Potato chremslach, aka Martian spacecraft

I have a very clear memory of eating these potato patties at my grandmother's seders when I was young.  I don't think she made them after 1968 when she discovered cholesterol.  My cousins and I devoured them and we used to call them Martian spacecraft, probably because we had problems with the double "ch" sound.

The most common chremslach  (the singular is chremsel, but you can't eat just one) are matzah meal or farfel fritters that are served sweet for breakfast or dessert.  These are completely different, and considerably less healthy.  They are made from mashed potatoes seasoned with schmaltz (rendered poultry fat -- do I even need to explain this?) and onions, stuffed with either chopped liver or gribenes (chicken cracklings),  dredged in matzo meal and shallow fried, preferably in schmaltz, but if you don't have enough schmaltz, a combination of schmaltz and oil will do fine.  You can consider this a healthy alternative.  They really do look beautiful sizzling away in a cast iron skillet, so I will try to remember to post a picture the next time I make these, in a couple of years.

I have though about making this for seder for several years, but reason (aka Amy) got the better of me.  This year, I found myself with a lot of chicken skin from which I made schmaltz and gribenes,  and I made these chremslach for hol ha-moed Shabbat dinner for six people, when my parents came over.  My father said they were better than what his mother used to make.  They are really not all that hard and can (and perhaps even should) be made in advance.

Chremslach

Ingredients

• 1.5 pounds russet or other starchy potatoes, about 3 large
• 1/2 cup to 1 cup schmaltz, plus one tablespoon  (see  this recipe to make schmaltz)
• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• salt and pepper,  preferably white, but black is acceptable)
• 2 egg yolks, lightly beaten
• 1/2 cup gribenes, chopped into small pieces if the pieces are large (these should be salted lightly if they are not already; see  this recipe to make gribenes)
• egg wash of 1 egg beaten with 2 tablespoons water
• 1/2 cup matzah meal, more if necessary.

Method

1. Peel the potatoes, cut into 1-2 inch chunks, and boil in well salted water until tender but not mushy, about 20 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, saute the onion in one tablespoon of the schmaltz until soft and golden but not brown.  Set aside.
3. When the potatoes are tender, drain and return to the dry pan to steam on medium heat.  This will dry them out and make them nice and floury and easier to mash.  (The pot will look like it will never come clean, but just soak it in cold water without soap for about 30 minutes and the starchy stuff will come right off. )  Put the potatoes through a food mill or ricer and if you don't have one, mash them.
4. Mix the sauteed onions into the potatoes and season with salt and pepper to taste.  These will be some of the best mashed potatoes you have ever had.
5. When the potatoes have cooled a bit, mix in the yolks.
6. Divide the potatoes into 8-10 portions, each should be about the size of a smallish egg.
7. take one ball at a time and flatten it in our palm into a thick concave pancake.  Fill with a heaping teaspoon of gribenes, close up the ball and flatten into a patty the size of a small thick hamburger.
8. Dip you hands in cold water, and then dip one patty at a time in the egg wash and then in the matzo meal, and set aside on a place lined with wax paper.  Refrigerate for an hour, or overnight.
9. Heat fats in a skillet (preferably cast iron) on a medium flame until it sizzles when you dip a piece of potato in it, 
10. Carefully lower in one patty at a time, and fry for about 6 minutes on each side until well browned.
11. Drain on paper towel.  Since there is a good chance that these will not have heated all  the way through, heat these in an oven before serving.  They are also good made up to two or three days in advance You can heat them on 350 for 20 minutes, or leave them in a slow oven (250 egress) for an hour or more.  They will not dry out and be extremely crisp.
12. Serves 4-8 people, depend on appetite and risk tolerance.

Carrot soup with dill and matzoh balls

We are doing a dairy seder second night this year, and will be serving this soup.  It is a riff on the Mexican carrot soup that I posted last year.  The different seasonings give it a completely different character and it is quite nice.


Carrot Soup With Dill and Matzah Balls


Ingredients

• 1 medium white or yellow onion, peeled and chopped 
• 1 tablespoon olive oil, or more if you want
• 1 1/2 pounds carrots (about 750 grams), peeled and sliced
• 1 large starchy potato (white, russet or Yukon gold) peeled and diced
• 1 small-medium bunch dil, roots cut off and washed well until not sandy
• 2 quarts  liquid (vegetable or chicken broth, canned or boxed ok, or the equivalent in water and bouillon -- I used 3 tablespoons of Osem pareve soup powder)
• salt and white pepper to taste
• matzah balls (only if serving hot; make your preferred recipe from a box, and throw an handful of chopped scallions and dill into the batter before you put it in the fridge to set)

For garnish:

• chopped scallions
• chopped fresh dill
• lemon, cut into eighths

Method

• Saute the onion in the oil on medium heat until soft, but do not brown.
• Add carrots and potatoes and saute another few minutes.
• Add the liquid and bring to the boil .Turn heat down to a simmer.
• Tuck the dill into the soup.
• Cover and cook about 30 minutes, or until vegetables are tender.
• Cool a bit, and fish out the dill. Puree using and immersion blender (much easier and safer) or in a regular blender or processor.
• Add salt and pepper to taste.
• Serve hot or cold with with some or all of the garnishes above to 6 - 8 people.

Soft scrambled eggs with feta, pine nuts and roasted broccoli

We had this dish at Barleyswine when we visited Austin last month. As is evident from the name, the chefs have a passion for beer and pork, but there is lots of other stuff to eat, and to drink as well. This dish was one of our favorites. Soft scrambling eggs slowly takes a little more effort than cooking them fast on high heat, but every once in a while it is worth it. They should be cooked with plenty of fat and are remind me of the bad old days when people thought that eggs were bad for you. This is a great brunch or supper dish and can be a nice main dish on Pesach during the week for those who feel that they aren't eating enough eggs.

The quantity below serves two, and it can be doubled or tripled in a larger pan. The keys to the success are almost constant stirring, low heat, and  making sure that all the toppings, the serving dish and plates are warm before combining and serving so that the eggs don't cool off.

Soft-scrambled eggs with feta, pine nuts, and roasted broccoli

Ingredients

• Small head broccoli stem peeled and separated into long florets
• Olive oil or olive oil spray
• 5 large eggs
• 2 tablespoons heavy cream
• Salt and pepper (ideally freshly ground white pepper, but black will do)
• 1-2 tablespoons butter
• 1 tablespoon sour cream
• 2 tablespoons pine nuts roasted lightly in a dry skillet
• 2 ounces feta cheese, diced

Method

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
2. Beat eggs well in a bowl. Beat in cream and season with salt and pepper and leave at room temperature.
3. Toss the broccoli with oil or spray it (why would you spray it when you are already using so much saturated fat?), put on a baking pan, sprinkle with coarse salt, and bake for 10 minutes.
4. Broil until brown and slightly charred but not burnt, about another 5 minutes.. Set aside in a warm place.
5. Heat butter on low heat in a medium nonstick skillet until melted.
6. Add the beaten eggs and cook on low heat, stirring constantly. One you get the hang of holding them, two pairs of chopsticks work perfectly for this, breaking up the curds into small pieces. If you don't trust me on the chopsticks, you can use a whisk instead, a regular whisk with a conventional skillet or a plastic one in nonstick.
7. Meanwhile, set oven on the lowest setting, and put in  your serving plates, feta,  nuts and sour cream in separate heat-proof dishes.
8. Keep stirring the eggs, moving them around the skillet so they don't stick. The texture should be similar to that of a soft risotto.
9. When still very soft and slightly runny, mix in the sour cream and half of the pine nuts and feta.
10. Turn the eggs into the serving dish, and top with the remaining feta and then the pine nuts. Arrange the broccoli around the eggs, sticking the base of the florets under the eggs. If you have an extra floret, stick it in the center of the dish.  Next time I make this I will include a picture to this posting.
11. Serve immediately to two on warmed plates. Great with fresh baguette, whole grain toast, or matzah.

Asparagus with orange, two ways

There was a movie released in the 1980s called Ladyhawke, which I have actually never seen. Part of the plot is that two lovers are doomed to lifelong separation by a demonic curse invoked by the corrupt and jealous Bishop of Aquila: by day the woman is transformed into a hawk, while at night the man becomes becomes a black wolf, and they can only meet each other very briefly at dawn and at dusk.  Sometimes, my marriage reminds me of this.

I am a morning person.  I almost always wake up before my alarm, which is set at 6 am. The exception is weekends when I don't set my alarm but usually seem to wake up between 5 and 5:30.  Amy drags herself out of bed at 7 with difficulty when I am leaving or have already left.  On weekends, she almost never wakes up before 9.   Amy generally gets home later than I do, and we may have meetings or classes on different nights.  I will start to fade around 9, while she is up dealing with a combination of insomnia and addiction to the real estate channel.

This also reminds me of asparagus with orange flavor, a wonderful combination.  Although it is possible to get everything all year round now, for a price and considerable carbon impact, asparagus is at its peak in the early spring, whereas oranges are at their best in the winter.  They seem to cross briefly in March to May when oranges are in decline.  The classic combination is steamed asparagus with maltaise sauce, a variation on hollandaise which substitutes orange for the lemon.  While this is a fine combination, you can hear your arteries harden while you eat it, so here are two dishes that combine the flavors or orange and asparagus in a way more in accord with how we eat now.

Asparagus with orange vinaigrette

• Trim 2-3 pounds of asparagus and cook however you want.  I generally just put it in a large pot of salted boiling water and for thinnish asparagus, cook it until just before the water returns to the boil which makes it just a shade or two more tender than al dente.  You can also steam it in an asparagus steamer (lots of luck here -- I find that These steamers are a waste of money and the asparagus always slips out of the steamer basket) or cook it in a microwave.  Remove from the pot, steamer or microwave and cool in a colander under cold running water.  There are two many variables to even give times here.
• Make a vinaigrette with the grated rind and juice of and orange, the juice of a lemon, and as much olive oil as you feel like, between 1 and 6 tablespoons. 
• Dress the asparagus just before serving.  (It doesn't suffer much from marination, but I find it better freshly dressed.)
• We serve this dish every Passover, and you can adjust quantities for a family meal.

Pan-roasted asparagus with orange flavor

• Wash a pound of asparagus, trim off the tough bases, and cut in 2-3 pieces to separate the stalks from the tender tops. 
• Put some olive oil in a nonstick skillet, heat it, and add the stalks.  Saute, stirring occasionally, for about 3 minutes.  Add the tops, sprinkle with salt. and continue to saute another 7-10 minutes. For medium thin asparagus, 10-15 minutes on medium heat seems to do it, but you have to adjust cooking times to your own taste.
• Grate the rind of an orange.  Smash 2 large or 2 small cloves of garlic with the side of the blade of a broad knife, and a large pinch of coarse salt, and with the side and edge, work it into a paste.  Combine with the orange, and if you want it a bit spicy add a very large pinch of Aleppo pepper or a very small dash of cayenne. 
• Push the asparagus to the side of the skillet, turn heat down to medium low, and add a tablespoon of oil in the open space.  Add the paste and saute in the oil until it begins to loose its raw aroma.  
• Mix into the asparagus, taste for salt, and cook another minute or two to combine the flavors.
• Serves 2-4 s a side dish

Roasted garlic aioli

The third step in the order of the Passover seder is to eat karpas, which is most often parsley or celery dipped in salt water.  The reasons for this are rather obscure, but are often linked to Passover as a spring holiday.  You say the blessing over vegetables ("fruits of the earth") and then dip and eat.  In our family, we would have boiled potatoes, since that was as close as my grandfather would get to a green vegetable, and since the blessing is the same as that on parsley.  However, there is nothing to say that the karpas has to be so meager, and really any vegetables go.  Supposedly, Persian Jews serve a platter of herbs, which is the traditional opening of a Persian mean in any case.  The Cairo Geniza, one of the great documentary sources for medieval social history, contains evidence that karpas was something of a cocktail party at the beginning of the seder.  At our seder, we have gotten progressively more carried away with this over the years.  It can pacify those for whom the fifth question ("when do we eat?") is the most important one,  allowing the rest to enjoy the seder.  It fortifies everyone until dinner and keeps them happy. This year we had steamed artichokes, boiled new potatoes, radishes, carrots, fennel, and herb platters (coriander, watercress, tarragon, dill, parsley, and scallions), along with a variety of dips:  olive oil, beet caviar, guacamole, and this roasted garlic aioli.

Readers of this blog will know that my mother is seriously garlic averse, and aioli presents a real challenge when she is in the house.  However, although it is very sharp, aromatic (and delicious) made with raw garlic, it mellows out considerably ir you roast it first. The taste is still garlicy and rich enough to satisfy garlic lovers.  I actually roast it in the microwave which is fast and easy.  While I am sure that my mother would have been personally offended by the smell if we served a conventional aioli, she did not even remark on the roasted garlic version.  She may even have eaten some. Here is how I do it:

Roasted Garlic Aioli

Ingredients:

• 2 head garlic
• 1 egg yolk
• 1/4 cup flavorful liquid
• olive oil
• salt
• juice of 1/2 lemon

Method

1. The garlic is most easily roasted in a microwave.  Remove the paper outside of two heads of garlic, but leave whole.  Cut of a little of the tops to expose the insides of the cloves.  Put them in a measuring cup or microwave-safe dish, drizzle with a little olive oil, pour on 1/4 cup liquid (I used water with 1/2 teaspoon of Osem PArve Pesach vegetable broth, but you can use what you want.  Cover and zap for about 3 minutes or until garlic is tender. Squeeze the garlic out of the peels -- it will plop right out, and proceed as follows depending on whether you make it by hand or in a mini food processor. (The quantities aren't large enough to use a regular blender or food processor.)
2. To make it in a mini-processor: Put the peeled garlic in the processor with one egg yolk and a pinch of salt, and whir until chopped and combined.  With the motor running, drizzle in 1/2 to 3/4 cup of olive oil -- as much as it will take before breaking. Remove and mix in the lemon juice.
3. To make it by hand:  Smash the peeled garlic with some coarse salt with the side of a chef's knife or cleaver.  Using the blade and the side of the knife, work into a puree.  Transfer to a bowl and mix in an egg yolk.  Slowly drizzle in up to 3/4 cup of olive oil  It will be easier to see that the sauce is not breaking up if you are doing this by hand.  Stir in lemon juice.
4. The quantity given here makes just under a cup, and as one of many dips it was enough for 14.  By itself, I would say it serves 4-6, depending on how you use it.  It is delicious with all kinds of veggies, especially cold or room temperature steamed ones.  It would also go well as a side sauce with boiled or roast chicken, or with fish.  You can also spread it on fish fillets before baking quickly in a hot oven. 

Matzo brei with bananas, courtesy of Jeff Segall

I find that I generally make more matzo brei after Pesach that during the holiday.  During I may get around to it once or twice, but after you have to use up all that matzo.  Last year I found myself eating Sri Lankan style matzo brei several times a week until our home was matzo-free. So I was very happy when Jeff Segall, language teacher, sailor and musician, emailed around the variation that he makes which contains mashed bananas.  It makes a nice weekend breakfast, and will make it easier for me to finish the final boxes.

Matzo brei is a very personal thing, of the same order as pizza or bagels.  Just like it is hard to argue with people's taste in pizza and bagels, it is pointless to dispute their taste in matzo brei.  Some like it like a single cake, others scrambled.  Some like it soft, some crunchy.  Some salty, some sweet.  And some all of the above. For the record I am a scrambled crunchy person who likes his matzo brei with salt, pepper and something sweet.  Jeff uses a different soaking method than I do, and makes his like a large kugel.   His recipe is included at the end.  I tried to soak the matzos following his instructions, but I just couldn't do it.  I fell into default mode. So I don't expect you to follow my directions either.  But do try adding the bananas -- it is a real treat.

Banana Matzo Brei --Basic Recipe

Ingredients

• 5 matzos
• 4-6 eggs
• pinch salt
• 2 ripe bananas
• 1-4 tablespoons of butter
• cinnamon

Method

1. Soak matzos according to your preferred method.  Mine is to break them into more or less equal quarters and put them in a large bowl.  Fill the bowl with cold water, and let the matzos sit about 30 seconds.  Drain them while they are still crunchy,  cover them, and let them sit aside to absorb the water and soften.  It takes about 5-10 minutes, and they will soften further when you add the eggs.  I find that this way you don't have to squeeze out the excess moisture, because there is none.  However, as I said above, matzo brei is a very personal thing, and I don't expect anyone to change their preferred method on my account.  
2. Beat the eggs, add a pinch of salt (or a bit more if you are like me), and mix into the matzos.  If they have not softened all the way, let them sit for a few minutes more until they do.  
3. Slice, then mash the bananas, and mix them into the matzo and eggs.
4. To make like a single cake:  Heat a 10 inch nonstick skillet, add as much butter as your conscience, your cholesterol and your spouse allows, and pour in the mixture.  Spread it out and cook on medium heat until well browned.  Flip and cook until well browned on the other side.  Sprinkle with cinnamon and serve with honey, date honey, or maple syrup. 
5. To cook as pancakes:  Heat a 12 inch or larger nonstick skillet or griddle and add butter.  Drop about 1/2-3/4 cup of batter to make large pancakes.  Cook until brown, turn and brown on the other side, and serve as above.
6. Serves 3-4, depending on appetite. 

Middle eastern variation:  Omit the cinnamon. Add 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of ground cardamom to the batter.  This is best served with date honey.

For the kid in all of us:  Mix in up to a cup of chocolate chips. Serve this with whipped cream. 

Jeff Segall's recipe in his own words:

Fill a large bowl about 1/3 of the way with lukewarm water. Take about 4-5 sheets of matza and break them along the natural fault lines. Each piece should be about three or four fault lines wide and be about 1/3 the length of a matza. Break them into the bowl. Soak them for at least a minute. Be sure they're completely soaked and soft. Then holding the matza with one hand, pour the water out. Press the matza gently to squeeze out the excess water. Into the matza pour 4-6 eggs that you have already completely beaten so that the yolks and whites are thoroughly mixed. (For a lower cholesterol version, use 4 eggs and 2/3 cup of liquid egg whites). This serves 3-4.  With a fork, pick up the slices of matza so that both sides of every piece are infused with the eggs. 

To this mixture add two thoroughly mashed sliced bananas. Stir the mixture together. Pour this mixture into a hot pan greased with butter or margarine. Let it sit and fry for less than a minute. Then Flip. Cook 2 minutes. If using a smaller diameter pan, flip once more, let sit as it bubbles away, and flip yet one more time.  Serve with cinnamon sprinkled lovingly and sparingly from above. If you want it even sweeter, add maple syrup to your portion.  Invite your friends.  They'll love you.

Yemenite Beef and Potato Stew for Passover and Year Round

(I originally posted this in 2011 -- hear are some update notes from 2018:  We served this stew for the first seder this year and it was a big hit.  Because many people prefer chicken to beef, we used the chicken thighs instead of the beef bones, and came to the conclusion that the flavor was better, and the bone-in chicken also added a gelatinous richness to the sauce that was perhaps better than the version with beef bones or short ribs.   So, I added the option of chicken back into the recipe.  Also, we noticed that a freshly opened, new package of cumin bought for Passover made a real difference -- so make sure that your spices are fresh.)

It is a little late to be posting this recipe.  Pesach is almost over, and the temperature is approaching 70 degrees, and this dish is both Passover and cold weather food.  I have never figured out why countries like Yemen and Brazil make such wonderful rib-sticking cold weather dishes.  My recipe is adapted from the one in Faye Levy's International Jewish Cookbook , which is one of those rare cookbooks where all the recipes are good.  I have yet to make anything from there that hasn't been wonderful, but of all the recipes, this may be our favorite.

Our seders tend not to be gefilte fish, soup and kneidlach and brisket affairs.  People get that elsewhere and on other nights, and have come to expect other things from us.  So this was our main dish, and we have been eating it for dinner on and off since the beginning of the holiday.  The main challenge in making this was in adapting it for my garlic-o-phobe mother, so we did a trial run a few weeks before the holiday and much to my surprise, we didn't miss the garlic.  Also, Levy used a combination of beef and chicken and I find that the chicken gets too overcooked, so I substitute short ribs, which also give the sauce a lot of richness.  I also eliminate the water to concentrate the flavors and make it easier to serve on plates. (You may have to add water depending on the moisture of the other ingredients.)  Finally, I serve it with a fresh chutney of cilantro, chili, walnuts and fruit which livens it all up.

This is a great one-dish meal any time of year.  The potatoes soak up the flavor of the sauce.  It can be reheated many times.  And though it takes a few hours to cook, it requires very little work.  The hardest thing is peeling the potatoes:

Yemenite Beef and Potato Stew

serves 8-10

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1 very large onion, chopped
• 8-15 cloves garlic, sliced (optional -- one day I will do a side by side test)
• 2-3 tablespoons ground cumin
• 1/2 to 1 teaspoon turmeric
• 1 tablespoon paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• salt to taste
• 2-3  tablespoons tomato paste
• 14 ounce can diced tomatoes , drained (or half of a larger can)
• handful chopped flat leaf parsley
• 2-3 pounds beef stew (chuck or shank) cut into chunks if possible
• 2 pounds meaty beef bones, short ribs or flanken
• 8-10 medium red potatoes, peeled
• 3-4 chicken thighs, skinned if desired (recommended if not using beef bones)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
2. Saute onion in oil in a very large casserole (the largest flame and ovenproof one you have, 7 quarts or larger ) until soft but not browned.
3. Add garlic if using and saute for a minute.
4. Add spices and saute on low for about three minutes, stirring.
5. Add tomato paste, stir, and then add tomatoes and parsley.
6. Mix in stew meat, short ribs and potatoes, bring to a simmer, cover and put in the oven.
7. Bake for 1 hour.
8. Add chicken if using, pushing it down into the sauce.  Cook for 2 more hours.
9. That's it.  You can hold the dish for another hour or two in a turned off or low oven.
10. Serve with green walnut fruit chutney (recipe below), harissa or  schug (Yemenite hot sauce).  Although it doesn't need it, this goes very well with rice (we are enthusiastic kitniyot eaters) and also with quinoa.  

Green Walnut Chutney:  Put a handful of walnuts, a sliced green chili (I used a serrano with the seeds still in for heat), a small peeled, cored chopped granny smith apple, a peeled clementine (check for seeds), a handful of cilantro and a large pinch of salt into a blender or small processor.  Process until smooth.  You can substitute other nuts or leave them out altogether, but I find that they both give the chutney substance and keep it from turning dark.  Use this within a few days.

Favorite Passover Recipes; Seders and Maturity

I really wanted to call this something like "Slouching toward Pesach" but I didn't think that it would be as effective a title in attracting web traffic.  As I have remarked before, it is remarkable how many people end up on my site with Google searches for "absolute best latke recipe."  For those who ended up here due to a similar search, I beg your forgiveness, and ask everyone to read on.  No original recipes here, but also I hope nothing ordinary. Just links to some recipes already on the site that are suitable for Pesach, whether for the seder or otherwise. If you want recipes for brisket or matzoh balls, there are plenty of other places to look.

Pesach is always a test of maturity for me.  It turns out that my wife will have to work on both Sunday and half a day on Monday, so I will be responsible for a lot of the final cleaning and the cooking.   I will have to scale back some of my ambitions.  None of Paula Wolfert's confit of artichokes and oranges. (Cleaning 20 artichokes at this time of year!?  I decided my family wasn't worth it.) We were planning on a carrot soup with dill and dill matzoh balls, but we will skip that one as well.  Also, I had high hopes this year of trying to replicate my grandmother's chremslach, which we used to call Martian spacecraft, except rather than flying, they sank like lead to the bottom of your stomach.  These are mashed potato and egg patties, stuffed with shredded meat and gribenes (chicken cracklings) dredged in matzoh meal and fried in chicken fat.  Maybe next year.     Amy said that I was being very grown up and taking these setbacks in stride.

We are going to start our seder with Salmon Buglama, a Georgian dish that is similar (but better, if you asked me) to many of the cold Sephardi fish dishes cooked with tomatoes and served at the beginning of a festive meal.  We were going to make a Moroccan chicken tagine with prunes as one of our main dishes, but decided that there is too much chicken in life, we should be free of it at the seder.  Instead, we will have it for Shabbat dinner the Friday night before (when we are hosting Fulbright fellows from Bolivia, India, Turkey and Uzbekistan -- who needs this right before Pesach?) and will instead have a Yemenite beef and potato stew.  A wonderful side dish that we will not be making because my mother is garlic-averse is broccoli with schmaltz and garlic .  This dish provided me with much comfort in the dark days after the Citizens United decision and the 2010 elections, and if you have chicken fat around, and who doesn't this time of year, it is a great Pesach dish, whether at the seder or during the week. There will be lots of desserts, including Tishpishti, a Turkish walnut and orange cake.  Even if you have another recipe, I urge you to try this one.  It is far easier than any other version and really delicious.  And of course, matzoh toffee which used to be a rarity but now seems to be everywhere.  It is probably the only legitimate reason to buy and use Kosher for Passover margarine. 

There are also a number of recipes on the site that are suitable for the holiday, if not for the seder.  I love matzoh brei, both the conventional version and the Galitzianer version with onions.  Best of all is a riff on Kotthu roti made with matzoh instead of leftover Sri Lankan breads.  It is stir fried with spices, vegetables and eggs, and you can adjust the spices if you are one of the deluded souls who accepts a broad definition of kitniyot  and avoids eating them on the holiday.  Even though there are only two of us at home now (and my wife is on low-carbs) I will probably go ahead and get a 5-pound box of white matzoh so that I can make kotthu roti in the weeks after the holiday.

Finally, last but not least, two nice seasonal easy egg dishes, for those who really want to push their cholesterol through the roof:  spinach with eggs and asparagus Italian-style baked with cheese served with Spanish-style eggs fried in olive oil.

Hag kasher v'sameach to all.  I will try to post again during the holiday if I make anything interesting.

One of the world's best salmon dishes: Salmon buglama

As Passover approaches, my thoughts turn toward gefilte fish, which of course means "stuffed fish."  So why are the fish balls in the jar called gefilte fish?  They are the stuffing without the fish, cooked separately. My grandmother, who made the best gefilte fish that I have ever had, referred to the fish balls as kneidel, the same term she used for matzo balls and actually cognate with the French quenelles.  Her gefilte fish was mamish stuffed.  She would take the stuffing, and stuff pike, carp and whitefish steaks, with the skin still on to hold the stuffing in, as well as the heads and cook them in the fish broth along with some kneidel for those who didn't want to deal with the bones.  My grandfather and uncle were both fishmongers, and one of the signs of adulthood in my family was your graduation from kneidel to stuffed fish heads.   Given all of this, no one in my family is willing to eat gefilte fish out of the jar at a seder.  Likewise, no one is willing to make it how my grandmother did, and even if they were willing, no one knows how because no one took the time to learn the recipe.  

So what do we do?  We serve salmon buglama, a recipe which I adapted from Darra Goldstein's The Georgian Feast .   I switched her safflower oil , likely a holdover from Soviet era agriculture, to olive or walnut oil, and handle the onions differently.  Otherwise, the recipe is pretty much the same, with the exception that we serve it cold as well as hot.  During the year, we usually have it hot with new potatoes zapped with garlic, and then eat the leftovers cold for lunch the following days.  However, on Pesach we have served it cold for at least 10 years as our fish course, and people demand it every year.  It is very easy, and you can prepare it a day or two in advance. The quantity below will serve 4-6 as a main course, and be enough for small portions for 8-10 as an appetizer.  You can increase the quantities proportionately.  It is most attractive if you cook and serve it without disturbing the layers.

Salmon buglama

Ingredients

• 2 pound salmon filet (wild is best, farmed is acceptable), skin removed and cut into cubes the size of stew. (they may do this for you in the fish store, save the skin if you want and see below)
• 1 medium to large onion, halved and sliced thin
• Cilantro, washed well and chopped, up to one cup
• 1-3 lemons, sliced thin with seeds removed.
• 4 to 8 bay leaves, depending how much you like them (you can find and use fresh bay leaves on Pesach if you have compunctions about dried herbs and spices)
• 2 large tomatoes,  sliced thin, or the equivalent in smaller tomatoes.
• Olive oil, or substitute walnut oil if you want
• Salt and pepper.

Method

1. In a deep skillet with tight cover , drizzle a little oil and lay half the onion.
2. Put the salmon on top of the onion, season with salt and pepper, top with cilantro and remaining onion, and drizzle with a bit of olive oil.
3. Layer in order the lemon, bay leaves and tomato, season with more salt and pepper and drizzle with oil.
4. Cover tightly, bring to the boil, turn heat down and simmer gently for 15 minutes, or a bit more if necessary.  Don’t open the cover and don't test the fish by disturbing the layers, but if the cover is nice and hot and the tomatoes lightly cooked, it is done.
5. Serve hot or cold.

What to do with the skin?   If it breaks your heart to have them throw out the skin at the fish store, have them save it.  Brush it with oil on both side or spray it with oil spray, sprinkle with coarse salt and spices to taste (cumin and not pepper is a nice combo), and broil until crisp.  This has a potent smell, so either do it the day before your guests arrive, or make sure you know them very well.

Spinach with eggs

It is CSA (community supported agriculture) season, and we find ourselves eating a lot of vegetables with eggs. Sorry to sound like an advertisement, but there really is nothing like very fresh veggies cooked with farm fresh eggs. Today for breakfast, it was spinach with eggs: more spinach than eggs, and very tasty and easy. The hardest thing about it is washing the spinach, but worth it since good fresh spinach is some much better than the bagged prewashed stuff. See notes below on spinach, washing etc.

Spinach with eggs

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 medium-large finely diced shallot
• salt and pepper
• 3/4 pound spinach, large stems removed, washed well, and cut into shreds
• nutmeg
• 4-6 eggs, the fresher the better
• large handful of grated grana padano cheese (about 1/2 cup or more to taste, see note below)

Method

1. Melt butter in a very large nonstick skillet. ( The spinach may shrink, but it takes up a lot of room at first. ) Add shallot, sprinkle with salt, and saute until soft but not brown.
2. Add the spinach and cook over high heat until wilted and most of the liquid is evaporated.
3. Season with pepper and a few scrapings of nutmeg.
4. Beat the eggs until well combined, and add a pinch of salt.
5. Add to the spinach, and cook over medium heat until done to your liking. Mix in the cheese and serve warm.
6. That's it. Serves 2-4 depending on the number of eggs and your appetite.

Grana padano!?: This runs about $2-3 dollars a pound less than good Parmesan, and I always looked down my nose at it as a low quality knockoff. However, eating at the Savoy in Soho, the waitress informed us that their chef has been experimenting with using Grana instead, and has even come to prefer it. So a few weeks ago I started buying Grana, and it is quite good, with a nutty, caramelized aroma. Besides, the savings helps when my daughter, the cheese wizard, is at home. I think she can go through 2 pounds of Parmesan or more a week, but likes the Grana well enough, and this adds up to significant savings. But, today she just informed me that she doesn't find it as nutty. It was nice while it lasted.

Spinach: There is no question that the pre-washed bagged spinach is convenient, and if you want to use it for this dish, go ahead. I have made it before myself with the baby leaves straight out of the bag. But the real thing is much tastier, and not that much more effort. They key to washing spinach and other greens is not to run water over them, which doesn't do much good since it just leave the grit trapped in the crevices, but to soak the greens in a large bowl, tub or sink of water and swish them around and leave them sit a bit. Lift them out of the water, drain and rinse your receptacle, and continue until there is no more dirt. This year, the farmer at our CSA seems to be doing something so that the greens and veggies are cleaner and take less time to wash. This is a relief, because washing our share was almost a part time job. (Interestingly, there was an article in the Wall Street Journal a few years ago about the spread of supermarkets in India, and how one obstacle was the tendency of the markets to wash their vegetables, while the consumers considered the dirt a sign that they were farm fresh!)

Italian baked asparagus with Spanish fried eggs

What's my favorite dish? Who's my favorite child? It's an unfair question.

But, if pressed, for both my wife and I, our favorite dinner may be baked asparagus with fried eggs. It is a very popular Italian dish (it may have been the first think I ever ate in Italy, arriving in Milan around lunchtime in April 1982) and can be found in most Italian cookbooks. We make a few changes when we make it, which I think partly simplify and partly improve the dish. Rather than steaming or boiling the asparagus, and then baking it with Parmesan cheese, we just bake it. It is certainly easier, and if anything, better, since the roasting concentrates the flavor of the vegetable, while steaming or boiling can dissipate it. Also, rather than serving it with conventional sunny side up eggs cooked in butter, which you can get better in any diner, we shallow fry them in olive oil, following the method in Penelope Casas' The Foods and Wines of Spain. These eggs can stand on their own and if you have never had them, it is a transformative experience -- crisp rather than slightly rubbery. With the asparagus, especially with locally grown asparagus available in the NY area for a few more weeks, it is a marriage made in heaven.

Ingredients

• Asparagus -one hefty bunch or two small ones makes a meal for two
• Butter
• Parmesan cheese (the good stuff)
• Eggs (one or two per person)
• Olive oil
• Salt and pepper

Method

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
2. Snap off the woody bottoms of the asparagus.
3. Butter a large baking dish, and put in the asparagus, ideally in one layer but no more than two. Dot with a little butter (about a tablespoon total), season lightly with salt and more generously with freshly ground black pepper, and sprinkle with a good handful of freshly grated Parmesan.
4. Bake about 15 minutes until the asparagus is as tender as you like (it should not be really crisp). It may take longer if the asparagus is thick or the pan is crowded.
5. When the asparagus is done heat at least 1/4 inch of olive oil in an 8 or 9 inch skillet, ideally cast iron. Nonstick doesn't work well here. (1/2 inch or more of oil is better but this often freaks people out the first time they do this.
6. Put the asparagus on 2 serving plates.
7. Break one egg into a cup and if this is important to you, check for blood spots.
8. When the oil is shimmering and almost smoking, slip in the egg. Leave it for about 15 seconds, and if the oil is hot enough, the white will start to form bubbles. Baste the top by spooning some hot oil over it (the easier safer way), or my tilting the pan around so oil slips over the top. The white will blister and brown, and the yolk should stay soft. The whole think takes a minute or less.
9. Remove the egg with a slotted spatula, let the oil drip off, put the egg on the asparagus on one plate, sprinkle the egg with coarse salt, and repeat with another egg.
10. Serve with good crusty bread, dipping the bread and the asparagus in the egg yolk.

Serves 2.

Cooking fat: Don't use super expensive condiment quality olive oil here. The intense heat will take away much of the aroma. Use your every day olive oil, which you can even cut with a little vegetable oil if expense is a concern. The olive oil should dominate, and more oil is better than less to get the right result with the eggs.

Chicken tagine with prunes

A tagine is a slow-cooked Moroccan stew, and also the name of the dish in which it is traditionally prepared , a sort of a flat earthenware casserole with a conical top -- very poetic, but not very practical if you are cooking for more than two adults. I make no claims as to the authenticity of the recipe for this tagine, which I have cobbled together from a variety of sources, but it works. It is like a spicy chicken tzimmes. We made it for Seder (and served it with potato kugel), but it is a good year round dish and easy enough to make on weeknights. The key is that you don't brown the chicken before stewing it, but rather glaze it after while you are thickening the sauce, which regular readers of this blog will recognize as a favorite method of mine.

Chicken tagine with prunes

Ingredients

• 1 three pound chicken, cut into eights, or 3 pounds chicken thighs (I think chicken thighs work best here, but some people like their white meat)
• 1 large grated Spanish onion
• 3-4 large sprigs of fresh coriander, washed well but left whole
• 2 cloves mashed garlic (I left these out on Pesach because my mother hates garlic)
• 1 teaspoon finely ground black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger (Moroccans use the dried spice, rather than fresh)\
• 1-2 cinnamon sticks (optional -- nice, but it depends on how the other dishes are spiced)
• large pinch of saffron, toasted in a skillet briefly and then soaked in 1/4 cup water for a few minutes
• pinch of turmeric
• salt
• 12 oz. dried pitted prunes
• 1 cup black raisins (optional)
• 1 pound carrots, peeled and cut into 1-2 inch pieces

Method

1. Soak prunes and raisins in warm water about 30 minutes.
2. If you want a lighter dish, you can remove the skin from the chicken, in which case you should skip step #6, broiling the chicken.
3. Put chicken in a pot with onion, coriander, garlic, spices (including saffron water) and salt. Bring to a simmer and stew about 20 minutes.
4. Drain the raisins and prunes and add to the chicken, along with the carrots, and cook about 20-25 more minutes until chicken is done.
5. Remove chicken from the pot and place skin side up in an oven and broiler safe serving dish.
6. Broil chicken until the skin in brown. Be careful that you don't burn it.
7. Meanwhile, remove the coriander sprigs and taste the sauce, especially for the balance of heat, sweet and salt. Adjust seasonings if necessary, and boil down until the sauce is thick.
8. Pour the sauce over the chicken and serve. It also keeps nicely if you hold it in a low oven, and reheats well, especially if you use the thighs. Serve with couscous, mashed potatoes, rice, kugel on Pesach, or thick Israeli-style pita.
9. Serves 4 generously.

Couscous: I use Claudia Roden's method. Combine equal amounts of couscous and salted boiling water (1 to 1.5 cups should be more than enough for 4), in an oven safe dish, covered, for about 20 minutes. Oil your hands lightly and massage the couscous to separate the grains. This makes it fluffy and is actually kind of fun. Dot with a little pareve margarine (butter if you are not fussy about these things) and heat covered in the oven at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes. The temperature is flexible, and it can also sit in the oven. While I used to only prepare couscous in a couscousierre, a tall cylindrical pot with a steamer on top for the couscous and massage it twice, following Paula Wolfert's directions. It was a pain in the neck and frankly doesn't come out appreciably better than Roden's way. In her recent cookbook, Mediterranean Grains and Greens, Wolfert really goes over the top and tells people to roll their own couscous from semolina. (For a great review/appreciation/sendup of this book, see Nicholas Lemann's review "The Diva" from Slate.) However, I do agree with Wolfert that instant couscous is an abomination.

Spices on Pesach:   Due to changes in the ways that spices are processed, some ground spices may contain hametz.  If this is of concern and you cannot find Kosher for Passover spices, you can leave out the turmeric and substitute a 1 tablespoon grated ginger for the dried.  The saffron should not present a problem, and black pepper is widely available K for P or may be ground fresh.  Pereg, an Israeli brand, produces many K for P spices.  Also, Penzeys spices are pure, high-quality, and prepared without any addititives that might contain hametz, such as anti-caking agents.  People far stricter than I am use them with confidence.

Matzo Brei, Sri-Lankan and Galitzianer style

I am not going to provide a standard matzo brei recipe -- most people have their favorites already, and anyone else can find one in a cookbook or on the internet. However most recipes fall squarely into the category of breakfast foods, a French-toast substitute made out of the bread of affliction and usually served sweet. (Personally, I like mine with salt, pepper, cinnamon sugar, and sometimes date honey.)

Here I offer two savory matzo breis:

Matzo Brei, Sri-Lankan style (Kotthu Roti)

Kotthu Roti (Litvak style)

Our Montreal cousins often go to a Sri Lankan restaurant in their neighborhood called Jolee, which serves a dish called kotthu roti which is made of leftover bread, chopped up, and fried on a griddle with seasonings, eggs, veggies and other ingredients. It is a great way of using up leftovers. This is popular street food and supposedly, in Tamil cities in Southern India and Sri Lanka, the night is permeated by the sound of bread being chopped on griddles for kotthu roti. It is so popular that a lot of bread never makes it to the leftover stage and is produced especially for this dish. My first reaction on tasting it was that it was like a South Asian matzo brei, and this year I finally tried it:

Ingredients

• 6 matzos
• 1-3 tablespoons oil
• 1/2 tablespoon cumin seed
• 1/2 tablespoon mustard seed (if you swing that way, see below)
• 1/4 teaspoon turmeric (optional)
• 1-2 cups chopped oniony stuff (white parts of scallions, shallots, red or yellow onions)
• 1-3 green chilies, chopped
• 10-20 curry leaves (optional, if available)
• 4 -8 oz. finely shredded cabbage
• 1-2 medium tomatoes, seeded and chopped (you can also substitute a chopped sweet red pepper)
• salt
• 1-4 eggs, lightly scrambled and salted
• handful of fresh coriander

Method

1. Break matzos into medium size pieces. Put in a large bowl and cover with cold water, and leave for about five minutes. You may need to weight the matzos down so that they are covered. Drain well, even if the matzos are still a little hard. Leave it in the bowl, covered, while you gather and chop the other ingredients, and it will continue to soften. (Matzo brei cooks better if the matzo is not oversoaked.
2. Heat oil in a very large nonstick skillet until very hot.
3. Add the mustard and cumin seeds, and heat until the cumin darkens slightly and the mustard pops.
4. Add the curry leaves and stir.
5. Add turmeric and stir.
6. Add onions (sprinkle with salt) and chilies and stir until soft but not brown, about 5 minutes.
7. Add cabbage and cook until wilted. Brown it a bit if you want.
8. Add tomatoes and stir fry a few minutes. Add a bit more salt.
9. Add the matzos and let it sit for a few minutes, and then stir fry about 10-15 minutes, until lightly browned and no longer soggy. They will sort of swell and crisp lightly at the same time. Taste for salt and add more if necessary.
10. Push the mixture over to one side of the skillet. Pour a bit of oil onto the exposed part of the skillet, and add the eggs. Let it cook undisturbed for about a minute, and then scramble and cook until done. Stir to incorporate into the other ingredients.
11. Add fresh coriander, stir and serve to the relief of people who are getting very bored with their diet as Passover starts to drag.

Serves 3-4 for lunch with a salad.

Why don't you soak the matzos with the eggs? Most recipes call for soaking the matzos in egg after the water soak, but that leaves you with a texture too similar to regular matzo brei and not enough like kotthu roti. The matzo will steam and soften in the skillet and doesn't need to be soaked in egg for this dish.

Mustard seeds: (You may skip this section if you eat kitniyot. You may also skip this if you don't know what kitniyot are and therefore don't care whether you eat mustard seeds on Passover or not.) I personally follow David Golinkin (http://www.responsafortoday.com/engsums/3_4.htm ) on the issue of the prohibition of kitniyot and consider it a "foolish custom." I have never been much for stringency, and if Ovadiah Yosef eats it, why can't we? (Not that he would ever eat in my house anyway.) Besides, my grandfather said that our last name, Divack may have been derived from Dweck, a common Syrian name and that we might have some Middle Eastern ancestry. For grains like rice I can almost understand holding to the stringency, but mustard seeds? Would anyone every mistake ground mustard with flour from one of the forbidden grains? Adding prohibition to prohibition is contrary to the joy of the holiday which already has enough restrictions to keep us all busy. That having been said, you can skip the mustard seeds, use only cumin and it will be fine.

Other ingredients: You can really make this with what you want -- these are the vegetables that I had on hand. I used mostly scallions, since every year, we have a plate of scallions that we intend to use to whip each other while singing dayenu, and always forget to do it, so it was a good way to use up the scallions. Shallots are probably the most authentic, but use what you have. The same goes for the other veggies. I liked the cabbage and tomato combination (don't overdo the tomatoes) but you could add other greens, shredded zucchini (I would salt this lightly first and then rinse to eliminate the extra moisture), and chopped green beans, if you consider them acceptable during the holiday. If you want, instead of the eggs, it would also be good with some leftover shredded roast chicken. In any case, you need to use plenty of oil.


Galitzianer-style savory Matzo Brei:

Over 30 years ago, Celia, the mother of my mother's friend Susan, made this matzo brei. She said that the got the recipe "From a Galitzianer woman." In retrospect, I wonder if the original inspiration was Tamil. I can't believe that people who put sugar in their gefilte fish would think a such a wonderful, savory thing to do with matzo brei.

To make it, make matzo brei the ordinary way: soak and drain the matzo, and then add one beaten egg per board. For about 4-6 pieces, grate in one medium to large onion and season with plenty of salt an pepper. Cook in vegetable oil or schmaltz (chicken fat) in a non-stick skillet. This should be scrambled and not pancake-style. I like it best somewhat long cooked until at least some of the pieces are browned, crisp and chewy. This is a perfect side dish with any dish with gravy. like a brisket, or even with a plain roasted chicken if you are sicker of potatoes than you are of matzo.

Matzah Toffee

Uncharacteristically, the two passover recipes that I have posted so far are for desserts, and Amy usually makes them rather then me. Why am I posting them? Because they're good notwithstanding that some of the ingredients are truly gross. Kosher for Passover margarine is not much better than Crisco with motor oil overtones (I am paraphrasing a friend here) and I would be surprised if the Passover chocolate chips contain more than 10% cacao. But who cares? Everyone seems to love it and some years Amy seems to make a batch every day of the holiday. If you try it, you will certainly find yourself making more than one batch. Most people seem to know about this recipe already, but some don't and I consider posting it on my blog to be a public service. I would give credit for it, but its provenance has been lost with time.

Ingredients

• Matzah, to fit pan (about 6 pieces)
• 1 cup kosher for Passover margarine
• 1 cup dark brown sugar
• 12 ounces (2 cups) pareve kosher for Passover semi-sweet chocolate chips

Method

1. Preheat your oven to 450 degrees and line a 15 x 10 inch shallow pan (a nonstick jellyroll pan is ideal) , with matzah boards. Fit them to cover the bottom evenly, without overlapping; you may need to break them to do so.
2. In a small saucepan over medium heat, melt the margarine and brown sugar together and bring them to a slow boil. Maintain a gently boil without stirring for 3 - 5 minutes, until the mixture becomes thick enough to coat a spoon. Pour the sugar mixture over the matzah and spread evenly. Bake in the oven for 4-5 minutes or so. (You want to see the brown sugar and margarine mixture bubbling but be careful that it doesn’t burn, especially if you think your oven runs hot.)
3. Immediately sprinkle the chocolate chips on top of the matzah, and as they start melting, gently spread the melted chocolate so that it covers the top as completely as possible.
4. It is sometimes easier to remove later if you cut the toffee into pieces when it is still warm, but there are so many variables (esp the pan you use) that this is not always necessary.
   
5. Let the matzah toffee cool at room temperature until it has completely solidified. You can speed this process by putting it in the fridge or freezer, or, this year, leaving it by an open window.
6. Break into pieces, and store in an airtight container. Cleaning the pans is no fun.
7. Makes about 2 pounds of candy.
   

Ingredients: You could make this with butter for a dairy version, and, frankly, it is good enough that it would be worth making after the holiday with butter and real chocolate chips. Amy has been talking about chopping up real chocolate for it (you can buy K for P chocolate that is 75% cacao but it is 4 times more expensive than the chips) but no one has ever complained when we served this toffee to them so I convinced her that it was worth neither the effort nor the expense. If you don't need a treat, your kids do, so make it now, even with the gross stuff. Besides, it is a lot better and less expensive than most of the Passover desserts that you would buy.

Nuts? We argue about this every year. Amy likes to add slivered almonds, but I don't think they add anything. Besides, her brother is allergic to nuts and sometimes gets insulted when people serve them. This year we may top some with chopped pistachios. It's worth trying both ways, but I would keep the preponderance plain. (Post Seder update: even though last year's almond slivers sort of left me cold, the chopped pistachios rock. Apologies to my wife.)

Crumbly leftovers: You will find chocolate toffee crumbs at the bottom of the storage container. Don't throw them out. They are great as a topping for ice cream during the year.

Tishpishti: Orange walnut cake for Passover from Turkey

People have asked me why I haven't posted anything for Pesach yet, but who has the time, so I am offering this easy and wonderful cake without much commentary. My friend Barbara brought this to our house for Seder a few years ago. She got the recipe from her friend Karen and it was a big hit so she shared the recipe with us. It is simplicity itself, light and delicious. There are other versions but they are all more complicated. Harry, our son who occasionally has the misfortune to have his birthday fall during Pesach, liked it so much that he requested it for his birthday cake. If it is good enough for a 15 year old (now almost 18), it should be good enough for you too.

Ingredients

• 5 eggs lightly beaten
• 1¼ cups walnuts chopped
• 3/4 cup ground almonds
• 1 cup sugar
• juice and grated zest (skin) of 1 orange
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon

Method

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Mix all the ingredients well.
3. Line bottom of 9 inch square cake pan with foil or parchment paper (I think parchment works better.)
4. Brush paper and sides of the pan well with oil.
5. Bake for 1 hour until browned.
6. Turn out upside down immediately and peel off the paper . If it looks like it is going to stick, put the pan back over it and just serve it from the pan.
7. Cool and serve cut into one inch squares.
   

Chicken Fat and Coping with Citizen's United vs FEC

In last night's State of the Union message, as a scowling Justice Alito mouthed "not true," President Obama called on legislators of both parties to take action in response to the Supreme Court's overturning of a century of precedent and legislation in Citizen's United vs the FEC, but was not specific as to what response was necessary. This atrocious decision, based ultimately in the long Anglo-American legal doctrine treating corporations, in matters if business and commerce, as "fictive people" (note however business, commerce, and "fictive") will have ramifications for our political system that we cannot even imagine. In aiming a nuclear weapon at a case the called for a scalpel, the Roberts' court proved themselves to be true judicial activists, and gave lie to any claim to judicial restraint or respect for the original intent.

There are a number of movements beginning, such as Free Speech for People whose proposed solutions I find as vague as that of the president's in last night's address, i.e. a constitutional amendment to "restore the first amendment and fair elections to the people," whatever that means. It will take time for the political system to absorb this decision, which strikes down many state and federal laws. It may have unintended and unforeseen consequences. Will some be positive? Will nonprofits and foundations, also corporations, be allowed to spend money for candidates and engage in lobbying? Both kinds of organizations are corporations. Most I fear will be negative, but it will take a a while to sort this out and longer to formulate an effective response. Given that no one has shown much specificity or direction in how to respond to Citizen's United, I don't think that anyone will be surprised or find it objectionable that my own personal response to this travesty of justice was to make myself a dish a broccoli with schmaltz (rendered chicken fat).

I have been hearing about this recipe for years. It is made regularly by the father of one of Harry's friends. Once I almost tasted it. They had come to our house for Pesach to make it thinking we had schmaltz on hand (doesn't everybody?) and since we didn't we had to have plain old broccoli with olive oil. But this time I was prepared. Having made some schmaltz earlier in the week (to make hubagrits soup for the comfort that I needed after the Massachusetts senatorial election) I was ready when the Supreme Court handed down its decision with both broccoli and schmaltz. Here is how you do it:

Broccoli with schmaltz and garlic in the style of John Pittman

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons schmaltz
• 1 tablespoon or less of olive or vegetable oil
• 3 cups broccoli florets (from about one bunch)
• 4-6 cloves of garlic, smashed, peeled and chopped or thinly sliced
• a tablespoon or so of water
• salt and pepper

Method

1. Heat schmaltz and oil on medium high-heat in a non-stick or impeccably seasoned cast iron skillet just large enough to hold the broccoli.
2. Add broccoli and cook 2-3 minutes, tossing or stirring, until it starts to glisten. Add salt and pepper.
3. Push the broccoli aside a bit and add the garlic, making sure that it gets into the fat in the bottom of the pan. Cook this for a minute or two, to take away the raw flavor of the garlic, and the mix it in well with the broccoli, cook, stirring or tossing, for another minute.
4. Add the water -- I just wet my hands and sprinkle it over the skillet. Cover and steam for another 1-3 minutes until the broccoli is done to your taste. The stems should be crunchy, the flower part a bit softer, neither raw or overdone. Add more salt and pepper if you want.
5. This would make a nice side for 4, but I had it by myself for lunch. I felt that I, and the rest of us, deserved it.

Notes

Schmaltz: is both Yiddish and German for any rendered fat. I was shocked that in Germany, it just means lard, which they even spread of bread. For Jews in Eastern Europe (and possibly in Israel today in part as a bi-product of their foie gras industry) it generally meant goose fat. But the US when used without modifiers it generally means rendered chicken fat. You can buy it kosher markets and many supermarkets, at least in the NY area (Empire may be the most common brand) , but if you can't, or if you want its main by product (gribenes, aka chicken cracklings aka brown gold) make it yourself. which is not all that hard. Whenever you make chicken or skin a chicken, save the fat or skin in a container in the freezer. The fat that you pull out of a chicken before roasting it is ideal, but kosher chickens don't always have this because they have already pulled it out to make schmaltz. I make a lot of stewed chicken thighs Indian-style and it is very easy to pull off their skin which adds nothing to the stew in any case. Chop up the skin and fat, which is easier if it is frozen, put it in a pot, and barely cover it with water. Boil it on high heat to get the rendering going. When most of the water has cooked away, add one small sliced quartered onion for every two cups of fat and skin. Turn the heat down to very low, and cook until the cracklings and onions are browned but not burned, stirring the pan from the bottom so they don't stick and burn. Strain out the fat and store in the fridge. (Barbara Kafka also suggests rendering 2.5 cups of fat in a 2 1/2 quart microwave safe casserole, covered with papers towel, for 25 minutes. Given today's more powerful microwaves, I would check after 15 minutes and continue in 2-5 minute increments if it needs more time. ) Don't worry too much about the health consequences. You won't consume all that much schmaltz, and in The Cooking of South-West France, Paula Wolfert assures us that rendered poultry fat has less than half the saturated fat of butter. It doesn't burn as easily, either, especially when mixed with a bit of oil. How do you use it? Spread it on bread, salt it and top with gribenes, especially the sour-rye known as "corn bread." In Pruzhane, they used to eat this bread topped with goose schmaltz, fresh sauerkraut, gribenes and sugar! Make chopped liver with it and you may never use oil again. Use it in mashed potatoes or a baked potato instead of butter. Drizzle it on steamed vegetables like spinach or cabbage. Best of all, use it for frying chicken cutlets or especially veal shoulder chops breaded with matzo meal. I have a friend who has never had a good word for his mother, but who gets all misty eyed when he talks about her veal chops.

Gribenes: Salt the cracklings, better known as gribenes, and eat like popcorn but be prepared for the consequences. They are better warmed up a bit. They also go well in mashed potatoes, baked potatoes, chopped liver, in salad instead of croutons (use some warmed schmaltz and gribenes instead of bacon in a wilted spinach salad) and best of all, to stuff chremslach (mashed potato fritters fried in schmaltz) a Pesach specialty of my grandmother's).

The skillet: I made the broccoli in a nonstick skillet, which was good, thought it probably would have been even better in cast iron. The problem is maintaining an impeccably seasoned cast iron skillet. Last night we had steak and mushrooms, pan broiled in cast iron, the only real option in most city kitchens. Halfway through dinner, Harry was complaining about how smokey the house was, and opened the windows. A few minutes later, we went into the kitchen and saw that the heat was still on high under the skillet, which was no longer impeccably seasoned. I am not looking forward the the scouring and seasoning that awaits me today, nor to the weeks it will take to restore the skillet's patina. So I tend not to use my cast iron's unless I really have to.

The broccoli: John's recipe called for florets only, and this is a lot easier. However, the stems would be good as well. They just need to be peeled, and added to the skillet for about two minutes before the florets. There was a time when Harry would only eat the broccoli stems, but we are fortunately beyond that. He will now eat the florets, provided they are piping hot.