1,000 Jewish Recipes (75 page)

Next, meats and poultry must be salted or "koshered" to remove as much blood as possible, as blood is not kosher. The salt used is coarse salt, also known as kosher salt.

When I was growing up, my mother had to kosher all the meat and poultry at home. Today it has often been done already by the packager or at the kosher butcher shop. If in doubt, ask whether the meat has been salted. For instructions in koshering meat at home, see page xxii.

Dairy Products

Many hard cheeses are made with rennet, which is an animal product. Kosher cheeses are made without animal rennet.

Soft dairy products such as yogurt and ice cream are sometimes made with gelatin. If gelatin is used, it should be kosher gelatin, which generally comes from non-animal sources and may contain such ingredients as seaweed-based carageenan or agar-agar; nonkosher gelatin is made from animal bones and, in the kosher kitchen, cannot be combined with dairy foods.

Kosher dairy products are found not only at kosher grocery stores and the kosher sections of supermarkets, but also at vegetarian and natural foods stores.

Some foods are labeled "dairy" even though they do not contain dairy foods because the company cooks them in pans that are used for other foods that are dairy.

Other Foods

Wine is a special ingredient because it is used in blessings and must be certified as kosher.

All fresh produce is kosher.

Processed foods can be kosher if they are prepared in a kosher fashion—made with kosher foods and prepared with kosher utensils and pots. There is a wide array of packaged food products—from breakfast cereals to canned beans—that have kosher certification.

Shopping

Keeping kosher requires reading labels of processed products to see if they have kosher certification or to find out if they contain dairy or meat foods that are not obvious, such as whey, which is dairy, or meat broth.

Food companies have their products reviewed for kosher certification, allowing them to add symbols to the labels that make kosher products easy to recognize. A U with a circle around it, the most widely accepted symbol, represents certification from the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations. K is another widely used symbol for
Kosher
. The letter K is often used as part of a kosher symbol such as K inside a circle, a triangle, or a star. The best known is K with a circle around it, from the Organized Kashrut Laboratories in Brooklyn, New York. Used alone, the letter K does not belong to a specific certifying organization; it is printed on the package by the food producer. Other kosher symbols come from regional rabbinical boards, such as R.C.C., which stands for the Rabbinical Council of California. You can obtain a list of local types of certification from a rabbi.

Kosher products from Israel may have different kosher symbols. The name of the rabbi certifying the product may appear, sometimes only in Hebrew.

Some foods also are labeled D for
Dairy
, M for
Meat
, or P for
Pareve
next to their kosher symbol.

With so many kosher symbols and origins of certification, many people decide which to follow based on their personal preference, background, or advice from their rabbi.

Supermarkets increasingly carry many foods with kosher labels, usually in a designated kosher foods section. Some people, though, feel that the best way to ensure that all their food is kosher is to buy it at a kosher grocery store, in which all the foods are kosher. For more on specific kosher ingredients, see
Stocking the Jewish Pantry
.

Menu Planning

The basic principle of kosher menu planning is keeping meat products and dairy products completely separate. Meals that contain meat or poultry are called
fleishig
in Yiddish or
bsari
in Hebrew; dairy meals are
milchig
in Yiddish or
halavi
in Hebrew.

Rabbis through the ages have developed the laws that govern this separation, which is derived from the biblical command in Exodus and in Deuteronomy that prohibits cooking a young goat in its mother's milk. Thus, dairy foods and meat foods require separate sets of dishes and other kitchen equipment.

A third category of neutral foods called
pareve
are neither dairy nor meat and can be served with either one. These include eggs, vegetables, fruits, breads, grains, and oils. Fish is also pareve but has some special rules for serving it with other foods.

Keeping dairy and meat foods separate means that they are not combined in the same dish or on the same menu. Many Orthodox Jews wait for six hours after eating meat before eating dairy foods, and thirty minutes after eating dairy foods before eating meat. In some communities, the waiting times vary.

Kitchen Utensils

A kosher kitchen has two sets of dishes, flatware, pots, and other mixing and cooking implements. One set is for meat and one is for dairy foods. Two additional sets are reserved for Passover meals. (See
Passover
). Meat and dairy dishes must be cleaned with separate sponges and towels, and set on separate dish racks. Those who can afford it have two separate sinks. The soap used to wash dishes and hands should be kosher.

Stocking the Jewish Pantry

Because Jewish cooking is so diverse, you are likely to find a different selection of pantry ingredients in each home, depending on the family's background. Still, some pantry items are widely used by many Jews and they are the ones discussed here.

There is additional information about ingredients in each chapter. The favorite flavorings of the different Jewish communities are covered in The World of Jewish Cooking on pages xvii–xix. Specific foods and holiday foods are explained in their respective chapters. For example, important grains are discussed in the grains chapter and Passover ingredients are detailed in the section devoted to the holiday.

Many of the special ingredients used in Jewish cooking relate to keeping kosher. In recent years this category of ingredients has been growing at a dizzying pace, as kosher products become in greater demand.

As a child in the 1950s and '60s, I never saw kosher boxed cake mixes or canned or packaged soups or sauces. We bought all our challah and other kosher bread at a kosher bakery. Kosher chicken was available at the kosher butcher shop and not at the supermarket.

Today many supermarkets have kosher food sections and bakery items like kosher challah, prepared soups and sauces, and a variety of cake, brownie, and cookie mixes. In the freezer there are kosher knishes, pizza, and other baked goods. It's pretty easy to find frozen kosher chicken and sometimes fresh as well. The supermarket also carries kosher cheeses, both fresh and slicing cheeses, wines, and deli meats. There is a variety of prepared fish, from lox and smoked whitefish to herring and gefilte fish.

Naturally, there is a large number of kosher foods in supermarkets in cities with substantial Jewish populations. Still, the most extensive array of kosher foods can be found in kosher or Jewish markets. The selection differs from one market to another, depending on whether they emphasize Ashkenazic or Sephardic products or both. At the Ashkenazic Jewish stores all the ingredients can be found to serve the signature dishes of that culinary style: gefilte fish, noodles, noodle kugels, potato pancakes, lox, bagels, blintzes, and cheesecake. At Sephardic markets, there are many kinds of pita bread, olives, feta cheeses, basmati rice, bulgur wheat, many kinds of dried beans, frozen savory phyllo turnovers called
bourekas
, and Yemenite
jahnoon
, a flaky rolled pastry. Israeli markets often have both kinds of kosher products as well as special foods from Israel, notably cheeses, a mild yogurt called
leben
, and other dairy products, spices, soup mixes, and cookies.

As Jewish cooks become increasingly interested in each other's cooking, more and more of these stores are carrying foods for both major styles of Jewish cooking. It is no longer uncommon to find layered Yemenite pancake-like pastries called
malawah
and Iraqi Jewish
kubeh
(crisp stuffed bulgur wheat appetizers) in the freezer next to Ashkenazic gefilte fish mix. In the deli section, Polish horseradish stands next to Yemenite
zehug
(hot pepper chutney). And of course, all kosher stores carry matzo, kosher cheeses, and usually fresh challah bread for Shabbat and holidays.

Meats

Many supermarkets carry frozen kosher chickens and turkeys as well as kosher frankfurters, salami, and other prepared meats.

Kosher beef, lamb, veal, ducks, and geese tend to be available only at kosher markets and butcher shops. In these shops there is also a greater variety of cold cuts and other prepared meats and more cuts of chicken and turkey.

Cheeses and Other Dairy Products

Kosher cheeses must be made without animal-based rennet or gelatin. Soft cheeses such as cottage cheese, ricotta, farmers cheese, pot cheese, and cream cheese are especially popular, as are sour cream and other cultured dairy products. Grating and slicing cheeses like mozzarella, Swiss cheese, Muenster, Parmesan, Edam, other Dutch-style cheeses, and reduced-fat kosher cheeses are available in a much wider selection at kosher stores than in supermarkets. Feta and goat cheese, often from Israel, is also available. Kosher cheeses also can be found at natural foods stores because many vegetarians want their cheeses free of animal-based rennet.

Kosher-certified milk can also be found at some Jewish grocery stores.

Pareve Foods

The array of pareve foods has greatly expanded in recent years, thanks in part to the growing interest in healthy and in natural foods. Some of these are available at kosher grocery stores and many in vegetarian and natural foods shops.

Margarine has long been important in the kosher kitchen, especially pareve margarine, which is used instead of butter for such dishes as mashed potatoes if they will be served with meat. Many kosher cooks make most of their cakes, cookies, and pastries with pareve margarine, in case anyone in the family feels like eating them after a meat meal. (Today, many health-conscious cooks may substitute oil.)

Some margarines contain dairy products, and so buyers who keep kosher always check the label to see whether the margarine is pareve.

Dairy-Like Pareve Foods

Pareve "milk" is made from a variety of ingredients. Soy and rice milk are the most common. Some stores also carry almond milk and multigrain milk.

Some of these pareve beverages come in different flavors, like vanilla, chocolate, and carob.