Eastern European, Jewish Recipes
12 recipes found
Kasha Varnishkes (Buckwheat, Bow Ties and Onions)
In the 1880s, this simple yet beloved dish of buckwheat (kasha), onion and bow tie noodles (varnishkes) came to New York’s Lower East Side with Eastern European Jewish immigrants. At the time, it was made with homemade egg noodles that were rolled out, cut into squares and painstakingly pinched into bow ties. Nowadays, store-bought bow tie egg noodles are traditional, but any hardy pasta, like gemelli or fusilli, will also work well. Lola Landa, chef and owner of Kafe Jerusalem in Lviv, Ukraine, suggests using European-style whole buckwheat groats for this dish. (The more broken-up varieties tend to get mushy unless toasted first with beaten egg.) What really makes this dish, however, are the onions. While Ms. Landa deep-fries thin slices of onion, I prefer to caramelize them in a skillet. To really gild the lily, add mushrooms before tossing everything together.
Rendered Chicken Fat
Chopped Liver
Orange-Almond Mandelbrot
Mandelbrot (or mandel bread) is an Eastern European Jewish cookie, a variation on biscotti. The dough is baked twice: first in a log, and then again after it's been sliced into cookies. This recipe includes the smart trick of freezing the dough after baking it the first time, then cutting it into slices when still frozen before baking again. This makes for a thinner slice, fewer crumbs when cutting and a crispier texture. You can make it with matzo cake meal during Passover — a delicious variation.
Apple-Potato Latkes With Cinnamon Sour Cream
These latkes are golden, crunchy, salty-sweet and very satisfying, with applesauce and without. The secret here is squeezing the liquid out of the grated apple and potato mixture before frying; otherwise the latkes end up on the soft side rather than truly crisp. This is because apples are juicier than potatoes, so a firm squeeze in a clean dish towel brings down the moisture content considerably.
Chocolate Babka
Baking a chocolate babka is no casual undertaking. The Eastern European yeast-risen coffee cake has 14 steps and takes all day to make. But the results are worth every sugarcoated second – with a moist, deeply flavored brioche-like cake wrapped around a dark fudge filling, then topped with cocoa streusel crumbs. If you want to save yourself a little work and love Nutella, you can substitute 1 1/2 cup (420 grams) of it for the homemade fudge filling. Also note that you can make this over a few days instead of all at once. Babka freezes well for up to 3 months, so if you need only one loaf now, freeze the other for later.
Gefilte Fish
If you loathe gefilte fish, that staple of the Seder, it may just be that you've never had it homemade. In this recipe, created to convert gefilte fish skeptics, the traditional patties are updated with more flavorful fish, and then poached in court-bouillon — that is, a light vegetable broth. Be sure to use a wide pot here; the patties rise to the top as they cook, and you want to give them enough space.
Cold Borscht
Pastrami Salmon
Kishke
Winter Borscht