Read 1,000 Jewish Recipes Online
Authors: Faye Levy
1,000 Jewish Recipes (224 page)
8 to 12 baby carrots, peeled
1 tablespoon tomato paste
2 tablespoons potato starch
2 small turnips, quartered
1
1
â
2
pounds small new potatoes, peeled, or 3 to 4 large, quartered
1
1
â
2
pounds fresh peas, shelled, or 1
1
â
2
cups frozen peas
2 tablespoons chopped fresh Italian parsley
1.
Cut lamb into 1-inch pieces, trimming off any excess fat, and pat them dry. Sprinkle lamb with pepper.
2.
Heat oil in a heavy stew pan or Dutch oven. Add lamb in batches and brown lightly on all sides over medium-high heat. Remove from pan to a plate. Add onions and sauté over medium heat, stirring, 3 minutes. Add garlic and sauté 30 seconds. Stir in tomatoes.
3.
Prepare Bouquet Garni and add to pan. Return lamb to stew pan with any juices that have accumulated on the plate. Add 1 cup stock and bring to a boil, stirring. Cover and simmer over low heat, stirring occasionally, 1
1
â
2
hours. Skim the fat from cooking liquid.
4.
Put unpeeled pearl onions, if using, in a saucepan. Cover with water and bring just to a boil. Drain onions, rinse with cold water and peel them.
5.
Add carrots and
1
â
2
cup stock and simmer 10 minutes. Stir tomato paste into sauce. Mix potato starch and 3 tablespoons water in a bowl to form a paste. Bring sauce to a simmer and add potato starch mixture, stirring. Return to a simmer, stirring.
6.
Add turnips, potatoes, and pearl onions to stew pan and simmer 10 min. Add peas and simmer 8 to 10 minutes or until lamb and vegetables are tender. Discard bouquet garni. Adjust seasoning. Serve hot, sprinkled with parsley.
Moussaka is a traditional favorite among Jews from Greece and Turkey. It is made of layers of ground lamb in a flavorful tomato sauce alternating with sautéed eggplant slices. Unlike many Greek moussaka recipes, the Sephardic one is made without cheese or béchamel sauce so it will be kosher. Instead, it has an easy tomato topping.
Pine nuts add a festive touch to the meat layers but you can omit them if you like. If you prefer a leaner dish, broil the eggplant instead of sautéing it. Follow the method in
Broiled Eggplant
.
About 8 tablespoons olive oil
2 large onions, chopped
1
1
â
4
pounds lean ground lamb
1 teaspoon paprika, plus a little for sprinkling
Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
Four 14
1
â
2
-ounce cans diced tomatoes, drained
1
1
â
2
pounds eggplant
1
â
3
cup pine nuts (optional)
1
â
3
cup chopped fresh Italian parsley
4 large cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1
1
â
2
cups beef or chicken stock
1.
Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a large, heavy sauté pan. Add onions and sauté over medium-low heat about 5 minutes. Cover and sauté over low heat, stirring occasionally, about 5 minutes or until tender. Add lamb and cook over medium heat, crumbling with a fork, about 5 minutes or until it changes color. Add paprika, salt, pepper, and tomatoes, and cook over medium heat about 35 minutes or until mixture is thick and quite dry.
2.
Meanwhile, cut eggplant into slices
1
â
4
-inch thick. Heat 2 tablespoons oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Quickly add enough eggplant slices to make one layer. Sauté 2 minutes per side or until tender when pierced with a fork. Transfer slices to paper towels. Add 2 tablespoons oil to skillet and heat it. Continue sautéing remaining eggplant in batches, adding oil as needed.
3.
Add pine nuts, if using, to meat sauce and cook 2 more minutes. Add parsley and half the garlic. Adjust seasoning.
4.
For sauce, whisk tomato paste with stock. Add remaining garlic. Season with salt and pepper.
5.
Preheat oven to 350°F. Oil a 13 à 9 à 2-inch baking dish. Put enough eggplant slices in dish to make 1 layer. Cover with about half the lamb mixture. Cover with another layer of eggplant. Spread remaining meat mixture on top. Cover with remaining eggplant. Pour sauce over top.
6.
Bake moussaka 45 minutes. Let stand about 10 minutes before serving. Serve from the baking dish.
If you love stuffed onions, stuffing whole onions or onion halves is a quicker method for making them than removing individual onion layers, as in
Sweet and Sour Stuffed Onions
. The robust taste of these thicker shells is a good match for a hearty cinnamon-accented lamb filling. Serve the stuffed onions for Sukkot or as a Hanukkah dish accompanied by potato, sweet potato, or zucchini pancakes.
6 large white or yellow onions, peeled
1
â
3
cup long-grain rice, washed and drained
Quick Tomato Sauce for Vegetables
2 to 4 tablespoons olive oil or vegetable oil
1
â
2
pound lean ground lamb
2 medium cloves garlic, minced
1
â
2
teaspoon ground cinnamon
1
â
4
teaspoon salt
1
â
2
teaspoon freshly ground pepper
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
1.
Boil onions in a large pan of boiling salted water 15 minutes or until they are partially tender when pierced with a small, sharp knife. Drain and let cool.
2.
Boil rice in a saucepan of 2 cups boiling salted water 10 minutes. Rinse with cold water and drain well.
3.
Prepare tomato sauce. Then, for whole stuffed onions: cut a thin slice off the top and carefully scoop out the center, leaving a fairly thick shell; reserve center. For half onions: halve them crosswise and scoop out the center; reserve center.
4.
Finely chop removed onion centers. (If you like, sauté chopped onion: heat 1 or 2 tablespoons oil in a skillet, add onion and sauté over medium-high heat, stirring often, 3 to 4 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool completely before mixing with meat.)
5.
Combine lamb, garlic, cinnamon, salt, pepper, and parsley in a bowl and mix well. Add rice and chopped onion and mix well.
6.
Preheat oven to 350°F. Spoon stuffing into onion shells. Put onions in a baking dish, stuffing side up. Sprinkle a little oil over each. Spoon tomato sauce over onions. Cover and bake 30 minutes. Uncover and bake, basting occasionally, 30 more minutes or until onions are very tender; add a few tablespoons hot water from time to time if pan becomes dry. Serve onions topped with sauce.
Pareve and Vegetarian Main Courses
All the recipes in this chapter are meatless, or vegetarian. They also are pareve and do not contain dairy products. Therefore they can be served as stars of vegetarian menus or alongside dairy foods, meat, or fish.
Although eggs are also pareve, many of the recipes here do not contain eggs and thus qualify as vegan. For other pareve egg dishes, see the index on page 608. Vegetarians who eat dairy products can find recipes using milk and cheese in the chapter on dairy foods and blintzes in the Shavuot and other chapters. Additional vegetarian dishes can be found in the chapters on noodles and grains as well as in the holiday chapters.
Pareve meals are often served in the homes of Orthodox Jews who wait six hours after eating meat before partaking of dairy foods. If people are hungry for a meal before the required number of hours has passed, they opt for a pareve repast.
Vegetarian dishes have long been an important component of Jewish cooking. Some practice vegetarianism on religious grounds and find evidence in the sacred writings that it is preferable. Many Jews follow the example of Queen Esther in the
Purim
, and become vegetarians when they're away from home and cannot obtain kosher meat. Today many are vegetarian because of personal taste or because of the health benefits of a vegetarian diet.
Because I love vegetarian food, I cook it often. I find pareve menus flexible and satisfying in many ways. They can be based on a big bowl of hearty soup, a substantial salad, or a casserole of legumes such as black-eyed peas. It's easy to serve one or several vegetable side dishes in larger quantities, along with bread or a grain dish, and have a satisfying vegetarian meal.
Many Jewish specialties are naturally pareve entrees or can become pareve with little adaptation. Vegetable kugels (casseroles) as well as savory noodle kugels are perfect when you want a festive main course. Vegetarian versions of
cholent
(slow-cooked stew) are on many Shabbat menus, both in homes and in synagogues.
A terrific choice for a holiday entree is stuffed vegetablesâfavorites in all branches of Jewish cooking. Whether you stuff eggplants, zucchini, onions, peppers, celery, cabbage leaves, or grape leaves, they turn the dinner into a feast. They are not only delicious but also economical. In addition, they can be made ahead and reheated. Many cooks serve stuffed vegetables hot on one day and cold on another.
Rice and other grains are a good basis for vegetable stuffings and can be combined with soy ground meat substitute to give them a meaty quality. Many Israeli cooks flavor their stuffings with sautéed onions, garlic, Italian parsley, fresh dill, or cilantro. For festive occasions, many add toasted walnuts, almonds, or pine nuts, which are especially welcome in a meatless stuffing. Such spices as paprika, saffron, cumin, or curry also add a wonderful aroma. For a different flavor in the sweet direction, you can add raisins and a hint of cinnamon or other sweet spices. A savory homemade tomato sauce makes a great accompaniment.
Soy has become the ultimate pareve food. A great variety of foods are made from soybeans, and they are very useful for preparing pareve meals and as substitutes for both
milchig
(milk-based) and
fleishig
(meat-based) ingredients. This selection is expanding every day. Many of them are certified kosher and can be found at natural foods stores as well as kosher groceries.
Many soy foods can also be added as pareve ingredients to meat or dairy meals. There are soy "cheeses," which can be paired with meats, and soy ground "meats," which can be used in dairy meals. With the aid of these foods, people can even make such recipes as kosher cheeseburgersâsomething never before imagined. In fact, with a soy meat substitute and a soy dairy substitute, even pareve "cheeseburgers" are now possible.
= Pareve  
= Dairy  = Meat