1,000 Jewish Recipes (147 page)
Read 1,000 Jewish Recipes Online
Authors: Faye Levy
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon vegetable oil or chicken fat (optional)
1
â
2
teaspoon salt
1
â
2
teaspoon paprika (optional)
Freshly ground pepper, to taste
2
â
3
cup matzo meal
2 tablespoons water
1.
Beat eggs with oil if using, salt, paprika if using, and pepper in a small bowl. Stir in matzo meal. Mixture should be just firm enough to hold together in a roughly shaped ball. If mixture is too firm, gradually beat in 1 or 2 tablespoons water.
2.
With wet hands, shape kneidel mixture into a ball and add to cholent.
Many Moroccan Jews call their rich and filling all-night Shabbat stew
schinah
, from the Hebrew word
shchinah
, which means divine presence, which is said to descend on the home that serves this dish for Shabbat.
There is great variety in the recipes for this dish, from simple to very elaborate. Most are made of beef, chickpeas, potatoes, and hard boiled eggs in a savory sauce. Some also include other beans, lentils, or bulgur wheat. Sweet potatoes are another popular ingredient, instead of or in addition to white potatoes, as in this version from Moroccan-born Dvorah Alon, my neighbor's mother. Some cooks spice their
dafina
with saffron, turmeric, or cumin, and some accent it with a hint of sweetness, using honey, jam, sugar, dates, dried apricots, or prunes to mellow the flavor of the sauce.
Rice steamed in the meat's juices is a favorite addition. Mrs. Alon sometimes adds lentils or dried black-eyed peas to the rice. Traditionally the rice or rice-bean mixture is tied in a piece of cloth. Today many cooks put it in a roasting bag and pierce a few holes in the bag for the steam.
2 cups dried chickpeas (garbanzo beans) or white beans, sorted and rinsed
2 to 2
1
â
2
pounds beef chuck, brisket, or short ribs, trimmed of excess fat and cut into large chunks or 2-inch pieces
2 marrow bones (optional)
8 small boiling potatoes, peeled and left whole
1
1
â
2
pounds small sweet potatoes
3 medium onions, peeled and left whole
1 head garlic, unpeeled and left whole
1 teaspoon paprika (optional)
1 to 2 teaspoons salt, or to taste
1
â
2
teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1
â
2
teaspoon ground turmeric or
1
â
4
teaspoon saffron threads
8 large eggs in shells, rinsed
1 cup rice, rinsed well
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1.
Put chickpeas in a bowl, cover generously with water, and soak overnight. Drain and rinse chickpeas, then put them in a large, heavy stew pan or Dutch oven.
2.
Add meat and marrow bones, if using, to pan. Add potatoes, sweet potatoes, onions, and garlic. Sprinkle with paprika if using, 1
1
â
2
teaspoons salt,
1
â
4
teaspoon pepper, and half the turmeric or all the saffron; mix well. Add enough water to cover ingredients by 2 inches. Bring to a boil. Simmer uncovered 20 minutes. Remove from heat. Set eggs gently on top and push them slightly into liquid.
3.
Put rinsed rice in a piece of cheesecloth or a roasting bag with oil,
1
â
2
teaspoon salt,
1
â
4
teaspoon pepper, and
1
â
4
teaspoon turmeric. Tie cheesecloth or close bag. Pierce a few holes in bag. Set bag in stew pan.
4.
Preheat oven to 200°F. Cover casserole tightly. Bake mixture, without stirring, overnight. If you wish to cook it faster, bake it at 250°F for 5 or 6 hours.
5.
Serve from stew pan; or, serve potatoes, meat with beans, rice, eggs, and juices in separate serving dishes.
Adding a well-seasoned meatloaf-type mixture rolled in a sausage shape is a popular way to enrich
dafina
(Moroccan
cholent
). The ground beef might be mixed with rice or, for a sweet stuffing, with nuts, sugar, and ginger.
I first learned about it from Miriam, a college-age Moroccan woman who lives in Paris. Although she is still single, she makes a big pan of
dafina
every weekend. She speaks lovingly of her "daf" and her friends enthusiastically agree with her, as they are the ones who benefit. She prefers meat that is not too lean so it won't become dry in the course of the long cooking. The meat sausage cooks gently in the flavorful beef and vegetable juices.
Some cooks wrap the mixture in cloth or foil, others in beef casings. Occasionally it is used as a stuffing for whole zucchini, which are placed in the casserole. I've also liked it in small, firm, round winter squashes like sweet dumpling or carnival, as they are delicious, hold their shape, and make attractive servings. Their delicately sweet flesh complements the texture of the stuffing.
Prepare this mixture when
dafina
is nearly ready to be put in oven.
1
1
â
4
cups rice, rinsed
1
â
2
pound ground beef
2 large eggs
2 tablespoons vegetable oil (if beef is fairly lean)
1
â
2
teaspoon salt
1
â
2
teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1
â
2
teaspoon ground mace or freshly grated nutmeg
1
â
4
teaspoon ground turmeric (optional)
1.
Combine rice and beef in a bowl. Beat eggs with oil if using, salt, pepper, mace, and turmeric, if using, in a small bowl. Add to rice and beef. Mix very well. Spoon mixture onto a piece of cheesecloth and pat it to a salami shape. Roll cheesecloth to enclose it. Tie ends. Tie 1 or 2 strings around center to keep shape more even. Refrigerate if dafina is not yet ready.
2.
When adding to dafina, place the meat and rice sausage gently near the top.
Madeleine, my next-door neighbor when I lived in Bat-Yam, Israel, always added spiced wheat to her
dafina
(Moroccan cholent). Occasionally she used whole wheat kernels but most of the time, like many cooks, she used cracked wheat or bulgur. Israeli and Middle Eastern markets carry bulgur in several sizes; it's best to use the largest size you can find for this long cooked dish.
The wheat steams in the casserole in a cloth, bag, or heatproof bowl. Some people instead put it in the oven in a separate small, heavy pan, cover it, and remove it from the oven when the wheat has absorbed all the liquid.
1
1
â
2
cups bulgur wheat, rinsed and drained
4 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
2 or 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 teaspoon paprika
1
â
4
to
1
â
2
teaspoon cayenne pepper or 2 small dried chiles such as chiles japones
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1
â
2
teaspoon salt
1
â
2
teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1.
Mix wheat with garlic, oil, paprika, cayenne, cumin, salt, and pepper. Put wheat mixture on a piece of cheesecloth and shape as a square packet; fold cheesecloth to enclose mixture and tie it with a few strings. Or put mixture in a roasting bag and pierce a few holes in bag. If you wish to steam mixture in a bowl, choose a heavy heatproof one and add 3 cups water to the mixture.
2.
When adding to dafina, place the wrapped wheat mixture or the bowl at the top of the casserole.
 or
Â
Kishke
is a time-honored Ashkenazic stuffing specialty traditionally made in beef casings like sausage. The word
kishke
is Yiddish for "intestines." Traditionally, they were stuffed with a mixture of flour, chicken fat, aromatic vegetables, and spices and often cooked inside a pot of
cholent
. At some delis you can buy it made this way.
In modern home cooking,
kishke
underwent a transformationâfoil replaced the beef casing. Now
kishke
is much more convenient. It has changed from a complicated and time-consuming food to a very easy dish.
Today, people often make an oil- or margarine-based mixture instead of using chicken fat and bake the
kishke
in the oven. All or part of the flour is frequently replaced by crushed crackers, bread, or even corn flakes. Matzo meal is another favorite, for Passover and year round. I like to use crackers as they make it easy to vary the taste, according to which cracker you use. Whole wheat are my favorite. The standard seasonings are salt, pepper, sugar, and paprika but I like to add thyme also. Some people grate the vegetables, some grind them in a meat grinder, but most chop them fine in a food processor or blender.
Kishke
is served sliced as a side dish. Some cooks like to bake
kishke
ahead and freeze it unsliced, then place it whole in a pot of
cholent
before putting the
cholent
in the oven. This way the
kishke
can slowly absorb flavors from the stew.