Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site bu-cs.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!whuxlm!harpo!decvax!genrad!panda!talcott!harvard!bu-cs!root From: root@bu-cs.UUCP (Barry Shein) Newsgroups: net.cooks Subject: Re: Authentic Jewish recipes? Message-ID: <623@bu-cs.UUCP> Date: Sat, 7-Sep-85 16:29:39 EDT Article-I.D.: bu-cs.623 Posted: Sat Sep 7 16:29:39 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 9-Sep-85 03:23:10 EDT References: <1985@amdahl.UUCP> Organization: Boston Univ Comp. Sci. Lines: 140 First, those that don't like my intuitive, rambling recipes can leave the room now, go get one of the cook books. 1. Latkes: Start frying a bunch of onions in oil till golden brown, just put aside if they get done first, no harm if they cool for this. How much depends on taste, ya know, fry a few chopped onions, try a cup or two. Or just add chopped raw to the recipe below, not that much difference. Take a bunch of potatoes and shred or grate them into a bowl (those four sided knuckle busters are traditional, not too many cuisinarts in the shtetl, but you can take your chances :-) You should notice massive amounts of liquid, depending on the potatoes you use, get rid of as much as you can (squeezing clumps over the sink as you transfer the mess into another bowl works, delicate flowers could try cheese cloth or colanders.) Add a few eggs, whole, to the potatoes (use your common sense, say one large egg for every quart of potato mush.) Add some salt and pepper (I guess optional) to the mush. Add the fried onions [say the following to all present: "if you put fried onions on s**t I would probably eat it"] Correct to a reasonable consistency with (preferably) potato meal (available in supermarkets if they have a 'jewish' section or I guess any flour, you won't use much as we're just correcting consistency here, not trying to rise or anything, don't be dumb and use self-rising flour or some such, that's not flour.) By reasonable consistency I mean just that you can make patties. Heat some oil in a skillet, make oval, flat patties about 3" X 4-5" by less than 1/2" thick, or circular or who cares. Just make them thin enough that they fry through before they burn (remember, we're working with raw potatoes here.) Maybe drain, serve with sour cream and/or apple sauce. 2. Matzo Brie (no relation to cheese, just a transliteration of a word I have only heard spoken, mabye 'Bry' is closer? rhymes with dry.): Take a bunch of matzo, break it up,soak it in water, drain it, add a few eggs, add some salt, mush it together, fry it as one large 1" thick pancake in a medium fry pan, gather everyone around to be amused as you hopelessly try to flip it, remark how it tastes the same even if you did break it. Serve with sugar or maybe jam, or just plain. A breakfast dish usually. 3. CHICKEN SOUP (interferon optional :-) Take some backs, wings, necks, ya know, cheap parts (I remember little feet, blecch, they loved em), cover with water (lotsa chicken in a big pot, double the height or less with water.) Start it boiling very slowly. Add whole, small (yellow) onions, quarter them if too large, add carrot chunks, celery, a little parsely, they used to throw in some kind of large white turnip or something, I never have tho. Let it simmer a couple of hours, add some salt. Serve over boiled egg noodles. I hate the resulting boiled chicken parts, do what you like with them. (chicken salad? garbage disposal salad?) If you're smart you'll get a recipe for kreplach to go in the soup (ground meat filled dough boiled with the soup) or knaidlach (dumplings I think, I don't believe I've ever had a 'dumpling', hmm, dough balls boiled with the soup.) 4. Chopped liver Fry up a bunch of chicken livers and onions (lotsa onions), boil some eggs (just a few.) Cool, mash it all together (they used to use a big wooden bowl with one of those two-bladed hand held choppers.) Traditionally, this would be fried in chicken fat (known as schmalz, hence the word you may have heard, also, if you render your own the solid fried stuff you scoop out and put on bread is called grivenes [griv-eh-nuhs], not my favorite.) Serve it with crackers on individual beds of lettuce or whatever. -- Just a list of dishes I grew up with you may want to look in indices for (I could probably manage these on my own, but I doubt I would write them down right): 1. Blintzes - sort of a sour cream/farmer's cheese filled crepe. 2. Tzimmes (warning: starts with beef and prunes as ingredients) 3. Chalent (I dunno why people write it this way, we pronounced it Chunt, warning: overnight cooking of a meat, to avoid having to cook on saturday.) 4. Unfortunately, many potted meat and chicken recipes. 5. Ptcharr (I think this is more a russian dish...warning: involves boiling calves feet to get a jelly out and then adding massive amounts of garlic and serving cold...hah! I dare you.) 6. Cold jellied Carp, sweet with prunes and carrots, a warning shouldn't be necessary. 7. Potato Kugel - sort of like a latke mash baked in a casserole 8. Knishes - dough wrapped mashed potatoes or kasha (see below) 9. Borscht (cold beet soup), esp with sour cream or boiled potato, sometimes used more generically for various cabbage soups I am told. 10. Schav, not sure, cold beet green soup? I hated it. 11. Gefilte Fish - ground fish balls, served cold (usually pike, carp mixtures.) Served with horseradish (Charein), eh. 12. Sweet and sour (as in prunes and citric acid, bought crystallized) cabbage soups. 13. Stuffed Cabbage (large cabbage leaves stuffed with ground beef mixed with rice, tomato juice in the boiling liquid, raisins and citric acid involved, get a recipe, german also) 14. Various boring roasted chickens 15. Various non-meat menus, like herring in cream sauce w/ onions, cheeses, dark breads (rye, pumpernickel, bagels), lox, cream cheeese etc, served buffet style.) 16. Stuffed Derma (Kishke) - fried, potato filled intestine, its actually great, I think if you buy it you'll just get something akin to the skin they use for frankfurters which may ease your mind. 18. Kasha - 'buckwheat groats' is what they may be called, I have no idea what a 'groat' is. You fry some onions in a big pot and then stir fry the dry 'groats' (I am amusing myself with the word) as you mix in a scrambled egg, add water like you would for rice, boil till absorbed, serve with gravy and maybe boiled 'bowtie' pasta (all together sometimes known as Kasha Varnishkes, someone once told me Kasha is russian for 'garbage', can't imagine why the relation, a very innocous dish, probably a lie.) First, my background is Russian (orthodox, kosher), so opinions here may vary, at the very least this is all Ashkenazic (east european.) Sephardic, native isreali dishes are vastly different. I guess some of this may be actually american jewish, but I was not that far removed from the 'old people'. Second, big deal. I like a lot of the stuff, but it really ain't the best cuisine in my opinion, just very practical dishes with maybe some weird ideas about spicing (citric acid??) I guess the various cold fish dishes are an exception here, I love 'em and they certainly aren't std american fare (and they are barely 'jewish', all identified with the countries they lived in.) Also remember recipes were often driven by dietary laws, custom and poverty. We all know the good lord gifted the chinese and italians with the great recipes :-):-), enjoy. -Barry Shein, Boston University