredient for Lou’s dish is a box of tissues. It is guaranteed to clear up any sinus condition. Preparer must pass an extensive medical examination before beginning procedure. Disclaimer: Proceed at your own risk. The contributor assumes no responsibility for any side effects while preparing this recipe or afterwards.”

Despite Harold’s grim warnings and instructions (Steps 1 and 2 are his, verbatim—he did have a good time with this one), you won’t require a sinus transplant when preparing fresh horseradish—unless you remove the lid of the food processor, and lean directly over it to turn on the light. The hardest part is peeling the stubborn horseradish root! When that’s done, it’s a simple matter to whiz the ingredients and fill little jars to give to friends or freeze for future use. Once you’ve tasted the fresh, you’ll never go back to store-bought. Makes about 3½ cups    P

1 pound horseradish root, peeled and cleaned

1 can (16 ounces) sliced beets, undrained

1 tablespoon kosher (coarse) salt, or to taste

3 tablespoons sugar, or to taste

¼ cup distilled white vinegar or red wine vinegar

1. Open all kitchen windows.

2. Remove all flowers and plants from the kitchen.

3. Cut the horseradish root into 1-inch pieces and process them in a food processor until uniformly shredded. Add the beets with their liquid, salt, sugar, and vinegar, and process until the mixture is finely chopped and well mixed. Add up to ¼ cup water, until it reaches the desired consistency. Do not overprocess or the mass will liquefy.

4. Serve with gefilte fish (but you knew that), any fish at all, brisket, or—my personal favorite—boiled chicken.

—from Harold Dubin

Salmon Gefilte Fish

For years I denied myself gefilte fish at holiday time because my kids would turn up their noses. Then I created a variation of Marlene Sorosky’s recipe from Fast and Festive Meals for the Jewish Holidays, using all salmon and baking the fish as individual “muffins.” Good thing I made enough for seconds! It makes a lovely presentation on a bed of greens, surrounded with thinly sliced cucumber, a few grape tomatoes, and Uncle Lou’s horseradish. Makes 24    P

Vegetable cooking spray

2 medium-size onions, cut into chunks

5 medium-size carrots, cut into 1-inch pieces

2 ribs celery, cut into 1-inch pieces

1 cup curly-leaf parsley leaves

3 pounds skinless salmon, cut into 2-inch pieces

3 large eggs

½ cup vegetable oil

¼ cup sugar, or to taste

2 teaspoons kosher (coarse) salt, or to taste

2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper, or to taste

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Spray 24 standard muffin cups.

2. Place the onions in a food processor and pulse until they are minced. Transfer the onions to a very large bowl.

3. Process the carrots, celery, and parsley together until ground. Add to the onions.

4. Process about two thirds of the salmon, adding 1 piece at a time through the feed tube, until ground. Add the processed salmon to the onion mixture.

5. Process the remaining salmon, adding it through the feed tube. Then add the eggs, oil, sugar, salt, and pepper, and process until well blended. Add this mixture to the onion-salmon mixture, and combine well.

6. Divide the salmon mixture evenly among the prepared muffin cups. Bake until the top feels set when touched, 25 to 30 minutes. Let the fish cool in the muffin cups; then unmold.

NOTE: Remove from the refrigerator about 30 minutes before serving.

Mama Hinda’s Passover Noodles

Passover noodles. Sounds like an oxymoron, doesn’t it? Walk down the Passover aisle in some big-city supermarkets today and one would hardly know it’s Passover. “Faux” products—adaptations of all sorts of chometz—abound, including noodles. Mama Hinda had no such conveniences. If you wanted noodles, you made your own, these from very thin matzoh meal pancakes. In her heyday Aunt Irene had the quickest wrist action in the West and made the thinnest pancakes, sliced into angel-hair-like shreds to float in her golden chicken soup. Those with less acute reflexes may find it difficult to tilt the pan quickly enough to obtain a uniform pancake from 2 tablespoons of batter. No matter. They get sliced up anyway. Makes almost 2 cups    P

1 tablespoon matzoh cake meal

¼ cup cold water

4 large eggs, beaten

¼ teaspoon salt

Vegetable oil or solid vegetable shortening, for greasing the skillet and for frying

1. Combine the cake meal and the cold water in a small bowl, and beat with a fork until smooth. Add the eggs and salt, and mix thoroughly.

2. Lightly grease an 8-inch skillet, and heat it over medium-high heat. Pour in 2 tablespoons of the batter and quickly tilt the skillet, taking it off the heat momentarily, to make a very thin pancake. Cook the pancake on one side until it sets—it takes only a few seconds—tipping the skillet in all directions so the batter spreads to fill the bottom. Slip the finished pancake onto a plate or paper towel. Repeat. You probably will need to grease the pan lightly only after every third or fourth pancake, especially if you are using a nonstick pan. Continue until all the batter is used, piling the finished pancakes on top of each other. Set them aside to cool.

3. When the pancakes are cool enough to handle, take half of them and roll them up tightly. Slice into thin shreds with a sharp knife. Repeat with the remaining pancakes. Serve the “noodles” in soup.

—from Irene Rosenthal

Beet Eingemacht (Preserves)

Alas, Barry’s Grandma Rose had only sons (whose wives weren’t all that interested in her recipes, frankly), and no one wrote down her formula for this perennial Passover favorite. Eingemacht loosely means “worked in” in Yiddish, and this beet concoction was used like a jam and spread on matzoh throughout the holiday week. I consulted bubbes from coast to coast and experimented with different versions, trying to re-create the chunky texture and sweet, slightly tart flavor my then ninety-two-year-old father-in-law remembered. (Between this and Grandma Rose’s blueberry varenikas, my kitchen tile needs regrouting!)

After much consultation with Pop in Florida, who was only too delighted to receive my FedExed samples, we settled on this adaptation of a recipe shared by my friend Diane Sachs. Her husband, Cole, says his grandmother, Ettie Hurvitz, in Rochester, New York, made it every Pesach in huge quantities so she could mail jars of the stuff to relatives. He remembers one Pesach in the 1950s when she mailed some to his mother, Elsie Sachs, in Yonkers, and the jar broke in the postman’s bag. It was purple mail for everyone that day! Makes 6 cups    P

3 pounds fresh beets (weighed without greens)

3 cups sugar

Grated zest of 2 lemons

Juice of 2 lemons (6 tablespoons)

½ teaspoon kosher (coarse) salt

1½ cups (6 ounces) slivered almonds

½ teaspoon ground ginger, or more to taste

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F.

2. Wrap each beet in aluminum foil and roast them until tender, about 1 hour. Set them aside to cool.

3. When the beets are cool enough to handle, peel and finely chop them. Place the chopped beets in a large pot and add the sugar, lemon zest, lemon juice, salt, and 3 cups water. Bring to a boil. Boil moderately (not a rolling boil, but more than a simmer), uncovered, stirring occasionally, for 1 hour. The mixture should still be somewhat soupy.

4. Add the almonds and boil gently, stirring often, until thick, 1 hour. (If the mixture starts to get too thick at any point, add boiling water, ¼ cup at a time, and continue cooking, covered. If it seems too soupy, just cook it a little longer, uncovered.) Stir in the ginger. Let the mixture cool.

5. Spoon the Beet Eingemacht into clean glass jars, seal, and store in the refrigerator for up to 1 month or in the freezer for up to 6 months.

NOTE: I must admit to taking one liberty: Every recipe I looked at called for peeling raw beets, then slicing or chopping them. What a job! I didn’t want to do that, and I figured you wouldn’t want to either. Roasting makes the skins peel off easily, not to mention what it does for the flavor. (Roast some extra for your salad and see!) Then chopping is mere child’s play.

—from Rose Kancigor

Chicken Soup (Jewish Penicillin)

Open letter to my cousins: Many of you claimed that your mother’s chicken soup is the best. My mother’s made the final cut for two reasons. First of all, this cookbook was my idea, and when you write your cookbook, you can say your mother’s is the best! Second, I am including it because it really is the best, and anyone who disagrees either has never had my mother’s chicken soup or is congenitally taste-bud challenged. It is dark golden in color, intensely flavorful, and, in short, an elixir of the gods. I hoard the leftovers to use on special occasions in recipes calling for chicken stock (the real secret of my stuffing and gravy). You see, my mother adheres to the “if some is good, more is better” school of cooking. While this theory usually spells disaster in the kitchen (notably in her meat loaf!), it is the method of choice in making chicken soup. And this is one case where the method is as important as the ingredients.

While her exact ingredients vary as the mood hits her, here is her recipe from a typical day. Serve the soup with matzoh balls and Passover lokshen (thin noodles), and/or mandlen (soup nuts). After Passover, regular noodles can be substituted. Makes about 3 quarts    M

2 chickens (3½ to 4 pounds each) with giblets (no liver), quartered

2 pounds carrots (yes, 2 pounds, not 2 carrots)

2 large onions, cut in half

5 large ribs celery with leaves, cut in half

2 large parsnips

1 small sweet potato (6 ounces), cut in half

1 turnip (6 ounces), cut in half

1 rutabaga (6 ounces), cut in half

1 small celery root, cut in half (optional)

½ large green bell pepper, stemmed and seeded

½ large yellow pepper, stemmed and seeded

2 large bunches dill, coarsely chopped (about 1½ cups)

½ bunch curly-leaf parsley (about ¼ cup)

3 cloves garlic

Kosher (coarse) salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Chopped dill, for serving (optional)

1. Place the chicken in a 16-quart stockpot and add water to barely cover. Bring just to the boiling point. Then reduce the heat to a simmer and skim off the foam that rises to the top. Add all the remaining ingredients (except the optional chopped dill) and only enough water to come within about two thirds of the height of the vegetables in the pot. (Most recipes will tell you to add water to cover. Do not do this! You want elixir of the gods or weak tea? As the soup cooks, the vegetables will shrink and will be covered soon enough. Eight to 10 cups of water total is plenty for this highly flavorful brew.) Simmer, covered, until the chicken is cooked through, about 1½ hours.

2. Remove the chicken and about half the carrots from the pot, and set them aside.

3. Strain the soup through a fine-mesh strainer into another pot or container, pressing on the vegetables to extract all the flavor. Scrape the underside of the strainer with a rubber spatula and add the pulp to the soup. Discard the fibrous vegetable membranes that remain in the strainer. If you’re fussy about clarity (and we’re not), you can strain it again through a fine tea strainer, but there goes some of the flavor. Cover the soup and refrigerate overnight.

4. When you are ready to serve the soup, scoop the congealed fat off the surface and discard it. Reheat, adding more dill if desired (and we do). Slice the reserved carrots, add them to the soup, and serve.

P.S. Actual message on my answering machine from my friend Diane Weiss in New Jersey: “Judy? I just made your mother’s chicken soup, and my whole family is standing around the pot slurping with a straw!”

—from Lillian Bart

“When I was growing up, our Seders were more about the food than the ceremony. My mother was a spectacular cook, and the highlight of the evening was her incredible golden chicken soup with matzoh balls that were lighter than air. One year when we were very young we were invited to have Seder with friends. The ceremony seemed to go on forever, and we were starved. When the chicken soup was finally served, to us it looked like water. When we got home my mother said, ‘It looked like the chicken ran through the soup!’ I never forgot that crack.”

—NANCY GIMPEL SILBERMAN (FIRST COUSIN’S WIFE)

And What About the Chicken?

When the chicken is cold, cut some into half-inch cubes to serve in the soup as a first course, or serve chicken quarters in the soup with matzoh balls, lokshen, and carrots for a steaming and bracing one-pot dinner.

Matzoh Balls (Knaidlach)

The world is divided into those who love floaters and those who love sinkers. While the delicate floaters are favored by matzoh ball mavens everywhere, I am a closet sinker-lover, which is the way my father’s mother, Grandma Ruchel, made them. Which is not to say I haven’t gobbled with gusto a floater or two in my day. Aunt Irene’s are definitely floaters. Some say club soda makes for a lighter knaidel. Cooking them longer will make them lighter too. Makes about 8 large or 16 small balls    M or P

2 tablespoons melted chicken fat, melted shortening, or vegetable oil

2 large eggs, lightly beaten

½ cup matzoh meal

1 teaspoon kosher (coarse) salt

1 teaspoon kosher-for-Passover baking powder (optional)

2 tablespoons club soda, chicken broth, or water

1. Blend the fat and eggs together in a small bowl. Add the matzoh meal, salt, and baking powder and blend well. Add the club soda and mix thoroughly. Cover and refrigerate until the mixture is firm, at least 1 hour.

2. Bring a large pot of water to a boil, and lightly salt it.

3. Using wet hands, form the mixture into balls (2 tablespoons each for 2-inch knaidlach, 1 tablespoon for 1½-inch), and carefully drop them into the boiling water. Do not crowd the pot. Cover the pot and cook at a slow, steady boil (not a hard boil) until soft, 30 to 40 minutes.

4. Remove the knaidlach with a slotted spoon, and serve in soup.

—from Irene Rosenthal

Shiitake Mushroom Matzoh Balls

Neither of my daughters-in-law ever liked matzoh balls until I came up with this recipe. I doctored up plain old matzoh ball mix—and a fine product it is!—with shiitake mushrooms and scallions for a shtetl favorite with an Asian twist. (Not surprising. Jews have had a long love affair with Chinese food!) Go ahead and double or even triple the recipe (and you may have to!), but be careful not to crowd the pot when you are cooking them. Makes 24 to 30 golf-ball-size balls    M or P

¼ cup melted chicken fat or vegetable oil

4 scallions, white and half the green part, thinly sliced

3 ounces shiitake mushrooms, stems discarded, finely chopped (1 to 1½ cups)

1 envelope matzoh ball mix, such as Manischewitz

½ cup matzoh meal

4 large eggs, lightly beaten

2 tablespoons finely chopped flat-leaf parsley

1 teaspoon kosher (coarse) salt

⅛ teaspoon white pepper

1 teaspoon kosher-for-Passover baking powder

2 tablespoons club soda, chicken broth, or water

1. Heat the chicken fat in a medium-size saucepan over medium heat. Add the scallions and mushrooms and cook, stirring often, until the mushrooms are soft, about 5 minutes. Set aside.

2. Combine the matzoh ball mix with the matzoh meal in a medium-size bowl. Add the eggs and mix well. Stir in the mushroom mixture (with the oil), parsley, salt, white pepper, and baking powder. Add the club soda and mix thoroughly. Cover and refrigerate until firm, at least 1 hour.

3. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and lightly salt it.

4. Form the mixture into balls that are a little larger than a marble, wetting your hands if necessary to keep them from sticking. Drop the balls into the boiling water and cook, covered, at a slow, steady boil (not a hard boil) until tender, about 30 minutes (depending on the size of the balls).

5. Carefully remove the matzoh balls with a slotted spoon, and serve in soup.

“Passover always meant a huge family get-together. I sat at the kids’ table until I got married. (That was the definition of not being a kid: getting married.) Everyone who wasn’t married yet got a coin for the afikomen. In fact, I believe even [my sister] Heather got a coin at Marvin and Leslie’s house last Passover, although she was thirty and engaged. As the years went on, the actual Seder got shorter and shorter and the food more and more elaborate as the traditional brisket and turkey, matzoh kugel and potato kugel, matzoh ball soup and gefilte fish—once made exclusively by Mama Irene in her tiny kitchen—were delivered by catering truck as our family grew. I remember Mama Irene in the old days always made green beans and almonds, her fancy vegetable, and cooked carrots in a sweet sauce (of course, using the leftover carrots from the soup—nothing should go to waste!).”

—JODI ORLOW MACKOFF (SECOND COUSIN)

Mahogany Chicken with Figs and Cranberries

I combined two recipes, using figs and cranberries, my favorite dried fruits, which go well with chicken, basted in this glorious sauce. But any dried fruit, such as apricots, cherries, or prunes—or a combination—can be substituted. Serves 4    M

1 chicken (3½ to 4 pounds), cut into 8 pieces, rinsed and patted dry

Kosher (coarse) salt and freshly ground black pepper

¾ cup orange marmalade

¼ cup finely chopped shallots or onion

2 cloves garlic, crushed, or ¼ teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger, or ½ teaspoon ground ginger

½ cup orange juice

¼ cup prepared barbecue sauce

4 ounces dried Black Mission figs, stems removed, sliced in half (see Note)

2 ounces sweetened dried cranberries (½ cup; see Note)

Hot cooked quinoa, for serving

1. Preheat the oven to 375°F.

2. Sprinkle both sides of the chicken pieces with salt and pepper, and place them, skin side up, in a 13 × 9-inch baking pan.

3. Combine the marmalade with the shallots, garlic, and ginger in a bowl, and spread this mixture over the chicken. Roast, uncovered, for 25 minutes.

4. Transfer the chicken to a platter (reduce the oven temperature to 350°F), and carefully pour the hot liquid from the baking pan into a medium-size saucepan. Using a spoon or a fat separator, remove as much fat as you can from the top of the liquid. Add the orange juice and barbecue sauce to the pan, and bring to a boil. Cook until the sauce is reduced by about half, about 8 minutes.

5. Return the chicken to the baking pan, and distribute the figs and cranberries around it. Baste the chicken with the sauce and return it to the oven. Roast, basting often, until the chicken is cooked through and golden brown, about 25 minutes more.

6. Serve hot, smothered in the sauce and warm fruit, over quinoa.

NOTE: If the dried fruit is not soft, add it to the reducing sauce in Step 4 for the last minute or so, rather than waiting until Step 5.

—from Lisa Ciomei, Wendy Altman Cohen

Sephardic Chicken with Olives and Honey

This recipe was inspired by the Jaffa Orange–Ginger Chicken with Baharat in Joan Nathan’s Foods of Israel Today, and it has become one of the most popular dishes in my cooking classes. Freshly ground spices add a heady aroma and exotic flavor. (Use a coffee grinder to do this. Just don’t grind coffee in it.) Joan uses baharat, an Israeli spice mixture, during the year, which you can find in a Middle Eastern market, and you can use it too. But I love this Moroccan spice combination, which flavors the Spicy Apricot Lamb Shanks.

A note: Kitniyot refers to legumes (including beans, peas, soybeans, lentils, and peanuts), rice, corn, string beans, mustard, seeds (including sesame, poppy, coriander, and fennel), as well as certain spices, such as cumin. While observant Ashkenazi Jews do not eat them during Passover, Sephardim never adopted this prohibition and might enjoy this chicken dish for the holiday. Ashkenazim, however, would consider some of the spices in the Moroccan Spice Mix kitniyot. Serves 4 to 5    M

FOR THE SAUTEED VEGETABLES

2 tablespoons olive oil

6 to 8 ounces shallots, chopped

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

8 ounces white mushrooms, sliced

FOR THE CHICKEN

4 to 5 large boneless, skinless chicken breast halves

½ cup matzoh cake meal

1 tablespoon Moroccan Spice Mix (recipe follows)

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon paprika

2 tablespoons olive oil, or more as needed

1 tablespoon nondairy margarine

FOR THE SAUCE

1¼ cups homemade chicken stock or low-sodium canned broth

½ cup dry white wine

2 tablespoons honey

1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger

2 tablespoons orange liqueur

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Grated zest of 1 lemon

½ cup pitted small green olives

¼ cup sliced oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes, drained

1 tablespoon capers, drained (optional)

1 teaspoon Moroccan Spice Mix, or to taste

Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

1. Prepare the vegetables: Heat the olive oil in a large, heavy frying pan over medium heat. Add the shallots and cook, stirring often, until they are soft but not browned, about 3 minutes. Add the garlic and continue cooking, stirring constantly, for 1 minute more. Then add the mushrooms and cook, stirring often, until they are soft and reduced in size, about 5 minutes. Transfer the sautéed vegetables to a bowl and set it aside. No need to wash the pan.

2. Prepare the chicken: Pound the chicken breasts lightly in the thickest part, just to even them out somewhat. (I like to use a resealable plastic bag for this, but do as you wish.) Dry the chicken thoroughly with paper towels. On a dinner plate, combine the matzoh cake meal, Moroccan Spice Mix, salt, and paprika. Just before you cook it, coat the chicken thoroughly in the matzoh-spice mixture, shaking off the excess. Heat the oil and margarine in the same frying pan over medium-high heat. Add the chicken and sauté until browned, about 3 minutes. Turn the chicken over and brown the other side, about 2 minutes. Remove the chicken from the pan and set it aside. Drain any excess oil from the pan, being careful not to discard the brown bits.

3. Prepare the sauce: Add the chicken stock to the pan and bring it to a boil, scraping up the brown bits. Reduce the heat and add the sautéed vegetables, wine, honey, ginger, orange liqueur, lemon juice, and lemon zest. Bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes. Then add the olives, sun-dried tomatoes, capers, and Moroccan Spice Mix. Simmer for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, for the flavors to blend. Add salt and pepper to taste.

4. Return the chicken to the pan, cover it with the sauce, and simmer, covered, for about 5 minutes. Turn the chicken over and continue simmering, covered, until it is cooked through, about 5 minutes more. Serve immediately.

NOTE: After Passover, 1 tablespoon light soy sauce can be added with the ginger.

Moroccan Spice Mix

Makes about 4 tablespoons

2 thin cinnamon sticks (about 3 inches each), broken into pieces

2 teaspoons black peppercorns

2 teaspoons fennel seeds

1 teaspoon coriander seeds

1 teaspoon ground ginger

½ teaspoon whole cloves

½ teaspoon ground nutmeg, or a sliver of whole nutmeg

½ teaspoon cumin seeds

½ teaspoon ground cardamom, or seeds from 6 cardamom pods

½ teaspoon ground allspice

Combine the spices in a spice grinder or coffee mill and grind until fine and well mixed.

Moroccan Spicy Apricot Lamb Shanks

While brisket and roast chicken are standard fare for our holiday dinners, our Sephardic mishpuchah dines on dishes like this tender, spicy lamb, which was adapted from Molly O’Neill’s take on a recipe by superchef Alain Ducasse.

When I interviewed Wolfgang Puck about his seders at Spago, he told me that if he had been born Jewish, he would have liked to have been born Sephardic because of the cuisine. I know what he means! I love the pungent Moroccan spice mixture and usually make extra to save for flavoring other dishes, such as the Sephardic Chicken with Olives and Honey. The wine is an untraditional addition and would never be used in a Moroccan kitchen. Interestingly, cookbook author Joyce Goldstein told me that Jews in Moslem countries, despite the fact that they do not share their neighbors’ prohibition against drinking wine, traditionally do not use it in cooking either. Purists may substitute additional chicken broth for the wine. For proper browning, be sure the meat is thoroughly dry and the oil is hot enough. Serves 4    M

4 lamb shanks (about 1 pound each), visible fat removed

Kosher (coarse) salt to taste

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 medium-size onions, chopped

2 to 3 tablespoons coarsely chopped garlic

1 cup dry red wine

1¾ cups homemade chicken stock, or 1 can (14½ ounces) low-sodium chicken broth

2 tablespoons Moroccan Spice Mix

1 cup dried apricots

Freshly ground black pepper to taste

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F.

2. Dry the lamb shanks well with paper towels, then season them all over with salt.

3. Heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil in a Dutch oven or other large, heavy, ovenproof pot over medium-high heat. Add the shanks and brown them on all sides, about 15 minutes altogether. Remove the shanks and set them aside.

4. Add the remaining 1 tablespoon oil to the pot, if necessary (you will need it if you have been diligent in removing all the visible fat from the lamb), reduce the heat to medium, and cook the onions until they are soft, about 10 minutes. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, for 1 minute more. Remove the pot from the heat. Stir in the wine and deglaze the pot, scraping up all the crusty brown bits. Stir in the chicken stock and the Moroccan Spice Mix. Return the lamb shanks to the pot.

5. Place the pot in the oven and roast, covered, turning and basting the shanks frequently, for about 1 hour.

6. Add the apricots and continue roasting, covered, until the meat is very soft, about 1½ hours more.

7. Transfer the shanks to a platter and keep warm. Remove as much fat as possible from the sauce, using a spoon or a fat separator. Season the sauce with salt and pepper to taste.

8. Spoon the sauce over the lamb shanks and serve, passing any extra sauce in a sauceboat.

NOTE: This dish tastes even better the next day and freezes well.

—from Victoria Moreno

My Mom’s Killer Brisket with Tsimmes

It’s Passover again as we make our annual trek to Brad and Tracey’s for their beautiful Seder. Airport security is farklempt. Setting off the metal detectors is my Apple Matzoh Schalat in Mama Hinda’s metal pan. Nestled between the toys for Samantha and Blake are tins of sweets. My mother is shlepping two huge jars of frozen chicken soup, a tray of matzoh balls, and of course her killer tsimmes. Cheesh! You’d think those airport officials never saw tsimmes before!

The Yiddish word tsimmes means “a big fuss,” so little wonder this dish took that name. Tsimmes is my mother’s favorite childhood dish, and every time she makes it, she makes more of a tsimmes out of it. It’s never the same way twice, of course. Her latest twist is briefly broiling the sweet potatoes and carrots to crisp them up. Sometimes she adds pineapple chunks, sometimes parsnips. But always she’s real heavy on the prunes, not only because she loves them but because she claims she can still hear Aunt Estelle complaining that Mama Hinda never added enough of them. Apricots or any other dried fruit can be substituted if you feel no similar compunction to make things up to Aunt Estelle. Serves 8 to 10    M

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

4 to 5 pounds first-cut beef brisket

2 large onions, sliced

2 cloves garlic, crushed

½ cup sweet red wine or water

1 cup pineapple or orange juice

1 package dehydrated onion soup mix

2 to 3 teaspoons kosher (coarse) salt, or to taste

½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

¼ cup honey

¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons (packed) light brown sugar

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

1½ teaspoons grated fresh ginger

1½ teaspoons ground cinnamon

Ground nutmeg to taste

3 cups (1½ pounds) pitted prunes, dried apricots, or a combination

½ cup raisins

3 pounds sweet potatoes, cut into 1½-inch chunks

1½ pounds carrots, cut into ½-inch-thick slices

Paprika, for sprinkling

1. The day before serving, heat the oil in a Dutch oven or other large, heavy pot over medium-high heat. Add the meat (fat side down first), and brown it well on all sides, about 5 minutes per side. Transfer the meat to a plate.

2. Add the onions to the pot and cook, stirring often, until they are soft and brown, about 8 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute more. Then stir in 3 cups water and the wine (or 3½ cups water), juice, onion soup mix, 1 teaspoon of the salt, and ¼ teaspoon of the pepper. Bring to a boil. Reduce the heat, return the meat to the pot, cover, and simmer until a fork can pierce the meat but it is not quite done, 1¾ to 2¼ hours, depending on the thickness of the meat.

3. Remove the pot from the heat and allow it to cool somewhat. Then remove the meat and slice off all visible fat. Transfer the meat, with the gravy, to a large bowl or container and refrigerate it, covered, overnight.

4. The next day, preheat the oven to 350°F.

5. Remove the bowl from the refrigerator and skim off the congealed fat. Remove the meat and cut it into ¼- to ⅜-inch-thick slices. Set it aside.

6. Transfer the gravy to a Dutch oven or other large, heavy, ovenproof pot and bring it to a boil. Turn off the heat and stir in the honey, brown sugar, lemon juice, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, 1 teaspoon of the salt, or more to taste, and remaining ¼ teaspoon pepper. Return the sliced meat to the pot. Add the prunes and raisins. Arrange the sweet potatoes and carrots on top. Baste the meat and vegetables with the sauce and bring back to a boil.

7. Transfer the pot to the oven and bake, covered, for 30 minutes, basting after 15 minutes.

8. Sprinkle the potatoes and carrots lightly with paprika, and continue baking, uncovered this time, basting every 15 minutes, until the carrots and potatoes are very tender, about 30 minutes. If you like (and if your oven has a broiling mode), turn the oven setting to broil, place the pot on the lowest rack, and broil the potatoes and carrots briefly until crisp.

9. Serve hot.

—from Lillian Bart

Mina de Espinaka (Matzoh, Spinach & Cheese Pie)

Mina is a Sephardic layered savory pie. Ketty created a mina for Passover, layering a spinach and cheese filling between sheets of softened matzoh crowned with Cheddar cheese. This dish is lovely for a dairy lunch or brunch during the holiday week. Serves 8    D

Vegetable cooking spray, for greasing the baking pan

5 boards matzoh

1 recipe spinach and cheese mixture (follows), uncooked

1 large egg, beaten

¾ cup grated Cheddar cheese

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease a 13 × 9-inch baking pan.

2. Soak the matzoh boards in cool water until it is flexible and thoroughly saturated, but not falling apart. If you can lift it easily, it’s not soaked enough. Drain it on dish towels, covering the matzoh with more towels and squeezing gently to eliminate the moisture. Carefully transfer the moistened matzoh to the prepared baking pan, tearing it as necessary to line the bottom in a single layer. (The edges can overlap slightly.) Reserve the remaining matzoh.

3. Pour the spinach mixture over the matzoh, and top with another layer of soaked matzoh, overlapping the torn edges slightly (the matzoh will shrink somewhat during baking).

4. Brush the top generously with the beaten egg, sprinkle with the grated cheese, and bake on the center oven rack until the pie is set and golden, about 35 minutes. Cover the pan and allow the pie to rest for a few minutes. Then cut it into squares, and serve.

Spinach and Cheese Mixture

Solid vegetable shortening or vegetable cooking spray

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons butter

1 large onion, chopped

8 ounces button mushrooms, sliced

10 large eggs

½ cup ricotta cheese

1 bag (6 ounces) prewashed fresh baby spinach, or 1 box (10 ounces) frozen leaf spinach, thawed

3 cups grated cheese (see Note)

1 teaspoon kosher (coarse) salt, or to taste

¼ teaspoon pepper, preferably white, or to taste

1. Heat the oil and butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and cook until soft, about 10 minutes. Then add the mushrooms, raise the heat to medium-high, and cook, stirring often, until the mushrooms are tender and have exuded their moisture, about 5 minutes. Set aside.

2. Mix the eggs with the ricotta in a large bowl. (This is accomplished more easily if you add the first 3 or 4 eggs one at a time.)

3. If you are using fresh spinach (and I highly recommend you do), coarsely chop it. If using frozen, drain it very well and coarsely chop it.

4. Add the onion-mushroom mixture, grated cheese, spinach, and salt and pepper to the egg mixture. Mix well.

NOTE: Ketty uses a mixture of kasseri, sharp Cheddar, Parmesan, and feta.

—from Ketty Moreno

Elaine Asa’s Spinach Lasagna

With the Seder dinners a beautiful memory, the six additional days of Passover would loom before us as arid as the Sinai itself if not for the creativity of Jewish cooks through the ages who have transformed that barren board into thousands of delicious permutations.

Our friend Elaine developed this recipe years ago, when three of her four children became vegetarians. For years she served a vegetarian Seder—she just had to get creative. (Now that the children are far away, she’s back to brisket every year.) Elaine still serves this dish for Passover lunches, however, and when my mom was invited one year, of course she took the recipe. Serves 8    D

Vegetable cooking spray, for greasing the baking pan

2 boxes (10 ounces each) frozen chopped spinach, thawed

2 tablespoons butter

1 medium-size onion, chopped

5 boards matzoh

5 large eggs, separated

1 pint cottage cheese

¼ cup sour cream

½ teaspoon plus a pinch of salt

8 ounces Cheddar or Monterey Jack cheese, shredded (2 cups)

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease a 13 × 9-inch nonreactive baking pan.

2. Drain the spinach very well. Then squeeze it in several changes of paper towels to remove as much liquid as possible. Break up the spinach with a fork.

3. Melt the butter in a medium-size skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and cook until soft and golden, about 7 minutes. Set aside.

4. Crumble the matzoh into a large bowl, add cold water to cover, and soak just until the matzoh is soft but not soggy. Drain the soaked matzoh thoroughly, wipe the bowl dry, and return the matzoh to the bowl. Add the spinach and sautéed onions, and combine well. Set the mixture aside.

5. Beat the egg yolks with a fork in a large bowl. Stir in the cottage cheese, sour cream, and the ½ teaspoon salt.

6. Beat the egg whites with an electric mixer on medium-high speed until foamy, about 30 seconds. Add the pinch of salt and beat until stiff peaks form, about 2 minutes total. Add the egg whites to the cottage cheese mixture in three additions, folding them in until incorporated after each addition.

7. Spread half the cottage cheese mixture in the prepared baking pan. Top with the spinach mixture, then half the shredded Cheddar. Spread the remaining cottage cheese mixture over that, and top with the remaining shredded Cheddar.

8. Bake on the center oven rack until set and golden, 40 to 45 minutes. Cut into squares and serve.

—from Lillian Bart

“Passover was magical not only for the cooking, but also for the tall tales. One year when I was in grade school, Uncle Al came from Atlanta to Aunt Estelle and Uncle Willy’s for Passover. He promised [my brother] Barry and me a submarine. This prize was even better than the silver dollars we collected when we found the afikomen and the loving gazes we received for reciting the Four Questions in Hebrew. But the best prize of all was Uncle Al’s check for $1 million signed ‘Al the Great.’”

—LAURA SELIGMAN (SECOND COUSIN)

Matzoh Stuffing

Barry’s distant cousin Barbara found us when researching our mutual Padwa family (Barry’s Grandma Rose’s mishpucha) on www.jewishgen.org. Through e-mails back and forth and shared research, we became pen pals (keyboard pals?) and finally met when I spoke at the National Jewish Genealogy Society conference in Washington, D.C. In a bizarre coincidence, guess who Barbara discovered was a witness to her relative’s naturalization petition? Our Papa Harry!

Sorry, Aunties. Barbara’s Matzoh Stuffing had yours beat by a mile. Comfort food in a casserole dish, it’s springy and colorful, with cheerful flecks of orange and green. You can also bake it in individual muffin cups, if you wish. Of course you could stuff a chicken or turkey with it as well, although a minhag (custom) exists among certain observant Jewish communities not to roast anything on Passover except the shank bone and egg for the Seder plate. Serves 12    M or P

Nondairy margarine or vegetable cooking spray, for greasing the casserole

¼ cup vegetable oil

2 tablespoons nondairy margarine, plus slivers for scattering on top

2 cups chopped onions

1 cup chopped celery

2 medium-size carrots, cut into ¼-inch dice

10 boards matzoh

¼ cup chopped flat-leaf parsley

1 cup homemade chicken stock or low-sodium boxed or canned chicken broth or vegetable stock

2 large eggs, lightly beaten

2 teaspoons salt, or more to taste

2 teaspoons good-quality paprika

1 teaspoon poultry seasoning

¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, or more to taste

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease a 2-quart casserole or 12 muffin cups.

2. Heat the oil and the 2 tablespoons margarine in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onions, celery, and carrots, and cook, stirring often, until the onions are soft and translucent and the carrots are fork-tender, 10 to 12 minutes.

3. Meanwhile, crumble the matzoh into a large bowl, add cold water to cover, and soak a few seconds, just until it is soft but not soggy. Drain the soaked matzoh thoroughly, wipe the bowl dry, and return the matzoh to the bowl.

4. Add the sautéed vegetables to the softened matzoh. Stir in the parsley, chicken stock, eggs, 2 teaspoons salt, paprika, poultry seasoning, and ¼ teaspoon pepper. Mix thoroughly, and add more salt and pepper to taste (see Note).

5. To prepare a stuffing casserole, transfer the mixture to the prepared casserole dish, dot it lightly with thin slivers of margarine, and bake, uncovered, on the center oven rack until set and golden brown, 40 to 45 minutes.

To prepare stuffing muffins, place about ½ cup stuffing mixture in each prepared muffin cup. Dot them lightly with thin slivers of margarine, and bake on the center oven rack until set and golden brown, 20 to 25 minutes. Run a knife around each muffin if necessary, and remove them from the cups. Serve hot.

NOTE: Before tasting any mixture containing raw eggs, microwave a tablespoon or so until the egg is cooked, 5 to 15 seconds; then taste.

—from Barbara Musikar

Garden Veggie Matzoh Schalat (Kugel)

The word schalat derives from cholent, originally a pudding cooked like a kugel with the Sabbath stew, and is not even a poor relation of the “charlotte” pudding on fine French menus. This is another dish I created for my cooking classes, a savory version of the sweet Apple Matzoh Schalat I’ve been making for years. Serves 16 to 20    M or P

Olive oil, for greasing the baking sheet and baking pan

1 medium- to large-size eggplant, cut into ½-inch dice

3 bell peppers, different colors (I use red, yellow, and orange)

9 boards matzoh

¼ cup olive oil

2 medium-size onions, chopped

1½ cups homemade chicken stock or low-sodium boxed or canned chicken broth or vegetable stock

8 ounces white mushrooms, sliced

2 small jars marinated artichoke hearts, drained and sliced

1 box (10 ounces) frozen chopped spinach, thawed

8 leaves fresh sage, sliced and chopped

2 teaspoons fresh rosemary, minced

4 tablespoons (½ stick) nondairy margarine, melted and cooled

9 large eggs, separated

¼ to ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg, preferably freshly grated

¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes

1 to 3 teaspoons salt

Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

About 2 tablespoons nondairy margarine, cut into thin slivers

1. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil, and generously grease the foil.

2. Place the diced eggplant on the baking sheet and roast until it is starting to brown but still holds its shape, about 10 minutes. Set it aside.

3. Meanwhile, roast the peppers over a direct flame on top of the stove (or once the eggplant has finished cooking, in the oven with the temperature raised to 450°F, turning, until black all over, about 20 minutes). Place the blackened peppers in a paper or plastic bag, close the bag, and allow them to cool for about 15 minutes. When the peppers are cool, remove the black skin as well as the seeds and stems. Do not rinse them. Cut the peppers into ½-inch pieces.

4. Meanwhile, crumble the matzoh into a very large bowl, add cold water to cover, and soak a few seconds, until the matzoh is soft but not soggy. Drain the soaked matzoh thoroughly, wipe the bowl dry, and return the matzoh to the bowl.

5. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onions and cook, stirring often, until soft, about 7 minutes. Add ½ cup of the stock and cook the onions over high heat, stirring often, until the stock evaporates, about 10 minutes. Repeat this process twice more, using ½ cup of the stock each time and scraping to release the browned bits, about 10 minutes total. Add the mushrooms and cook until their liquid has released and evaporated and they have reduced in size, about 5 minutes more. Stir in the artichokes and cook for 1 minute.

6. Add the sautéed vegetables to the soaked matzoh. Stir in the eggplant and roasted peppers.

7. Drain the spinach very well, and then squeeze it between paper towels to extract as much liquid as possible. Break up the spinach with a fork, and add it to the matzoh mixture. Stir in the sage, rosemary, and melted margarine. Mix well.

8. Beat the egg yolks with an electric mixer on medium-high speed until thick and lemon-colored, about 3 minutes. Blend in the nutmeg and red pepper flakes. Add this to the matzoh mixture.

9. Using a clean, dry bowl and beaters, beat the egg whites on medium-high speed until foamy, about 45 seconds. Add a pinch of the salt and beat until stiff peaks form, about 3 minutes total. Stir one fourth of the egg whites into the matzoh mixture to lighten it. Then add the remaining whites in three additions, folding them in until incorporated. Add the salt and pepper to taste (see Note).

10. Preheat the oven to 350°F degrees. Grease a 13 × 9-inch baking pan.

11. Pour the mixture into the prepared baking pan, and dot it lightly with thin slivers of margarine. Bake on the center oven rack until set and golden, 1 to 1¼ hours.

12. Cut into squares and serve hot.

NOTE: Before tasting any mixture containing raw eggs, microwave a tablespoon or so until the egg is cooked, 5 to 15 seconds; then taste.

Apple Matzoh Schalat (Kugel)

I’ve been making this Passover schalat for as long as I can remember. I always baked it in a 13 × 9-inch pan, as I describe here. But several years ago Natalie Haughton, food editor of the Los Angeles Daily News, came to my home with a photographer to interview me for a Passover feature story. She suggested that I bake my schalat in a springform pan, and the result is amazing: Pineapple rings with strawberry centers encircle this fruity kugel, studded with blueberries and mandarin oranges for a rainbow of color too pretty to cut. If you want to try it, follow the instructions in the box at the end of this recipe. Serves about 16    P or D

Nondairy margarine or butter, for greasing the baking pan

1 cup (packed) dried apricots or golden raisins, or a combination

2 cans (20 ounces each) pineapple rings, drained, juice reserved

6 medium-size apples, peeled and thinly sliced

Juice of 1 lemon (about 3 tablespoons)

9 boards matzoh

9 large eggs, separated

1½ cups sugar

Grated zest of 1 lemon

1 tablespoon ground cinnamon, plus extra for sprinkling

1½ teaspoons kosher-for-Passover vanilla

½ teaspoon salt

6 tablespoons (¾ stick) nondairy margarine or butter, melted and cooled

2 cups fresh or frozen strawberries

About 1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries

1 can (11 ounces) mandarin oranges

3 tablespoons nondairy margarine or butter, slivered

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Generously grease a 13 × 9-inch baking pan.

2. Snip the apricots to the size of raisins. (Kitchen shears work much better than a knife for this purpose.) Combine the snipped apricots and the reserved pineapple juice in a small bowl, and set it aside.

3. Toss the apple slices with the lemon juice in a bowl (to prevent browning), and set it aside.

4. Crumble the matzoh into a very large bowl, add cold water to cover, and soak a few seconds just to soften the matzoh. Drain the soaked matzoh thoroughly, wipe the bowl dry, and return the matzoh to the bowl.

5. Beat the egg yolks and ¾ cup of the sugar with an electric mixer on medium-high speed until thick and lemon-colored, about 3 minutes, scraping the bowl as necessary. Beat in the lemon zest, cinnamon, vanilla, and salt. Stir in the melted margarine.

6. Stir the egg yolk mixture into the soaked matzoh. Drain the apricots, and add them and the apples to the matzoh mixture. Combine well.

7. Using a clean, dry bowl and beaters, beat the egg whites on medium-high speed until soft peaks form. Add the remaining ¾ cup sugar a tablespoon at a time, beating for 10 seconds after each addition, until stiff peaks form, about 6 minutes total. Stir one fourth of the egg whites into the matzoh mixture to lighten it. Then add the remaining whites in three additions, folding them in until incorporated.

8. Pour the matzoh mixture into the prepared baking pan. Decorate the top with the pineapple rings, strawberries, blueberries, and mandarin oranges in a pretty design. Dot with the slivers of margarine, and sprinkle with cinnamon. Bake, uncovered, until firm, about 1 hour.

9. Cut into squares and serve hot.

For a Knock-Their-Socks-Off Schalat Presentation

Instead of using the 13 × 9-inch baking pan, generously grease the bottom and sides of a 10-inch springform pan with shortening. (If you have only a 9-inch springform pan, you will have some batter left over, which you can bake separately in a small dish.) Dry the pineapple, berries, and mandarin oranges well with paper towels so they will stick. Press pineapple rings carefully onto the greased sides of the pan. Press the tips of some of the strawberries into the center of each pineapple ring, facing outward. Press mandarin oranges and blueberries artfully into the spaces between the pineapple rings. If any of the fruit refuses to stick, use a bit more shortening as “glue.”

Slowly pour the matzoh mixture into the pan, being careful not to disturb the fruit sticking to the sides. Decorate the top with more fruit. Dot it with the slivers of margarine and sprinkle with cinnamon. Bake, uncovered, until the center is firm, 1¼ hours. Allow the schalat to rest, covered, for 10 minutes. Then carefully release the spring mechanism and slowly lift the sides away. Take bows!

Apricot Matzoh Kugel

Samra makes this kugel every Passover. What a hit! The caramelized farfel topping is so addictive that she always doubles it, she says, because the kids eat it like candy and she never has enough to put on the kugel. The topping also makes a great base for Pesachdicke granola. Just add raisins or other dried fruit and any nuts of your choice. Serves about 16    D

FOR THE TOPPING

2 tablespoons butter

2 cups matzoh farfel

½ cup (packed) dark brown sugar

FOR THE KUGEL

Butter or vegetable cooking spray, for greasing the baking pan

¾ cup raisins

2 cans (16 ounces each) apricot halves, drained, juice from 1 can reserved

3 cups matzoh farfel

5 large eggs

2 cups sour cream

8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter, melted and cooled

½ cup granulated sugar

1 medium-size apple, peeled and shredded

1. Prepare the topping: Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the farfel and the brown sugar and cook, stirring constantly, until the farfel caramelizes (gets brown and crunchy), 3 to 5 minutes. Set it aside to cool. (If you haven’t doubled the topping recipe, have a fly swatter handy for sneaky fingers.)

2. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease a 13 × 9-inch baking pan.

3. Combine the raisins and the reserved apricot juice in a small bowl, and set it aside.

4. Place the farfel in a large bowl, add cold water to cover, and soak a few seconds just until the matzoh farfel is soft but not soggy. Drain the soaked farfel thoroughly, wipe the bowl dry, and return the farfel to the bowl. Set it aside.

5. Combine the eggs, sour cream, melted butter, and granulated sugar in a blender and whirl until smooth. Add the egg mixture to the soaked farfel. Stir in the shredded apple, along with the raisins and their soaking liquid. Pour this mixture into the prepared baking dish. Arrange the apricot halves on top, round side up. Sprinkle the topping evenly over the apricots, and bake on the center oven rack until set, about 1 hour.

6. Cut into squares and serve hot.

—from Samra Robbins

Plan Ahead

Schalats and kugels can be made a day or two ahead. On the day of serving, allow the dish to come to room temperature. Then heat it, covered, in a preheated 350°F oven until warm, 30 to 40 minutes.

Oma’s Bubbelach

Well, I don’t know how old you have to be before you no longer qualify as a child, but no matter—no one can resist these crispy potato puffs. Malka Engel-Padwa, related to Barry on Grandma Rose’s side, is a food writer and cookbook author in Antwerp, Belgium, where she is a frequent contributor to the bi-monthly Koopjes magazine and others. Says Malka: “Bubbelach can be served alone, in soup, or as a snack, sprinkled with sugar. This was my mother-in-law’s recipe, and on Pesach, Oma’s Bubbelach are always a treat for the children.” This recipe is adapted from her cookbook, Malka’s Kosher Kitchen, which contains recipes from her grandmothers, family, and friends. Makes about 32    P

2 pounds baking potatoes, cut into 1½-inch cubes

1 teaspoon plus a pinch of kosher (coarse) salt

Pepper, preferably white, to taste

4 large eggs, separated

Vegetable oil, for frying

1. Bring a medium-size saucepan of lightly salted water to a boil. Add the potatoes and boil gently until they can be easily pierced with a skewer. (Don’t use a fork, which will break them apart.) Drain the potatoes and put them through a ricer (preferred), or mash them by hand, in a bowl. Add the 1 teaspoon salt and the pepper, and stir in the egg yolks.

2. Beat the egg whites with an electric mixer on medium-high speed until foamy, about 30 seconds. Add the pinch of salt and beat until the whites form stiff peaks, about 1½ minutes total. Fold one fourth of the egg whites into the potato mixture to lighten it. Then fold in the remaining whites.

3. Pour oil to a depth of about 1 inch in a large skillet and heat it over medium-high heat. Drop the potato mixture by the rounded tablespoon into the hot oil (do not crowd the skillet). Fry on both sides until golden brown, 2 to 3 minutes per side. Drain the puffs on paper towels, and serve immediately.

—from Malka Engel-Padwa

Passover Bagels

For those who can’t go even one week without cream cheese and lox, have a Passover bagel. Now there’s an oxymoron for you. Reminds me of an e-mail I received from Chuck Rosen, a reader commenting on a Passover story I wrote for The Orange County Register a few years back:

“Your mention of Passover bagels reminded me of my youth in the San Fernando Valley. Our local supermarket had a fresh bakery on site and always had challahs on Friday. It took three years before the bakers realized their annual mistake when just before Pesach each year they’d put up a sign reading: ‘Don’t forget to order your Passover challah.’”

And, no, these bagels are not even remotely chewy—for that you will have to wait a week—but they’ll hold up the cream cheese without crumbling like matzoh, and they do have a hole. Makes 18    P

2½ cups matzoh cake meal

2 tablespoons sugar

2 teaspoons potato starch

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup vegetable oil

Parchment paper, vegetable oil, or vegetable cooking spray, for the baking sheet

1 dozen large eggs

1. Combine the cake meal, sugar, potato starch, and salt in the bowl of an electric mixer.

2. Combine the oil and 2 cups water in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Pour the hot liquid over the cake meal mixture all at once. Stir to combine well, and set aside to cool.

3. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Grease a baking sheet, or better yet, line it with parchment paper.

4. After the mixture has cooled, beat in the eggs, a few at a time, with the electric mixer on medium speed, beating well and scraping the bowl occasionally. (You can do this with a wooden spoon, per Aunt Sally’s directions, but using an electric mixer is much easier.)

5. Drop about ⅓ cup batter for each bagel onto the prepared baking sheet, spacing them about 1½ inches apart. Dip your finger in oil and form a 1-inch hole in the center of each one. (The hole will close somewhat during baking.) Bake on the center oven rack until golden brown, 50 to 55 minutes.

6. Remove the baking sheet from the oven and immediately poke the bagels with a skewer to allow steam to escape and the insides to dry. Transfer the bagels to a wire rack to cool.

7. Serve within a day, or wrap in plastic wrap and freeze. Reheat frozen bagels, uncovered, in a preheated 350°F oven until crisp, about 12 minutes.

—from Sally Bower

“I remember the Passover Seders in Mama and Papa’s tiny apartment upstairs from Aunt Lil and Uncle Jan in their two-family house in Belle Harbor. We were hungry and Papa would let us eat while he finished the service. If you wanted salt, Mama would put kosher salt in a little dish near your plate. Papa never could keep a secret and always showed us where he hid the matzoh.”

—MARVIN ROBBINS (COUSIN)

Matzoh Meal Rolls

My mother remembers taking these muffins to school for lunch during Passover. Mama Hinda must have made hundreds for her seven hungry children.

These make great rolls too—a welcome change from matzoh, especially for the kids who’d rather take a sandwich to school for lunch. Fewer crumbs too. Janitors like that. Makes 8 sandwich rolls or 16 dinner rolls    P

2 cups matzoh meal

1 tablespoon sugar

1 teaspoon salt

½ cup peanut oil, or 8 tablespoons (1 stick) nondairy margarine

Parchment paper, vegetable oil, or vegetable cooking spray, for the baking sheet

4 large eggs

1. Combine the matzoh meal, sugar, and salt in the bowl of an electric mixer.

2. Combine the oil with 1 cup water in a small saucepan, and bring to a boil. Pour the hot liquid over the matzoh meal mixture all at once. Set it aside to cool.

3. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Grease a baking sheet, or better yet, line it with parchment paper.

4. After the mixture has cooled, beat in the eggs, one at a time, with the electric mixer on medium speed, beating well and scraping the bowl after each addition.

5. With oiled hands, form each ⅓ cup dough (for sandwich-size rolls) into a disk, flattening it slightly. Place them about 1½ inches apart on the prepared baking sheet. (For dinner rolls, use about half as much dough.) Bake on the center oven rack until golden brown, 50 to 55 minutes.

6. Remove the baking sheet from the oven and immediately poke the rolls with a skewer to allow steam to escape and the insides to dry. Transfer the rolls to a wire rack to cool.

7. Use within a day, or wrap in plastic wrap and freeze. Reheat frozen rolls, uncovered, in a preheated 350°F oven until crisp, about 12 minutes.

—from Hinda Rabinowitz

Passover Fruity Muffins

When my boys were growing up, I used to make these every Passover as a healthy snack to tuck into a lunchbox or have with milk after school. Makes 3 dozen    P

Vegetable cooking spray, for greasing the muffin cups

1 cup mashed banana (from 2 large ripe bananas)

1 large apple, peeled and grated

1 large carrot, peeled and grated

½ cup apple juice

1 cup matzoh meal

1 cup raisins

1 cup pecan halves, chopped (optional)

⅔ cup sweetened flaked or shredded coconut

2 large eggs, beaten

¼ teaspoon salt

1. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Grease 36 mini muffin cups.

2. Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl, and mix well. Fill the prepared muffin cups level with the top, and bake on the center oven rack until the muffins are puffed and golden brown, about 35 minutes. Let the muffins cool in the tin for 10 minutes. Then transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely before serving.

Matzoh Brei

The world is divided into two camps: those who like their matzoh brei sweet and those who prefer it salty. I’m with Mom. We love it sweet. Until I married Barry, it never occurred to me that anyone would like it any other way. This recipe is a Passover breakfast staple. Want something really different? Try adding some leftover haroset for a special treat. Serves 1    D or P

1 board matzoh

1 large egg

1 teaspoon sugar

¼ teaspoon kosher-for-Passover vanilla

Dash of ground cinnamon

About 2 tablespoons butter or nondairy margarine, for frying

Maple syrup, jam, or cinnamon-sugar (2 tablespoons cinnamon to 1 cup sugar), for serving

1. Crumble the matzoh into a small bowl, add cold water to cover, and let it soak a few seconds, just until the matzoh is soft but not soggy. Drain the soaked matzoh thoroughly, wipe the bowl dry, and return the matzoh to the bowl.

2. Beat the egg into the matzoh. Add the sugar, vanilla, and cinnamon.

3. Melt the butter in a medium-size frying pan over medium heat. When the foam has subsided, pour in the batter all at once. Spread it out with a fork, and cook until it is golden and set on one side, about 2 minutes. Turn it over and fry on the other side, about 2 minutes.

4. Serve with syrup, jam, or cinnamon-sugar.

NOTES: You can even fry the Matzoh Brei using vegetable cooking spray instead of butter or margarine. (Yeah, right, diet during Passover. Ha!)

Salt-lovers: Replace the sugar, vanilla, and cinnamon with

½ teaspoon salt. Sprinkle the fried pancake with additional salt, if desired (and Barry does!).

—from Lillian Bart

Banana Cheese Chremslach (Fritters)

Aunt Sylvia’s antidote to the matzoh brei boredom blues were these crispy, delicious fritters, topped with a tiny dollop of sour cream and sprinkled with cinnamon-sugar. Jam, honey, or maple syrup would make equally great toppings. Serves 4 to 6    D

1 cup matzoh meal

1 cup milk

½ cup mashed banana (1 medium-size banana)

1 cup cottage cheese

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon salt

2 large eggs, lightly beaten

About 2 tablespoons butter, for frying

1. Place the matzoh meal in a large bowl and pour the milk over it. Stir, and allow to stand for 10 minutes. Then stir in the mashed banana, cottage cheese, cinnamon, and salt. Add the eggs and mix well.

2. Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat, and drop the batter by the tablespoon into the hot skillet. Fry until the fritters are crisp and brown on one side, about 2½ minutes. Turn them over and fry on the other side, about 2 minutes.

3. Serve the chremslach immediately, or keep them warm in a preheated 200°F oven for up to 15 minutes.

—from Sylvia Robbins

Baking For Passover

Challenge breeds creativity, and at no time of year is the challenge greater than at Passover, when for eight days (seven in Israel), Jews, forbidden to eat bread or other leaven, eat matzoh in remembrance of our ancestors’ hasty departure from Egypt. And if cooking for Passover is a challenge, then creating Passover desserts is the decathlon.

Oh, to devise spectacular sweets without flour or leavening! For ingenious kosher cooks it’s no problem! (Well, I can think of one problem—if you’re allergic to eggs! And if you’re allergic to eggs and nuts … you’re in for a long week!)

Any lingering thoughts on the restrictions of Passover are quickly dispelled by dessert. The display following the Passover Seder is as elaborate as any you see all year—at least in my family. Cousins will try to outdo each other with their sponge cakes, tortes, pies, and bars, bringing a sweet ending to our sweet celebration.

While every year more and more kosher-for-Passover products are introduced for adding flavor and variety to desserts, several ingredients bear discussion:

Vanilla

Pure vanilla extract, made from grain alcohol, is not considered kosher for Passover (although the bean itself is), and the observant will not use it. In baking for Passover, you have several choices:

• Kosher-for-Passover vanilla, which is not an extract, but rather artificial vanilla flavoring.

• Vanilla sugar, a common ingredient in Europe but not as well known here, comes in little packets and is sugar that has been superinfused with the vanilla bean. Substitute 1 packet for each 1½ teaspoons vanilla extract; the small amount of sugar in it will not affect your recipe. You can find it in kosher markets, and I’ve even seen it in the Jewish food section in some supermarkets.

• Vanilla sugar you make yourself: About 2 weeks before Passover, split 1 vanilla bean in half lengthwise and crosswise and bury the pieces in 2 cups sugar. Seal tightly and store it in a cool, dark place. Shake it occasionally. Replace the sugar as you use it. It will keep until next Pesach.

• A kosher-for-Passover liqueur, such as Amaretto.

Confectioners’ sugar

While kosher-for-Passover confectioners’ sugar is available, it is expensive and easy enough to create yourself: To make your own, combine ½ cup minus 1½ teaspoons granulated sugar and 1½ teaspoons potato starch in a blender or mini food processor. Pulse until a fine powder is formed.

My Best Passover Sponge Cake

What would Passover be without sponge cake? Whipped egg whites, trapping tiny air bubbles, expand to six or seven times their volume, creating an ethereal confection. Janice, cousin Bonnie and Jackie’s cousin, has been making her version for decades. We like it topped with Aunt Sally’s Lemon Fluff, but you can use any glaze or fruit sauce that appeals, dust it with confectioners’ sugar, or serve it unadorned. Serves 12    P or D

9 large eggs, at room temperature, 7 separated

1½ cups sugar

½ cup matzoh cake meal

½ cup potato starch

Grated zest of 1 lemon or orange

Juice of 1 lemon, or 3 tablespoons orange juice

Pinch of salt

Lemon Fluff (recipe follows), for garnish (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Have ready an ungreased 10-inch tube pan with removable bottom.

2. Combine the 2 whole eggs and the 7 yolks in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat on medium-high speed. Gradually add the sugar and beat until light, about 4 minutes. Reduce the speed to low and add the cake meal and potato starch, followed by the zest and juice, and beat well to combine.

3. Using a clean, dry bowl and beaters, beat the egg whites on medium-high speed until foamy, about 45 seconds. Add the salt and continue beating until stiff peaks form, about 3 minutes total. Stir one fourth of the egg whites into the batter to lighten it. Then add the remaining whites in three additions, folding them in until incorporated.

4. Spoon the batter into the tube pan. Bake on the center oven rack until the cake springs back when lightly touched, 45 to 50 minutes.

5. Remove the pan from the oven and allow it to rest for 30 to 45 seconds. Then invert the pan on its little feet (if your tube pan has them) or over a soda or wine bottle (making sure it sits level), and set it aside until the cake is completely cool. Then run a knife around the center tube and the sides of the pan and lift the tube from the outer pan. Gently slide the knife between the bottom of the cake and the pan, and lift the cake off the pan.

6. Serve topped with Lemon Fluff, if desired.

—from Janice Einsbruch

Lemon Fluff

Aunt Sally always served Passover sponge cake with a healthy dollop of her Lemon Fluff. You can use it as a refreshing topping for fresh berries—swirled in individual goblets, topped with a sprig of mint perhaps, or in your loveliest crystal bowl. Makes about 3 cups    P or D

Yolks of 5 large eggs

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar

Juice of 2 lemons (6 tablespoons)

Grated zest of 2 lemons (2 tablespoons)

1 cup nondairy whipping cream or heavy (whipping) cream

1. Combine the egg yolks, the 1 cup sugar, the lemon juice, and the lemon zest in a double boiler set over simmering water and cook, whisking constantly, until quite thick, 15 to 20 minutes. Transfer the mixture to a small bowl and set it aside to cool. (Do not refrigerate it.)

2. When the lemon mixture is cool, whip the cream with the remaining 2 tablespoons sugar, using an electric mixer on high speed, until it forms firm peaks, 1¼ minutes.

3. Whisk the cooled lemon custard. Stir one fourth of the whipped cream into the custard to lighten it. Then fold in the remaining whipped cream. Cover and refrigerate until serving time. The Lemon Fluff will keep for 1 day.

—from Sally Bower

Estelle’s Famous Passover Sponge Cake

After my father died, my mom stayed in New York and worked side by side with Aunt Estelle in her dressmaking business. It took me seven years to talk her into joining us in California, and when she finally did, Aunt Estelle was bereft. (Her sponge cake recipe sent by letter ended with: “I miss your mother very much,” only hinting at the depth of her despair.)

Aunt Estelle was famous for her Pesachdicke sponge cake (nicknamed Aunt Estelle’s Mile-High Sponge Cake by cousin Laura), which she made all year-round. The superinfusion of citrus is what her cake was known for. Serves 12    P or D

9 large eggs, separated, at room temperature

1¼ cups sugar, sifted

Juice and grated zest of 1 lemon

Juice and grated zest of 1 orange

1½ tablespoons lemon extract

1 tablespoon orange extract

1 heaping cup (packed) Passover potato starch, sifted (see Note)

Sugar, for sprinkling (optional)

Strawberry Cream Filling (recipe follows; optional)

Chocolate Frosting (recipe follows; optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 325°F. Have ready an ungreased 10-inch tube pan with removable bottom.

2. Beat the egg yolks with an electric mixer on medium-high speed, very gradually adding 1 cup of the sugar until the mixture is very thick and very light yellow. Continue to beat until the sugar is completely dissolved. This may take 15 minutes or more. Scrape the bowl several times.

3. Meanwhile, combine the lemon and orange juices, zests, and extracts in a container with a spout, and set it aside.

4. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the potato starch in three additions, alternating with the juice mixture in two additions, beginning and ending with the potato starch.

5. Using a clean, dry bowl and beaters, beat the egg whites on medium-high speed until soft peaks form. Add the remaining ¼ cup sugar, a tablespoon at a time, beating for 10 seconds after each addition, until stiff peaks form, about 4 minutes total. Stir one fourth of the egg whites into the batter to lighten it. Then add the remaining whites in three additions, folding them in until incorporated.

6. Transfer the batter to the tube pan. If you want a crusty top, sprinkle a little sugar over the batter. (Eliminate this step if you prefer a soft top.) Bake on the center oven rack until the cake springs back when lightly touched, about 1 hour and 10 minutes.

7. Remove the pan from the oven and allow it to rest for 30 to 45 seconds. Then invert the pan on its little feet (if your tube pan has them) or over a soda or wine bottle (making sure it sits level), and set it aside until it is completely cool.

8. Run a knife around the center tube and the side of the pan, and lift the tube from the outer pan. Gently slide the knife between the bottom of the cake and the pan, and lift the cake off the pan. If desired, split the cake into two layers, fill it with Strawberry Cream Filling, and/or top it with Chocolate Frosting.

NOTE: Some Orthodox communities observe the custom of not using matzoh meal, which when moistened, might become a leavener. They would bake this sponge cake, which calls for potato starch rather than the usual matzoh cake meal and potato starch mixture.

—from Estelle Robbins

Strawberry Cream Filling

If life gives you lemons, make lemonade. If your sponge cake isn’t a mile high, cut it in half and fill it! P or D

1 pint fresh strawberries, hulled, lightly rinsed, drained, and dried

1 cup nondairy whipping cream or heavy (whipping) cream

2 tablespoons kosher-for-Passover confectioners’ sugar

1. Using a serrated knife, cut the cooled cake in half horizontally.

2. Whip the cream and sugar in a chilled bowl until it holds stiff peaks, about 4 minutes, and spread it over the bottom layer. Cover with strawberries, reserving some for garnish. Cover with the top half of the cake and garnish with the reserved berries.

Chocolate Frosting

Makes 1¼ cups P or D

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

¼ cup nondairy whipping cream or heavy (whipping) cream

1 tablespoon nondairy margarine or butter

¼ cup slivered almonds, toasted

1. Combine the chocolate chips, whipping cream, and margarine in a 2-cup microwave-safe measuring cup or bowl. Heat in the microwave in 30-second bursts at 50% power, stirring until the chocolate is melted and the mixture is smooth. (Alternatively, heat the ingredients in a double boiler set over simmering water.)

2. Drizzle the warm glaze over the cake, allowing some to run down the center and the sides. Sprinkle the toasted almonds over the top of the cake. Refrigerate the cake for about 30 minutes, uncovered, to allow the glaze to set completely. Then slice the cake with a serrated knife.

—from Estelle Robbins

Passover Banana Sponge Cake

SpongeBob meets Chiquita Banana: a marriage made in heaven. Here’s a sponge cake that is dense and moist—delicious plain, or sliced in half and filled with banana slices and sweetened whipped cream. Serves 12    P

¾ cup matzoh cake meal

¼ cup potato starch

8 large eggs, separated

1½ cups sugar, sifted

2 teaspoons grated lemon or orange zest

3 tablespoons fresh lemon or orange juice

1 cup mashed banana (from 2 large, very ripe bananas)

1 cup finely chopped pecans

¼ teaspoon salt

1. Preheat the oven to 325°F. Have ready an ungreased 10-inch tube pan with removable bottom.

2. Sift the cake meal and potato starch together three times into a bowl, and set it aside.

3. Beat the egg yolks with an electric mixer on medium-high speed. Gradually add the sugar and beat until thick and lemon colored, about 5 minutes. Add the zest and juice, followed by the mashed bananas and nuts, and beat until well combined. Reduce the speed to low and add the cake meal mixture just until incorporated.

4. Using a clean, dry bowl and beaters, beat the egg whites on medium-high speed until foamy, about 45 seconds. Add the salt and beat until stiff peaks form, about 3 minutes total. Stir one fourth of the egg whites into the batter to lighten it. Then add the remaining whites in three additions, folding them in until incorporated.

5. Scrape the batter into the tube pan, and bake on the center oven rack until the cake is golden brown, the top springs back when touched, and a cake tester comes out clean, 60 to 70 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and allow the cake to rest for 30 to 45 seconds. Then invert the pan on its little feet (if your tube pan has them) or over a soda or wine bottle (making sure it sits level), and set it aside until the cake is completely cool.

6. Run a knife around the center tube and the side of the pan, and lift the tube from the outer pan. Gently slide the knife between the bottom of the cake and the pan, and lift the cake off the pan. Cut into slices and serve.

—from Barbara Musikar

Grandma Sally’s Passover Chocolate Nut Cake

Cousins: Those of us who began married life in Aunt Sally’s furnished basement apartment (and didn’t we all?) will remember that we needed no calendar to tell us that Passover was coming. The sound from upstairs of Uncle Lou cracking walnuts for Aunt Sally’s Passover Chocolate Nut Cake was a dead giveaway. She always made several for her huge Seder crowds and for noshing all week. Serves 8 to 10    P or D

¼ cup matzoh cake meal, plus extra for dusting the tube pan

2 tablespoons potato starch

2 tablespoons nondairy margarine or unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus extra for greasing the tube pan

¾ cup sugar

8 large eggs, separated

Juice and grated zest of ½ lemon

Pinch of salt

2 cups (8 ounces) walnut halves or pieces, finely chopped

½ cup semisweet chocolate chips, ground

Chocolate Glaze (recipe follows; optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 325°F. Lightly grease a 10-inch tube pan, dust it with matzoh cake meal, and tap out the excess.

2. Sift the cake meal and potato starch together into a small bowl, and set it aside.

3. Beat the margarine with an electric mixer on medium-high speed and gradually add ½ cup of the sugar, scraping the bowl several times, until incorporated, about 2 minutes. Beat in the egg yolks, one at a time, scraping the bowl frequently, until smooth and light, about 3 minutes. Then beat in the lemon juice and zest. Reduce the speed to low and add the cake meal mixture.

4. Using a clean, dry bowl and beaters, beat the egg whites on medium-high speed until foamy, about 45 seconds. Add the salt and beat until soft peaks form. Add the remaining ¼ cup sugar, a tablespoon at a time, beating for 10 seconds after each addition. Continue beating until stiff peaks form, about 6 minutes total. Stir one fourth of the egg whites into the batter to lighten it. Then add the remaining whites in three additions, folding them in until incorporated. Fold in the walnuts and ground chocolate chips.

5. Scrape the batter into the prepared tube pan and bake on the center oven rack until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean, 60 to 65 minutes. The cake will be pale in color and just beginning to brown around the edges. Let the cake cool completely in the pan set on a wire rack. (Do not invert it.)

6. Run a knife around the center tube and the side of the pan, and lift the tube from the outer pan. Gently slide the knife between the bottom of the cake and the pan, and lift the cake off the pan.

7. Glaze the cooled cake, if you like: Place a sheet of waxed paper under a wire rack to catch the spills, and set the cake on the rack. Drizzle the glaze over the cake, allowing some to run down the center and the sides. Refrigerate, uncovered, until the glaze sets, about 30 minutes, then cut into slices and serve.

Chocolate Glaze

While neither Aunt Sally nor Laura ever adorned this cake, I’ve taken the liberty of suggesting this simple glaze. Make it right before glazing the cake. Makes about ½ cup    P or D

2 ounces semisweet chocolate

2 tablespoons nondairy margarine or unsalted butter

Combine the chocolate and margarine in a microwavable bowl and microwave with 30-second bursts at 50% power until barely melted. (Or melt them in a double boiler set over simmering water.) Stir to finish the melting, and use immediately.

—from Laura Seligman

Mama Hinda’s Passover Nut Cake

This was the very first recipe I tested for my cookbook. My mother the sous-chef was on hand in what would become over the next few years her classic pose: chopping nuts, squeezing lemons, and cleaning behind me as I baked. My grandmother, Mama Hinda, died in 1975 at the age of ninety-one. Who knows when she had last baked her Passover Nut Cake? Yet I vividly remembered that moist, nutty cake. I could almost smell it and taste it after all those years.

I took the cake out of the oven, snipped off an edge, and said, “Mom, is this it?” pushing the cake into her mouth. For the first time in her life my mother was speechless. Her eyes became saucers and filled with tears. No words were necessary. Thank you, Aunt Sally, for recording Mama’s recipes in that notebook of yours. Serves 14 to 16    P

1 cup matzoh cake meal

½ cup potato starch

12 eggs, separated

2 cups sugar

1 cup vegetable oil

Juice and grated zest of 1 lemon

¼ cup seltzer

1 cup chopped walnuts (not too finely chopped)

1. Preheat the oven to 325°F. Have ready an ungreased 10-inch tube pan with a removable bottom.

2. Sift the cake meal and potato starch together into a bowl, and set it aside.

3. Beat the egg yolks with an electric mixer on medium-high speed until light, gradually adding 1 cup of the sugar. Beat until the mixture is thick and lemon-colored, 5 to 6 minutes. Reduce the speed to medium-low and gradually add the oil, lemon juice, lemon zest, and seltzer. Gradually blend in the cake meal mixture. Stir in the nuts.

4. Using a clean, dry bowl and beaters, beat the egg whites with an electric mixer on medium speed until soft peaks form. Raise the speed to medium-high and add the remaining 1 cup sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, beating for 10 seconds after each addition, until stiff peaks form, about 9 minutes total. Stir one fourth of the egg whites into the batter to lighten it. Then add the remaining whites in three additions, folding them in until incorporated.

5. Scrape the batter into the tube pan, and bake on the center oven rack until the cake is golden brown, the top springs back when touched, and a cake tester comes out clean, about 1½ hours.

6. Remove the pan from the oven and allow the cake to rest for 30 to 45 seconds. Then invert the pan on its little feet (if your tube pan has them) or over a soda or wine bottle (making sure it sits level), and set it aside until the cake is completely cool.

7. Run a knife around the center tube and the sides of the pan, and lift the tube from the outer pan. Gently slide the knife between the bottom of the cake and the pan, and lift the cake off the pan. Cut into slices and serve.

—from Sally Bower

Passover Pecan Date Torte

Dates and shredded apple make for a dense, moist cake. Dust it with confectioners’ sugar for a regal look. Or top it with fresh strawberries, for a crowning touch. Serves 12 to 14    P

1⅓ cups matzoh cake meal

2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

¼ teaspoon ground cloves

¼ teaspoon ground allspice

Juice and grated zest of 1 lemon

Juice and grated zest of 1 orange

8 large eggs, separated

1¾ cups plus 2 tablespoons sugar

25 pitted dried dates (6½ ounces), diced (see Note)

½ cup toasted chopped pecans

1 medium-size apple, peeled, cored, and finely chopped

Kosher-for-Passover confectioners’ sugar, for dusting

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line the bottom of a 9-inch springform pan with parchment paper.

2. Sift the cake meal, cocoa powder, cinnamon, cloves, and allspice together into a bowl. Set it aside.

3. Measure the lemon juice (up to 3 tablespoons) into a measuring cup. Add enough orange juice to equal ⅓ cup altogether. Reserve the remainder of the orange juice for another use. (Got vodka?) Set the juice mixture aside.

4. Beat the egg yolks and the 1¾ cups sugar with an electric mixer on medium-high speed until the mixture is thick and pale yellow, 2 to 3 minutes. Beat in the lemon and orange zests. Reduce the speed to low and add the cake meal mixture in three additions, alternating with the juice in two additions, beginning and ending with the cake meal. Stir in the dates, pecans, and apples.

5. Using a clean, dry bowl and beaters, beat the egg whites on medium-high speed until soft peaks form. Add the remaining 2 tablespoons sugar, a tablespoon at a time, beating for 10 seconds after each addition, until stiff peaks form, about 5½ minutes total. Stir one fourth of the egg whites into the batter to lighten it. Then add the remaining whites in three additions, folding them in until incorporated.

6. Transfer the batter to the lined springform pan, and bake on the center oven rack until the cake is golden brown and a tester comes out clean, about 1 hour. Let the cake cool in the pan set on a wire rack.

7. When the cake is cool, run a knife around the sides of the pan and release the side. Turn the cake upside down onto a platter and remove the parchment paper. Sprinkle the top with confectioners’ sugar, and serve.

NOTE: While I usually wax poetic over Medjool dates, they are too soft for this recipe. Use ordinary dates, such as Noor.

—from Sally Bower

Too Good to Call Passover Cake Bête Noire (Flourless Chocolate Cake)

Vicki brought this cake to Brad and Tracey’s first Passover in their new home, when Vicki and David were living in San Francisco. She got the recipe from her sister-in-law, Allison Miller Solomon, a chef and caterer, who found it in Lora Brody’s first book, Growing Up on the Chocolate Diet. Bête Noire means “black beast” in French—but how did this creamy, truffle-like slice of chocoholic heaven come by such an ominous name? When I contacted Lora for permission to use the recipe, she explained that it took her hundreds of tries to perfect it. (Her son, who serves it in his restaurant, The Night Kitchen, in Montague, Massachusetts, calls it The Heart of Darkness!) With all due respect to Conrad, testing it might have been brutal for Lora, but it was worth it—this supereasy recipe certainly is no beast for us to prepare. (It is a beast to walk off, however.) Serves 6 to 8    D

8 ounces unsweetened chocolate, very coarsely chopped

4 ounces semisweet chocolate, very coarsely chopped

1⅓ cups sugar

½ pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature, cut into small pieces

5 extra-large eggs

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Butter a 9-inch round cake pan (not a springform), line it with a round of parchment paper, and butter the paper.

2. Place both chocolates in a food processor and process until finely chopped.

3. Combine the sugar and ½ cup water in a saucepan and bring to a rolling boil. Stir to dissolve the sugar.

4. With the processor on, add the boiling sugar syrup to the chocolate through the feed tube. Add the butter, piece by piece, followed by the eggs. Process only until very smooth.

5. Pour the mixture into the prepared cake pan. Set the pan in a larger baking pan, and fill the larger pan with warm water to reach halfway up the side of the cake pan. Carefully transfer the pan to the oven, and bake on the center oven rack until a sharp knife inserted in the center comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes. Remove the cake pan from the larger pan and transfer it to a wire rack to cool for 10 minutes.

6. Run a sharp knife around the edge of the pan. Cover the pan with plastic wrap, and invert it onto a baking sheet. Lift off the pan and peel off the parchment paper. Then invert a cake plate over the cake, and invert the plate and baking sheet together, so the cake is now right side up. Remove the plastic wrap.

7. Serve the cake warm, cold, or at room temperature.

—from Vicki Miller

Chocolate Fudge Pecan Pie

This gooey, fudgy brownie pie, baked in a chocolate cookie crust, is Ronna and Marc’s favorite—so much so that they enjoy it during the rest of the year as well. It’s very rich and very sweet, so delicate portions will do you. You may want to pair this with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream (or nondairy substitutes with a meat meal) to offset the intensity of the chocolate. (Like that’s a bad thing!) Serves 10 to 16    D or P

FOR THE CRUST

Vegetable cooking spray, for greasing the pan

½ cup potato starch

¼ cup matzoh cake meal

¼ cup sugar

¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder

¼ teaspoon salt

Yolk of 1 large egg

6 tablespoons (¾ stick) cold unsalted butter or nondairy margarine, cut into 12 pieces

FOR THE FILLING

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter or nondairy margarine

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

2 large eggs

1 cup sugar

3 tablespoons matzoh cake meal

3 tablespoons potato starch

1 teaspoon kosher-for-Passover vanilla

Pinch of salt

1 cup pecan halves, toasted and finely chopped

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Spray a 9- or 10-inch deep-dish pie plate.

2. Prepare the crust: Combine the potato starch, cake meal, sugar, cocoa powder, and salt in a food processor and process to mix. Add the egg yolk and cold butter, and process until the crust comes together. Press the crust onto the bottom and up the sides (but not on the rim) of the prepared pie plate. Bake until the surface appears dry and barely set, about 8 minutes. Set the pie plate on a wire rack to cool.

3. Prepare the filling: Warm the butter and ½ cup of the chocolate chips in a small saucepan over medium-low heat until barely melted. Remove the pan from the heat and stir to finish melting. Set the mixture aside to cool for 5 to 10 minutes.

4. Whisk the eggs in a medium-size bowl. Add the sugar, cake meal, potato starch, vanilla, and salt, and combine well. Blend in the cooled chocolate mixture. Stir in the remaining ½ cup chocolate chips and ½ cup of the pecans.

5. Spoon the filling into the pie shell and press the remaining pecans lightly onto the surface. Bake on the center oven rack until set, 30 to 35 minutes. Don’t be alarmed if it cracks a bit and puffs. Let the pie cool completely on a wire rack.

6. Cut the pie into thin wedges and serve at room temperature or chilled. (To chill, refrigerate it, covered, for at least 2 hours.)

—from Ronna Wolf

Chocolate Hazelnut Caramel Tart

I adapted this luscious Passover dessert from a tart recipe that Heather learned at a cooking class at De Gustibus in New York with chef John Schenk. I like to use Aunt Sally’s Passover Mandelbrot variation for the crust, but any store-bought crisp Passover cookies will do. Serves 12    P or D

FOR THE CRUST

About 8 ounces crisp Passover cookies, store-bought or homemade (see Variation), processed into crumbs (1¾ cups)

⅓ cup (5⅓ tablespoons) nondairy margarine or unsalted butter, melted

2 tablespoons granulated sugar

FOR THE CHOCOLATE FILLING

3 ounces semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, chopped

5 tablespoons nondairy margarine or unsalted butter

1 large egg

Yolk of 1 large egg

6 tablespoons granulated sugar

¼ teaspoon kosher-for-Passover vanilla

1 tablespoon matzoh cake meal

FOR THE CARAMEL FILLING

⅓ cup (5 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon) nondairy margarine or unsalted butter

⅓ cup (packed) light brown sugar

FOR THE NUT LAYER

½ cup chopped toasted hazelnuts

1. Preheat the oven to 375°F.

2. Prepare the crust: Combine all the crust ingredients in a bowl and stir until well mixed. Press the mixture onto the bottom and side of a 9-inch tart pan with removable bottom (or on the bottom and up about 1 inch on the side of a 9-inch springform pan). Place the tart pan in the refrigerator.

3. Prepare the chocolate filling: Melt the chocolate and margarine in a small saucepan, or in a double boiler set over simmering water, stirring to combine. (Or melt them in a microwave oven with 30-second bursts at 50% power.) Set the mixture aside to cool.

4. Stir the egg, egg yolk, sugar, and vanilla together in a medium-size stainless-steel bowl, and place the bowl over a pan of simmering water. (Warning: Do not set the bowl over the simmering water before adding the eggs or your eggs will cook.) Heat the mixture, stirring it constantly with a heatproof spatula (not a whisk), just until the sugar dissolves. Try not to incorporate any air into the mixture.

5. Remove the egg mixture from the heat and fold in the chocolate mixture. Sift the cake meal over the mixture and fold it in. The chocolate filling can be made up to 4 hours ahead and kept, covered, at room temperature.

6. Prepare the caramel filling: Combine the margarine and brown sugar in a small saucepan and cook over low heat, stirring frequently, until the mixture is thick and syrupy and coats a spoon or whisk, 3 to 5 minutes. Pour the caramel evenly over the bottom crust.

7. Sprinkle the hazelnuts evenly over the caramel. Pour the chocolate filling carefully over the hazelnuts.

8. Bake on the center oven rack until the edges of the filling puff up, 12 to14 minutes. The center will be slightly soft. Let the tart cool on a wire rack for at least 15 minutes before removing it from the pan. Serve warm or at room temperature.

—from Heather Orlow-Choset

Lemon Angel Pie

Aunt Shirley served her Lemon Angel Pie often for company dinners or family get-togethers, but I think it also makes a great Passover dessert, with its meringue shell and tart lemon filling. Serves 8    D or P

FOR THE FILLING

Yolks of 4 large eggs

½ cup sugar

2 teaspoons grated lemon zest

½ cup fresh lemon juice

Pinch of salt

FOR THE PIE SHELL

Solid vegetable shortening, for greasing the pie plate

Whites of 4 large eggs

¼ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon distilled white vinegar

1 cup sugar

FOR THE TOPPING

1 cup heavy (whipping) cream or nondairy whipping cream

2 teaspoons sugar

1. Prepare the filling: Beat the egg yolks and sugar with an electric mixer on medium-high speed until thick and lemon colored, about 1½ minutes. Beat in the lemon zest, juice, and salt. Transfer the mixture to a double boiler set over simmering water and cook, stirring, until thick, about 6 minutes. Remove it from the heat and set it aside to cool. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.

2. Preheat the oven to 275°F. Generously grease a 9- or 10-inch deep-dish pie plate.

3. Prepare the pie shell: Using a clean bowl and beaters, beat the egg whites with an electric mixer on medium-high speed until foamy, about 30 seconds. Add the salt and vinegar, and beat until soft peaks form. Add the sugar, a tablespoon at a time, beating for 10 seconds after each addition, until stiff peaks form, about 3 minutes total.

4. Spread the meringue in the prepared pie plate, mounding it up the sides to form a shell. Bake on the center oven rack until the outside is dry, crisp, and barely beige, 1¼ hours. Set it aside to cool on a wire rack. The crust may be made several hours in advance, but do not refrigerate.

5. Prepare the topping: When ready to serve, beat the cream and sugar with an electric mixer on medium speed until soft peaks form, 1 to 2 minutes.

6. Spread half the whipped cream over the meringue shell. Cover it with the filling, and then top with the remaining whipped cream.

—from Shirley Robbins

Passover Chocolate Chip Mandelbrot

My friend Dede Ginter tested this recipe for me, and her husband Ed’s AK (alter kocker) Poker Club gave these light and crispy cookies eight thumbs up. If a recipe called for chocolate chips, you could always count on Aunt Estelle to use lots. She should have named these Passover Downfall. Enough said. Mom says “ditto.” Makes about 6 dozen    D or P

Parchment paper or vegetable cooking spray, for the baking sheet

½ pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter or nondairy margarine, at room temperature

2 cups sugar

6 large eggs, at room temperature

1 teaspoon kosher-for-Passover vanilla

2½ cups matzoh cake meal

¾ cup potato starch

4 cups (two 12-ounce bags) semisweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or spray it.

2. Cream the butter and sugar with an electric mixer on medium speed until smooth and creamy, about 2 minutes. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, scraping the bowl several times. Then beat in the vanilla. Reduce the speed to low, and add the cake meal and potato starch. Scrape the bowl, and blend just until thoroughly combined. Stir in the chocolate chips. (If the dough feels too sticky to handle even with floured hands, cover it with plastic wrap and refrigerate until it is stiff, 30 minutes to several hours.)

3. Divide the dough into 4 portions. Flour your hands with cake meal, and form each portion into a log the length of the baking sheet. Space the logs evenly on the prepared baking sheet, and bake on the center oven rack until they are golden and the tops are firm to the touch, 30 minutes.

4. Remove the baking sheet from the oven and let the logs cool for 3 minutes. Then, using a serrated knife, cut each log on the diagonal into ¾-inch-thick slices. Place the slices, cut side down, on the baking sheet and bake on the center oven rack until golden brown, 10 minutes. Turn the cookies onto the unbaked side. Turn the oven off and put the baking sheet back in the oven. Leave it there for 15 to 30 minutes for softer mandelbrot, longer for crisper ones. (I leave them in until the oven has cooled completely, as we like them really crisp.) Let the mandelbrot cool completely on the sheet set on a wire rack before serving.

NOTE: If your baking sheet is smaller than 17 × 12 inches, you will need to use two. Position the racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven, and rotate the sheets from top to bottom and front to back halfway through the baking and crisping in Step 4.

VARIATION: For Aunt Sally’s version, use 1 cup vegetable oil instead of the butter, and substitute 2 cups chopped walnuts or almonds for the chocolate chips. This is the version I use to whiz into crumbs for Passover cookie crusts.

—from Estelle Robbins

White Chocolate Sprinkle Cookies

My cousin Marylyn Lamstein’s first grandchild, Taylor, age nine at this writing, is very creative, especially in the kitchen. She came up with this cookie for Seder this year, a variation on mom Shari’s chocolate chip theme, a favorite with all the kids. Makes about 4 dozen    P or D

FOR THE COOKIE

1 cup matzoh cake meal

¾ cup potato starch

1 teaspoon salt

½ pound (2 sticks) nondairy margarine or unsalted butter, at room temperature

¾ cup (packed) dark brown sugar

¾ cup granulated sugar

2 large eggs, at room temperature

2 teaspoons kosher-for-Passover vanilla

FOR THE GLAZE

6 ounces white chocolate

¼ cup nondairy creamer or light cream

Sprinkles, for decorating the tops

1. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Line several baking sheets with parchment paper or leave them ungreased.

2. Sift the cake meal, potato starch, and salt together into a bowl, and set it aside.

3. Cream the margarine and both sugars with an electric mixer on medium speed, just to combine. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well and scraping the bowl after each addition. Beat in the vanilla. Reduce the speed to low and gradually add the cake meal mixture, blending just until combined.

4. Drop rounded teaspoonfuls of the dough, spacing them 1½ inches apart, on the baking sheets. Bake on the center oven rack until the cookies are brown around the edges, 10 to 12 minutes. The centers will be golden and appear soft. Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheet set on a wire rack until they can be safely moved, about 30 seconds. Then transfer them to the rack to cool completely.

5. Prepare the glaze: Combine the white chocolate and the creamer in the top of a double boiler set over simmering water, and heat until the chocolate has melted; stir until the mixture is smooth. Spread the glaze over the cooled cookies, and top with the sprinkles. Let the glaze set for 30 minutes before serving.

—from Taylor Nagy

Judy Zeidler’s Farfel-Nut Thins

I met cookbook author Judy Zeidler eons ago, when she was giving a Passover demonstration at Bristol Farms in Pasadena. Her lacy almond cookies became my daughter-in-law Tracey’s favorite. She made her giant version for their first Passover in their new home and has been doing so every year since. But she has to make lots, because somehow they tend to disappear before the Seder. Tracey says to save the crumbs to sprinkle over ice cream. Makes about 18    P or D

¾ cup sliced almonds

1 tablespoon matzoh cake meal

1 cup matzoh farfel

1 cup sugar

¼ teaspoon salt

8 tablespoons (1 stick) nondairy margarine or unsalted butter, melted

1 large egg, beaten

1 teaspoon kosher-for-Passover vanilla

1. Position the racks in the middle and upper thirds of the oven, and preheat the oven to 325°F. Line two baking sheets with aluminum foil or parchment paper.

2. Combine ½ cup of the almonds and the matzoh cake meal in a food processor, and grind. Set the mixture aside.

3. Combine the matzoh farfel, sugar, and salt in a medium-size mixing bowl, and mix well. Pour the melted margarine over the farfel mixture, and blend until the sugar dissolves. Stir in the egg and vanilla, followed by the remaining ¼ cup almonds and the ground almond mixture, and combine thoroughly.

4. Drop tablespoonfuls of the mixture onto the prepared baking sheets, 4 to 6 to a sheet. (These really spread.) Bake until golden brown, 8 to 10 minutes, rotating the pans top to bottom and front to back after 5 minutes. Slide or lift the foil off the sheets, and let the cookies cool completely. Reline the baking sheets and repeat with the remaining dough. When they have cooled completely, lift them from the foil and serve.

—from Tracey Barrett

Spago Pistachio Macaroon Sandwiches with Chocolate Ganache

You haven’t been to a Seder till you attend the one at Spago—Wolfgang Puck’s glitzy Beverly Hills hangout for the rich and famous—held each year to benefit Mazon, the international hunger relief organization. Family and friends joined me a few years ago when I covered the event for the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles. (Some journalists cover the waterfront. I cover the matzoh.)

Pastry chef Sherry Yard, whose book The Secrets of Baking: Simple Techniques for Sophisticated Desserts took the coveted James Beard Award in 2004, shared her recipe for what she calls her Menagerie of Macaroons. “At Spago our pasta is made with egg yolks,” she told me, “so we are always challenged to create dishes with egg whites. If you could build a house out of meringue, I would!”

While Yard uses almonds, I opt for pistachios for these yummy green sandwich cookies with their rich chocolate filling. Makes about 20    D or P

FOR THE CHOCOLATE GANACHE FILLING

8 ounces semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, chopped

½ cup heavy (whipping) cream or nondairy whipping cream

FOR THE COOKIE

2 cups (about 8 ounces) shelled, unsalted pistachio nuts, toasted

½ cup kosher-for-Passover confectioners’ sugar

⅛ teaspoon salt

Whites of 3 large eggs, at room temperature

⅛ teaspoon cream of tartar (see Note)

3 tablespoons granulated sugar

¼ teaspoon almond extract

5 drops green food coloring

1. Prepare the chocolate ganache filling: Place the chocolate in a heatproof bowl. Bring the cream to a boil in a small saucepan over medium heat. Pour the hot cream over the chocolate, stirring gently until melted and smooth. Cover and refrigerate until the ganache is cool and thick but still spreadable, about 1 hour. (If made in advance, cover and refrigerate for up to 1 week. Let it sit at room temperature until it is spreadable but still cool.)

2. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 325°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

3. Prepare the cookies: Combine the cooled pistachios, confectioners’ sugar, and salt in a food processor, and pulse until the nuts are finely ground. Transfer the mixture to a large mixing bowl and set it aside.

4. Beat the egg whites with an electric mixer on medium-high speed until foamy, about 30 seconds. Add the cream of tartar, if using, and beat until soft peaks form. Add the granulated sugar, a tablespoon at a time, beating for 10 seconds after each addition, until stiff peaks form, about 3 minutes total. Add the almond extract and food coloring, and beat for 30 seconds more. The meringue will appear dark, but it will fade when baked.

5. Stir about one fourth of the meringue into the pistachio mixture until it is evenly moistened. Then add the remaining meringue in three additions, folding it in gently. Drop tablespoons of the mixture, 1 inch apart, onto the prepared baking sheets. Use the back of a spoon to spread them out to form 1- to 1½-inch-wide rounds.

6. Bake, one sheet at a time, on the center oven rack until the cookies are just firm to the touch and lightly browned at the edges, 20 to 25 minutes. Let the cookies cool completely on the baking sheets set on wire racks. Then carefully remove them from the parchment. (If made in advance, the cookies can be stored in an airtight plastic container at room temperature for up to 3 days.)

7. Spread a scant tablespoon of the ganache filling over the flat sides of half of the cookies. Place the remaining cookies on top, flat side down, pressing gently to form a sandwich.

8. The cookies are best served the same day they are filled.

NOTE: If you can’t find kosher-for-Passover cream of tartar, it may be omitted during Passover.

Chocolate Macaroons

If your only experience with macaroons is those coconut pellets that come in a can, you’re in for a big surprise. These are rich and chocolatey, with the coconut augmenting rather than overpowering the chocolate. Makes about 6 dozen    P

2 cups (12 ounces) semisweet or bittersweet chocolate chips

Parchment paper or vegetable cooking spray, for the baking sheets

Whites of 4 large eggs

Pinch of salt

1 cup sugar

2 teaspoons kosher-for-Passover vanilla

½ teaspoon fresh lemon juice

1½ cups sweetened flaked or shredded coconut

1. Melt the chocolate in a double boiler set over simmering (not boiling) water. Remove the pan from the heat and set it aside to cool.

2. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or lightly grease it. (If two baking sheets will fit side by side on your oven rack, use two.)

3. Beat the egg whites with an electric mixer on medium-high speed until foamy, about 30 seconds. Add the salt and beat until soft peaks form. Add the sugar, a tablespoon at a time, beating for 10 seconds after each addition, until stiff peaks form, about 3 minutes total. Beat in the vanilla and lemon juice. Fold in the coconut and melted chocolate until thoroughly blended.

4. Drop teaspoonfuls of the batter, 1 inch apart, on the prepared baking sheet (the batter will stiffen as it stands, but it’s nothing to worry about). Bake on the center oven rack until the macaroons puff up, 10 to 13 minutes. Don’t allow the edges to get brown or they will be overdone. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet set on a wire rack until they can be safely moved, 1 to 2 minutes. Then transfer them to the rack to cool completely.

5. Repeat, baking and cooling the remaining macaroons. Once cooled, they are ready to serve.

—from Barbara Straus

Joan Friedman’s Chocolate Meringues

When my mom’s friend Joan gave her this recipe, she assured her it would be easy. Maybe in Joan’s family. Everyone in ours likes them a different way, from ooey-gooey (that would be me!), to barely set (my brother, Gary), to crisp and well-done (my husband, Barry, who faints at the sight of rare roast beef, so why should meringues be any different?). You’ll never see place cards at Mom’s table (“Oh, just sit where you want”), but only at Mom’s are the meringues labeled! Makes at least 3 dozen    P

1 cup (6 ounces) chocolate chips

½ teaspoon kosher-for-Passover vanilla

Parchment paper or vegetable cooking spray, for the baking sheets

Whites of 2 large eggs

⅛ teaspoon distilled white vinegar

½ cup sugar

¾ cup walnuts, chopped

1. Melt the chocolate in a double boiler set over simmering water. Stir in the vanilla, and set it aside to cool.

2. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or grease it. (If two baking sheets will fit side by side on your oven rack, use two.)

3. Beat the egg whites with an electric mixer on medium-high speed until foamy, about 30 seconds. Add the vinegar and beat until soft peaks form. Add the sugar, a tablespoon at a time, beating for 10 seconds after each addition, until stiff peaks form, about 2 minutes total. Gently fold in the melted chocolate, followed by the chopped walnuts.

4. Drop rounded teaspoonfuls of the batter, about 1 inch apart, on the prepared baking sheet (the batter will stiffen as it stands, but it’s nothing to worry about). Bake on the center oven rack until the cookies are puffed, about 10 minutes for a gooey chocolate center, a minute or so longer for a crisper cookie. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet set on a wire rack until they can be safely moved, 1 to 2 minutes. Then transfer them to the rack to cool completely.

5. Repeat, baking and cooling the remaining cookies. Once cooled, they are ready to serve.

—from Lillian Bart

My favorite Passover story came several years ago from Gershon Padwa, Barry’s distant cousin in Antwerp, Belgium, who then had nine children (at this writing there are 12), in an e-mail that began this way:

“Dear Judy –

I’m so sorry I haven’t written in such a long time. My parents came to stay with us for Pesach and my in-laws too. We also had some cousins staying here with their children, but today everyone cleared out and I’m looking forward to a nice quiet evening with just the eleven of us.”

Pecan Cookies

Hard to believe that with no added fat, these crisp cookies from cousin Marilyn’s sister-in-law taste so buttery, like a butterscotch crisp. Makes about 3 dozen    P

Parchment paper or vegetable cooking spray, for the baking sheet

2 cups pecans, plus about 3 dozen pecan halves for topping the cookies

1 cup (packed) light brown sugar

Pinch of salt

White of 1 large egg

1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice

1. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or generously grease it.

2. Combine the 2 cups pecans and 2 tablespoons of the brown sugar in a food processor, and process until the nuts are finely chopped.

3. Combine the chopped pecans, remaining brown sugar, and salt in a bowl. Add the egg white (unbeaten) and lemon juice, and stir until thoroughly combined. Drop rounded teaspoonfuls of the mixture, about 1½ inches apart, on the prepared baking sheet. Press a pecan half into each cookie.

4. Bake on the center oven rack until the cookies are golden brown around the edges, 8 to 11 minutes. Watch the bottoms, as they burn easily. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet set on a wire rack until they can be safely moved, 1 to 2 minutes. Then transfer them to the rack to cool completely.

5. Repeat, baking and cooling the remaining cookies, and serve.

—from Inez Swartz

Rita Berlin’s Mock Oatmeal Cookies

Our friendship with Rita goes back more than thirty years. The night her husband, Stew, learned that my dad was Jan Bart, he unearthed a signed 8 × 10 glossy from his busboy days in the Catskills! Over the years we’ve shared more than recipes—the simchas and tsurris that bind a friendship. These cookies really remind you of oatmeal cookies, but crisper and with a whisper of cinnamon. They’re great as is, but for fancy snacking, move them onto that doily with a chocolate or white chocolate glaze. Makes about 4 dozen    P

Parchment paper, vegetable oil, or vegetable cooking spray, for the baking sheet

1 cup matzoh meal

1 cup matzoh farfel

½ cup sugar

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon salt

2 large eggs

½ cup vegetable oil

½ cup chopped walnuts

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or grease it. (If two baking sheets will fit side-by-side on your oven rack, use two.)

2. Combine the matzoh meal, farfel, sugar, cinnamon, and salt in a medium-size bowl.

3. Beat the eggs with a fork in a separate bowl until foamy, and then beat in the oil. Add the egg mixture to the matzoh meal mixture, and combine well. Fold in the nuts.

4. Drop rounded teaspoonfuls of the dough onto the prepared baking sheet, and flatten them slightly. They don’t spread, so they can be placed close together, but without touching. Bake on the center oven rack until the cookies are golden brown on the bottom and edges, about 15 minutes. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet set on a wire rack until they can be safely moved, about 1 minute. Then transfer them to the rack to cool completely.

5. Repeat, baking and cooling the remaining cookies. Once cooled, they are ready to serve.

—from Lillian Bart

Passover Apricot Squares

These are easy cookies with a rich crust, gooey fruit filling, and nutty streusel topping. Marlene (cousin Joyce’s machatenista) prefers apricot, but you can choose raspberry or any other flavor you like. Can’t decide? Swirl two for squares as pretty to look at as they are delicious to eat. Makes 32    P or D

½ pound (2 sticks) unsalted nondairy margarine or butter, at room temperature, plus extra for greasing the baking pan

1 cup sugar

Yolks of 2 large eggs

2 teaspoons grated lemon zest

1 teaspoon kosher-for-Passover vanilla

¼ teaspoon salt

2 cups matzoh cake meal

1 jar (12 ounces) apricot preserves

¾ cup chopped walnuts

1. Preheat the oven to 325°F. Grease a 13 × 9-inch glass baking pan.

2. Cream the margarine and sugar with an electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add the egg yolks and continue beating until well combined, scraping the bowl as necessary. Then add the lemon zest, vanilla, and salt. Reduce the speed to medium-low and add the cake meal, beating until combined.

3. Press about two thirds of the mixture over the bottom of the prepared baking pan and bake on the center oven rack for 20 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and spread the preserves evenly over the crust. Sprinkle the walnuts over the preserves, and crumble the remaining dough over the top. Bake until the topping feels set and is beginning to turn golden, 30 to 35 minutes. (Check the bottoms. They should be just beginning to turn golden too.) Cool in the baking pan set on a wire rack. Then cut into squares and serve.

—from Marlene Mutzman

Helen Rubin’s Brownies

The highest compliment one can pay a Passover dessert is to say, “It’s so good, I make it all year.” That’s exactly what Holly’s note read. These are really fudgy brownies that those guys on Madison Avenue must have had in mind when they penned “Got milk?” Makes 16 to 20    P

Vegetable oil or vegetable cooking spray, for greasing the pan

½ cup plus 1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder

1 cup vegetable oil

¼ cup cold coffee or water

2 cups sugar

4 large eggs, lightly beaten

1 teaspoon almond-flavored liqueur

¼ teaspoon salt

1 cup matzoh cake meal

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease an 8-inch square cake pan.

2. Whisk the cocoa powder with the oil and coffee in a medium-size bowl until smooth.

3. Add the sugar, eggs, liqueur, salt, and cake meal, in that order, incorporating each before adding the next. Stir until smooth.

4. Transfer the batter to the prepared pan and bake on the center oven rack until the cake begins to pull away from the edges of the pan and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out barely clean, 35 to 40 minutes. Let the brownies cool in the pan set on a wire rack before cutting.

VARIATION: My friend Barbara Queen substitutes ¼ cup ground almonds for ¼ cup of the matzoh cake meal.

—from Holly Grippo

Linda Gomberg’s Mocha Nut Bars

My friends and I have been making Linda’s bars every Passover since she submitted them to our Heritage Pointe cookbook a million years ago. These thin brownie-like bars, with a hint of coffee, are equally at home on your grand finale dessert buffet or at a coffee-and-gab fest with “the girls” (and we do!). Makes 32 to 40    P or D

2 ounces semisweet chocolate

8 tablespoons (1 stick) nondairy margarine or unsalted butter, plus extra for greasing the cake pans

1 teaspoon instant coffee granules

¼ teaspoon salt

2 large eggs, at room temperature

1 cup sugar

½ cup matzoh cake meal

½ cup chopped walnuts

1. Preheat the oven to 325°F. Generously grease two 9-inch square cake pans.

2. Melt the chocolate and margarine in a double boiler set over simmering water, or in a microwave oven in 30-second bursts at 50% power. Stir in the coffee granules and salt, and set the mixture aside to cool.

3. Beat the eggs and sugar together in a medium-size bowl. Blend in the cooled chocolate mixture. Gradually stir in the cake meal. Divide the mixture between the prepared cake pans and level it evenly (yet another reason to buy that offset spatula). Sprinkle the walnuts over the top.

4. Bake on the center oven rack until the brownies are barely set in the middle and the edges are just beginning to pull away from the pan, 15 to 18 minutes. Immediately cut into squares. Then set the pan on a wire rack to cool before serving.

Chocolate-Covered Matzoh Toffee

No matter how many other desserts I’m serving, I’ve got to make Robin’s Matzoh Toffee. Sometimes the easiest is the best. You just heat butter and brown sugar, pour it over matzoh, and bake, then melt chocolate over the whole shebang. My daughter-in-law Shelly tells me her Grandma Ilo used to make the same thing on the farm, using saltines or graham crackers. Makes … not enough!    D or P

About 4 boards matzoh

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter or nondairy margarine

1 cup (packed) dark brown sugar

2 cups (12 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips

½ cup walnut pieces, toasted and chopped (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 450°F. Line a 17 × 11-inch baking pan with aluminum foil or parchment paper.

2. Arrange the matzoh in the prepared pan in a single layer, breaking them, if necessary, to fill all the spaces.

3. Combine the butter and brown sugar in a small saucepan over medium heat, and bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Cook until thick and syrupy, about 3 minutes.

4. Pour the toffee mixture over the matzoh and spread it out evenly. Bake until bubbly, 4 minutes.

5. Remove the pan from the oven and sprinkle the chocolate chips over the toffee layer. Bake for 1 minute more. Then remove the pan from the oven and set it aside until the chocolate has melted, about 5 minutes. Spread the melted chocolate out evenly. Sprinkle with the walnuts, if using. Refrigerate until the chocolate is firm, 30 minutes to 1 hour.

6. Cut or break into pieces. And don’t throw away those leftover crumbs. My friend Joanne says they’re awesome over ice cream.

—from Robin Kancigor Boyko

Grandma Ruchel’s Pesach Carrot Candy

Grandma Ruchel Strausser, who died when I was sixteen, was my dad’s (and Aunt Isabelle’s) mother. She was a very sweet lady, quite religious, a cook in the Galician tradition. In Poland she worked in her sister’s bakery, and we can still taste her butter cookies, which melted in your mouth.

A few years ago my brother, Gary, and I made a pilgrimage to her old apartment in Brooklyn, which we hadn’t seen since we were kids. Unbelievably, the present tenants let us in. I was flooded with memories of Grandma Ruchel, prayer book in hand, bowing and praying as she faced the Tam Tam cabinet, which I as a child assumed were holy crackers. (I did not know she was facing east.) In that very room she made her chicken soup, complete with chicken feet and little chick eggs. (Can you even buy them anymore?) There I watched her stretching strudel dough on a card table laid out with tea towels. The butter cookies are lost forever, but Aunt Isabelle remembered these (mainly because it was her job to shred the carrots). Makes about 6 dozen    P

2 pounds carrots, finely shredded

2½ cups sugar

½ cup orange juice

Grated zest of 1 orange

1 to 2 teaspoons ground ginger, or to taste

½ teaspoon salt

2 cups whole natural almonds, toasted and chopped

1. Place the carrots, sugar, orange juice, orange zest, ginger, and salt in a medium-size, heavy-bottomed pot and bring to a steady simmer over medium heat. Simmer, uncovered, until the mixture is very thick, 1¼ to 1½ hours. Stir the mixture occasionally during the first hour; then, during the last 15 to 30 minutes, stir often and watch carefully that the mixture does not scorch. As soon as the color changes from orange to reddish-brown, remove the pot from the heat and stir in the chopped almonds.

2. Grease a baking sheet with vegetable oil, or dampen a wooden cutting board. Spread the hot carrot-nut mixture about ¼-inch thick over the prepared baking sheet. Let it cool slightly, and then cut it into 1- to 1½-inch diamond shapes. Let them cool completely.

3. Store the candy, with waxed paper between the layers, in an airtight container at room temperature. It will keep until Shavuot!

—from Isabelle Frankel

Imberlach (Ginger Candy)

Imber means “ginger” in Yiddish. I tried many recipes from old cookbooks, hoping to re-create Grandma Ruchel’s spicy, distinctively Passover ginger candy. Finally, when I tried this one from my friend Wendy Baker, decades instantly dissolved, and once again I was a child of nine in Grandma Ruchel’s kitchen, my tongue burning from the pungent ginger, jaws aching, but reaching for just one more piece. The recipe was brought from Russia by Wendy’s great-grandmother, who passed it down to her grandmother, Sophie. Makes 3 dozen    P

FOR THE CANDY

2 pounds honey

4½ cups matzoh farfel

1 cup chopped hazelnuts, or more as needed

4 teaspoons ground ginger, or to taste

FOR THE TOPPING

¼ cup chopped hazelnuts

About ¼ teaspoon ground ginger

1. Prepare the candy: Bring the honey to a boil in a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan over high heat. Gradually stir in the farfel. Add the hazelnuts and ginger, and stir until thick, about 3 minutes. Watch it like a hawk (Grandma Sophie’s words) so it doesn’t burn.

2. Reduce the heat to medium-low and very carefully add ¼ cup water. Stir constantly until the mixture is brown and almost too thick to stir. This can take 10 to 30 minutes, depending on the water content of the honey and how hard you want the finished product to be.

3. Dampen a wooden cutting board, and transfer the candy to it. Dip your hands in ice water, and using your palms, spread the hot candy out ¼ inch thick. Sprinkle the hazelnuts and ginger on top, and cut it into diamond shapes.

4. The candy will keep for weeks in an airtight plastic container at room temperature.

—from Ruchel Strausser

Stuffed Prunes

Passover, 1975. It seemed like a good idea: I’d introduce the subject of prayer to my religious school class by asking my eager, precocious teenagers to write a telegram to God. I expected thank-you’s and gimme’s. Imagine my reaction to this: “Dear God stop please send prunes stop this matzoh is killing me!”

I’ve never looked at a board of matzoh since (nor a prune, for that matter) without thinking of Michael Porter (of blessed memory).

What a lovely ending to a beautiful meal: stuffed purple prunes layered with sunny lemon slices and perfumed with cloves—a nice dessert anytime, but particularly welcome at Passover. It looks dazzling on the table in its own dish, or you can place two cooked prunes each into foil candy cups and garnish them with the lemon. Serves 8 to 12    P

2 lemons, thinly sliced

3 whole cloves

1 pound large pitted prunes

About 1 cup walnut halves, toasted

1 cup sugar

1. Line the bottom of a large skillet with the lemon slices and cloves.

2. Fill the cavity of the prunes with 1 or 2 walnut halves, and arrange the stuffed prunes over the lemon slices.

3. Combine 1½ cups water and the sugar in a small saucepan, and bring to a boil. Pour this syrup over the prunes. Cover the skillet and boil gently for 10 to 12 minutes. Uncover and cook, basting often, until the liquid has almost evaporated, about 5 minutes more.

4. Arrange the cooked prunes and lemon slices in a single layer in an 11 × 7-inch glass dish, and allow to cool. (Discard the cloves.) Serve at room temperature.

—from Irene Rosenthal

MORE ON COOKING KOSHER

I am not an expert on kashrut. I don’t even play one on TV. Fortunately I’ve made many friends who are! Special thanks to Rabbi Eliezer Eidlitz at www.kosherquest.org, Arlene Mathes-Scharf of www.kashrut.com, and Brian Mailman, Wendy Baker, and members of the Jewish Food List (www.jewishfood-list.com) for answering my endless questions. I continue to learn from all of them.

The rabbis have been debating many aspects of the kosher laws for centuries. Orthodox Jews follow stricter guidelines than conservatives do. Some laws are different in Israel than they are in the U.S. Different communities observe different rules, so it’s best to consult your own rabbinical authority on matters of question.

Generally speaking, the kosher laws are as follows:

• Only animals that have cloven hooves and chew their cud—such as cattle, sheep, goats, and deer—are permitted.

• Only fish that have fins and scales are permitted. Shellfish is forbidden.

• Only birds that do not scavenge—such as chicken, geese, ducks, and turkeys—are permitted.

• Rodents, reptiles, amphibians, and insects are forbidden.

• Any product derived from forbidden animals, such as their milk, eggs, fat, or organs, is forbidden.

• Permitted animals and birds must be slaughtered humanely according to Jewish law.

• The blood of mammals and birds is forbidden. Some blood is drained during slaughter, the remainder by salting or broiling. An egg that contains a blood spot is forbidden.

• The sciatic nerve and its adjoining blood vessels, as well as a kind of fat known as chelev, which surrounds the vital organs and the liver, are forbidden. Because removal of the sciatic nerve is time-consuming, most American slaughterers sell the hind quarters to nonkosher butchers.

• Meat (fleishig in Yiddish) and dairy (milchig) foods must be separated, as must anything they come in contact with, such as utensils, pots, pans, plates, flatware, dishwashers, dishpans, even drying towels.

• Foods that contain neither meat nor dairy ingredients are pareve (neutral) and may be eaten with anything.

• All fruits, grains, and vegetables in their natural state are kosher and pareve.

• Grape products, such as wine and grape juice, must be certified kosher.

• Store-bought prepackaged foods must be identified by a hechsher (a symbol from a reputable rabbinical certifying agency).

• Some communities follow the tradition of not mixing fish and meat on the same plate and will use a non-fish Worcestershire sauce product in meat dishes.

Nondairy Substitutes

Because the laws of kashrut demand that dairy products and meat cannot be mixed, kosher cooks are always on the lookout for pareve (neutral) ingredients to use with meat meals. When cooking with meat, some kosher cooks will substitute oil, nondairy margarine, or shortening for butter. Instead of milk, cream, sour cream, and cheese, they will substitute nondairy creamer, nondairy sour cream, coconut milk, or after Passover, soy products (such as soy milk, cream, sour cream, or cheese, and tofu and its derivatives). They will use vegetarian meat substitutes with dairy meals.

Have a Second Helping

For Judy Bart Kancigor, Jewish cooking is a cherished and boisterous tradition, alive with taste sensations and memories. In her wonderful book, four years in the making, she sets down her clan’s heirloom recipes for posterity.

COOKING JEWISH: 532 Great Recipes from the Rabinowitz Family

A celebratory saga of cousins, kasha, and kugel, featuring recipes from five generations of a food-obsessed family. There’s real homemade gefilte fish. Grandma Sera Fritkin’s Russian Brisket and Hazelnut-Crusted Rack of Lamb. Borscht, blintzes, matzoh balls, and oh-so-much more. For cooks with a sweet tooth, dozens and dozens of desserts: pies, cakes, cookies, bars, and a multitude of cheesecakes; Rugelach and Hamantaschen, Mandelbrot and Sufganyot (Hanukkah jelly doughnuts). Not to mention Tanta Esther Gittel’s Husband’s Second Wife Lena’s Nut Cake. Accompanying the recipes are a panoply of stories from the Rabinowitz family and more than 500 photographs reaching back to the 19th century, inviting readers not just into the kitchen, but into a vibrant world of family and friends.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: A freelance food writer and columnist for the Orange County Register, Judy Bart Kancigor started Cooking Jewish as a family project. She is a popular teacher of Jewish cooking and family life, and speaks at synagogues, women’s organizations, and cooking schools. She lives with her husband, Barry, in Fullerton, California. To find out more about Judy, click through to www.cookingjewish.com.

ABOUT THIS E-BOOK: Workman Shorts is a line of subject-specific e-books curated from a library of trusted books and authors. To learn more about Workman Publishing, please visit our website at www.workman.com.

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

Copyright Page

Contents

Introduction

Getting Started: A Passover Checklist

Ashkenazi Haroset

Sephardic Haroset

Yemenite Haroset Truffles

Goat Cheese and Pine Nut Mini Cheesecakes with Cranberry Haroset

Gefilte Fish

Lou Bower’s Horseradish for the Holidays

Salmon Gefilte Fish

Mama Hinda’s Passover Noodles

Beet Eingemacht (Preserves)

Chicken Soup (Jewish Penicillin)

And What About the Chicken?

Matzoh Balls (Knaidlach)

Shiitake Mushroom Matzoh Balls

Mahogany Chicken with Figs and Cranberries

Sephardic Chicken with Olives and Honey

Moroccan Spicy Apricot Lamb Shanks

My Mom’s Killer Brisket with Tsimmes

Mina de Espinaka (Matzoh, Spinach & Cheese Pie)

Elaine Asa’s Spinach Lasagna

Matzoh Stuffing

Garden Veggie Matzoh Schalat (Kugel)

Apple Matzoh Schalat (Kugel)

Apricot Matzoh Kugel

Oma’s Bubbelach

Passover Bagels

Matzoh Meal Rolls

Passover Fruity Muffins

Matzoh Brei

Banana Cheese Chremslach (Fritters)

Baking For Passover

My Best Passover Sponge Cake

Lemon Fluff

Estelle’s Famous Passover Sponge Cake

Strawberry Cream Filling

Chocolate Frosting

Passover Banana Sponge Cake

Grandma Sally’s Passover Chocolate Nut Cake

Chocolate Glaze

Mama Hinda’s Passover Nut Cake

Passover Pecan Date Torte

Too Good to Call Passover Cake Bête Noire (Flourless Chocolate Cake)

Chocolate Fudge Pecan Pie

Chocolate Hazelnut Caramel Tart

Lemon Angel Pie

Passover Chocolate Chip Mandelbrot

White Chocolate Sprinkle Cookies

Judy Zeidler’s Farfel-Nut Thins

Spago Pistachio Macaroon Sandwiches with Chocolate Ganache

Chocolate Macaroons

Joan Friedman’s Chocolate Meringues

Pecan Cookies

Rita Berlin’s Mock Oatmeal Cookies

Passover Apricot Squares

Helen Rubin’s Brownies

Linda Gomberg’s Mocha Nut Bars

Chocolate-Covered Matzoh Toffee

Grandma Ruchel’s Pesach Carrot Candy

Imberlach (Ginger Candy)

Stuffed Prunes

More on Cooking Kosher