1,000 Jewish Recipes (296 page)
Read 1,000 Jewish Recipes Online
Authors: Faye Levy
To give a meaty flavor to soups, stews, and sauces, keep this stock in your freezer. You can use it interchangeably with beef broth, the liquid from poaching beef. Homemade stock tastes much better than broth made from powders or cubes and is much lower in sodium. Although the stock needs several hours to simmer, it cooks on its own with virtually no attention on your part. To cut the cooking time to 2 hours instead of 6, you can use a pressure cooker. Beef stock is very economical to prepare and provides good flavor for little effort. Use beef soup bones or any inexpensive cut of beef with bones. You can refrigerate the stock for 2 to 3 days or keep it in the freezer.
For French style beef stock, which has a richer flavor and deeper color, follow the recipe for
Brown Veal Stock
, substituting beef bones.
5 pounds beef soup bones, chopped into pieces by the butcher
2 onions, rinsed but not peeled, root-end cut off
2 carrots, scrubbed but not peeled
2 ribs celery, cut into 3-inch pieces (optional)
2 bay leaves
10 parsley stems (save leaves for chopping)
4 large cloves garlic, unpeeled
About 4 quarts water
1.
Preheat oven to 450°F. Roast bones in a large roasting pan in oven, turning them over once, about 30 minutes or until they begin to brown. Add onions and carrots and roast about 30 minutes or until browned.
2.
Combine bones, onions, carrots, celery, if using, bay leaves, parsley stems, and garlic in a stock pot or other large pot. Add enough water to cover ingredients. Bring to a boil, skimming froth. Partially cover and cook stock over very low heat, so it bubbles very gently, skimming foam and fat occasionally with a large metal spoon or a slotted spoon. During first 2 hours of cooking, add hot water occasionally to keep ingredients covered. Cook stock a total of 6 hours. Strain stock. Cool, refrigerate until cold, and skim solidified fat off top.
This flavorful stock, prepared in the French style, makes delicious sauces for meat. To make brown beef stock, simply substitute beef soup bones for the veal bones. You can refrigerate the stock for 2 to 3 days or keep it in the freezer.
5 pounds veal knuckle bones, chopped into pieces by butcher if possible
2 onions, rinsed but not peeled, root-end cut off, quartered
2 carrots, scrubbed but not peeled, quartered crosswise
2 ribs celery, cut into 3-inch pieces (optional)
1 ripe large tomato (optional)
2 bay leaves
10 parsley stems (optional)
4 large cloves garlic, unpeeled
About 4 quarts water
2 sprigs fresh thyme or
1
â
2
teaspoon dried thyme, crumbled
1.
Preheat oven to 450°F. Roast bones in a large roasting pan in oven, turning them over once, about 30 minutes or until they begin to brown. Add onions and carrots and roast about 30 minutes or until browned.
2.
With a slotted metal spatula, transfer bones and vegetables to a stock pot or other large pot. Discard any fat from roasting pan. Add 1 cup hot water to roasting pan and heat over low heat, stirring to dissolve the roasting juices in the water. Add to the stock pot.
3.
Add celery and tomato if using, bay leaves, parsley stems, if using, and garlic to the pot, and enough water to cover ingredients. Bring to a boil, skimming froth. Add thyme. Partially cover and cook stock over very low heat, so it bubbles very gently, skimming foam and fat occasionally with a large metal spoon or a slotted spoon. During first 2 hours of cooking, add hot water occasionally to keep ingredients covered. Cook stock a total of 6 hours. Strain stock. Cool, refrigerate until cold, and skim solidified fat off top.
Prepared fish stock is not widely available, but it's easy to make at home. Use it to poach fish or gefilte fish or to make fish soups or sauces for fish. The fish frames of halibut are perfect for stock, but you can use the heads, tails, and bones of any kosher fish except strong-flavored ones like tuna and mackerel. You can also use fish trimmings or fish pieces for chowder, which are available at some markets.
Fish stock is usually made without salt so that any sauces you make by boiling the stock to concentrate it won't become too salty. You can refrigerate the stock for 2 days or keep it in the freezer.
1
1
â
2
pounds fish tails, heads, and bones, rinsed thoroughly
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 onion, diced small
1 bay leaf
1 sprig fresh thyme
5 sprigs fresh parsley
7 cups water
1.
Rinse fish bones under cool, running water, 5 minutes.
2.
Heat oil in a large saucepan. Add onion and sauté 7 minutes over low heat until softened but not brown. Add bay leaf, thyme, parsley, and water to cover and bring to a boil; skim off foam. Simmer uncovered over low heat, 20 minutes, skimming foam and fat occasionally with a large metal spoon or a slotted spoon. Strain into a bowl. Refrigerate or freeze until ready to use.
This stock is very easy to make and it gives gefilte fish a great flavor. It is more delicate than the usual fish stock because traditionally it is made with fresh water fish.
Some old-fashioned recipes call for cooking the gefilte fish in unstrained fish stock so that the fish bones and other ingredients continue to add flavor during the hour that the gefilte fish cooks. I prefer to strain the stock before adding the gefilte fish so there's no problem separating it from the stock elements later.
You can prepare the stock a day ahead and keep it in a covered container in the refrigerator, or you can freeze it.
Bones and head of fish used to prepare gefilte fish
2 to 3 pounds additional fish bones and heads (optional)
2 onions, sliced
1 small carrot, sliced
3 sprigs fresh parsley
1 teaspoon salt
2 quarts water, or enough to just cover bones
Salmon Gefilte Fish Stock:
Add 2 large sliced carrots to pot with other ingredients.
FLAVORINGS
1
â
2
cup
This spice blend is the hallmark of Yemenite Jewish cooking. Known in Yemenite Arabic as
hawaij marak
(soup spice), it sometimes includes cardamom seeds in addition to the spices below. I learned to make it from my mother-in-law, who used to pound the cumin seeds in a mortar with a pestle. I agree with her that freshly grinding the cumin seeds is the best way to enjoy the spice, but I use an electric spice grinder. She uses this spice mixture with a liberal hand to season not only soups, but also fish, chicken, meat, and most vegetables, no matter how she intends to cook them.
This spice mixture used to be available only at special spice stores in areas in Israel with a substantial Yemenite population, but now can be found in supermarkets. I have even found it in Israeli grocery stores in the United States.
6 tablespoons freshly ground cumin seeds
2 tablespoons ground turmeric
1 or 2 tablespoons freshly ground pepper
Mix spices in a small bowl. Store mixture, tightly covered, in a jar or airtight container in a dark cupboard for up to 6 months.
This bundle of herbsâtraditionally parsley, thyme, and bay leavesâis added by French cooks to almost all soups and stews as it adds a lovely subtle flavor and aroma. A bouquet garni adds the flavor of the herbs without leaving pieces of herb in the final dish. I love this technique and I use it often with many different herb and spice combinations. Bouquet garni is also very economical. Only the stems of the parsley enter the bouquet garniâthe leaves are reserved for chopping and adding to the finished dish. If you have tarragon, chervil, or leafy celery sprigs, you can do the same with them. I've also used the stems of cilantro in a bouquet garni, when its flavor is appropriate for the dish.
If you keep kitchen twine on hand, a bouquet garni is very simple to make; if you don't have it, use cheesecloth. Some cooks tie one end to the handle of the pot for easy removal.
6 stems of Italian or curled parsley
2 large sprigs fresh thyme
1 bay leaf
Dark green part of 1 leek (optional), cleaned
1.
Remove leaves from parsley and reserve for other uses. Hold thyme, bay leaf, and parsley together. Open the piece of leek flat, if using, and enclose the herbs in it. Wrap it with kitchen twine and tie a knot. Or wrap it in cheesecloth and tie ends together to form a seasoning bag.
2.
Add a bouquet garni to any soup, stew, or sauce that will simmer more than 10 minutes.