Read 1,000 Jewish Recipes Online
Authors: Faye Levy
1,000 Jewish Recipes (244 page)
Serve this easy-to-make sauce with
Savory Zucchini Kugel
or with simply cooked vegetables such as green beans or grilled, baked, or fried eggplant slices. It's also good on lentils, bulgur wheat, and rice. You can serve it as a light dip for an assortment of vegetables; it's especially good with cucumber spears, jicama sticks, baby carrots, and toasted pita wedges. Use any kind of yogurt you likeâregular, low-fat, or nonfat.
1
1
â
2
cups plain yogurt
1 medium clove garlic, pressed or finely minced
1
â
4
teaspoon paprika, plus a little more for sprinkling
1
â
4
teaspoon ground coriander
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
Salt, to taste
Cayenne pepper, to taste
Fresh parsley sprigs
Mix yogurt with garlic, paprika, coriander, and chopped parsley in a bowl. Season with salt and cayenne. Serve sprinkled lightly with paprika and garnished with parsley sprigs.
Israeli cooks use tomato paste, sautéed onions, and garlic to make this sauce in no time. It's popular for serving with vegetables in many ways, from simple canned or frozen vegetables that are heated in the sauce to cooked fresh ones. A sauce like this is also a favorite for keeping stuffed vegetables moist as they cook. To vary the sauce, you can try one of the herb-flavored varieties of tomato paste.
You can make this sauce in a sauté pan, a skillet, or a saucepan, depending on how you want to cook or heat the vegetable in it.
2 tablespoons olive oil or vegetable oil (see Note)
1 medium onion, chopped
2 large cloves garlic, minced
1 to 3 tablespoons tomato paste
1
1
â
2
cups water
Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
1.
Heat oil in a skillet, sauté pan, or saucepan. Add onion and sauté over medium heat 7 minutes or until beginning to brown. Add garlic and sauté a few seconds. Whisk tomato paste with water in a bowl and add. Add a little salt and pepper. Bring to a simmer.
2.
Adjust the cooking time of the sauce according to how you will use it:
For stuffed vegetables that will cook with the sauce: Remove sauce from heat at this point.
For already cooked or canned vegetables that will heat in the sauce: Cook sauce about 10 minutes or until it thickens and the onions are tender.
For fresh uncooked vegetables that will simmer or bake in sauce: add raw or blanched vegetables and cook in sauce.
Note:
If you are using oil to sauté the stuffed vegetable and enough oil remains in the pan, as in
Celery with Aromatic Chicken Stuffing
, you will not need this oil amount.
1
â
2
cup, 4 to 8 servings
The Yemenite hot pepper chutney called
zehug
adds delicious zip to salad dressings. Make your own
Zehug
or purchase it in either its green or red version at Jewish or Middle Eastern markets. You can substitute Moroccan harissa or any hot chutney, relish, or salsa that you like.
Serve this vinaigrette with vegetables. It's especially good with cauliflower, broccoli, eggplant, or with dishes like
Roasted Mediterranean Vegetables
. Add the zehug a short time before serving if you want it to keep its full strength; the lemon juice in the dressing seems to tone it down.
4 to 6 teaspoons
Zehug
or hot salsa
2 to 3 tablespoons strained fresh lemon juice or vinegar
Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
6 tablespoons olive oil
Prepare zehug, if using homemade. Whisk lemon juice, salt, and pepper in a small bowl. Whisk in oil. Stir in zehug. Adjust seasoning. Serve at room temperature.
This topping is delicious on potato or vegetable latkes, or plain baked or microwaved potatoes.
1 cup sour cream
Freshly ground pepper, if possible from white peppercorns
Salt, to taste (optional)
Cayenne pepper, to taste (optional)
Pinch of paprika
2 tablespoons snipped fresh chives
Season sour cream to taste with white pepper, and salt and cayenne, if using. Reserve 1 teaspoon chives; stir remaining into mixture. Refrigerate until ready to serve. Serve sprinkled very lightly with paprika and topped with remaining teaspoon chives.
1
â
4
cups, 6 to 8 servings
For a tasty, no-cook sauce for topping cooked vegetables, combine mustard with fresh herbs, mayonnaise, and sour cream or yogurt. It's also good as an appetizer dip with raw vegetables, such as cauliflower and broccoli florets, quartered mushrooms, and cucumber, carrot, celery, jicama, and zucchini sticks. Use any type of mayonnaise and sour cream you likeâregular, low-fat, or nonfat. To make it pareve, omit the sour cream or yogurt.
3
â
4
cup sour cream or yogurt
1
â
2
cup mayonnaise
1 tablespoon mustard, or to taste
1 tablespoon strained fresh lemon juice, or more to taste
1 small shallot, minced, or 1 tablespoon minced green or red onion
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
1 tablespoon thinly sliced fresh chives
1 tablespoon chopped fresh tarragon
Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
Mix sour cream with mayonnaise in a bowl until smooth. Stir in mustard, lemon juice, shallot, parsley, chives, tarragon, salt, and pepper. Adjust seasoning. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.
Luscious French cream sauces are popular partners for fish or vegetable loaves called terrines. This one is a delicious complement for
Striped Vegetable Terrine
and is very easy to prepare. It also tastes great on vegetable-filled kreplach or other pasta or on plain boiled potatoes. Since it's very rich, serve only a few tablespoons of sauce with each portion. You can serve it hot or cold.
To keep the color of the herbs bright, add them at the last minute. Be sure they are dry when you chop them, and use a dry board and a dry knife.
1 large shallot, minced
2 large cloves garlic, minced
1
â
3
cup dry white wine
1
1
â
2
cups heavy cream or whipping cream
Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
2 ripe plum tomatoes
5 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
A few drops strained fresh lemon juice
Cayenne pepper, to taste
2 to 3 teaspoons vegetable broth or water (optional)
1.
Combine shallots, garlic, and wine in a large, heavy saucepan. Bring to a boil. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring often, until liquid is reduced to about 2 tablespoons.
2.
Stir in cream, add a pinch of salt and pepper, and bring to a boil, stirring. Cook over medium heat, stirring often, about 7 minutes or until sauce is thick enough to coat a spoon.
3.
Halve tomatoes and squeeze out their juice and seeds. Dice tomatoes. Just before serving, with the sauce off the heat, stir in the tomatoes, basil, and parsley. Add a few drops of lemon juice. Season with salt, pepper, and cayenne. If serving sauce cold, sauce will thicken. If you like, stir in vegetable broth or water to thin it.
Noodles, Couscous, and Other Pasta
Pasta is much loved in the Jewish kitchen, for both holiday and everyday cooking. Best known to us are golden egg noodles served in chicken soup or made into rich, sweet kugels (noodle casseroles). Yet there are many other types of traditional Jewish pastas and pasta specialties, from egg barley to bow-ties to couscous.
Noodles in chicken soup might sound like a very simple dish but when they are fresh egg noodles served in homemade soup, there is nothing better, and this is a wonderful holiday dish. The pure, delicate tastes of the tender noodles and the richly flavored soup make this the supreme comfort food. Other small pastas often served in soup are alphabet noodles, including Hebrew ones, which we always enjoyed as children because we liked to pick out the letters of our names.