It is milchig season and it seems I have a real liking for all things “au gratin”……

Here comes a way to use some dry leftover challa or other white bread that is not exactly soft any more. It is a real grandma recipe from the old days when bread was never thrown away. It might not sound like something very fancy when reading through, but I just love it. It is prepared very quickly and can be kept warm on the plata.

Baked bread:

- bread (2 small loaves or one big)

- sugar

- vanilla sugar

- flaked almonds

- butter (to grease the oven pan and some more for on top at the very end)

- diced dried fruits or chocolate drops (optional)

- milk (about 1 liter)

How to:

Remove some or all of the bread crust if it is too hard. Cut the bread into thick slices or cubes.

Grease oven pan well with butter.

Put bread slices into a bowl filled with milk one after another. Let soak well, drain only a tiny bit.

Arrange first slice in the oven pan, sprinkle with sugar and vanilla sugar, proceed like this until all bread is in the pan. If you use the bread diced just fill in bread and sugar in layers. (You can also add dried fruits or chocolate drops now, but I prefer it very plain.) On top of all the bread slices sprinkle some more sugar, add some flakes of butter and quite a bit of flaked almonds. Bake at 180° Celsius for about 15 minutes or until golden brown on top. (Beware of the almonds…..they should not get too dark!)

Serve with home made jam, apple sauce or even ice cream.

It is time to add some nice milchig recipes for Shavuot. The following is mashed potatoes with a topping of tuna fish and sour cream au gratin. You might wonder a) about the name and b) about the combination of mashed potatoes and fish.

Well, the name……I saw something resembling this recipe in a cookbook years ago and as I usually only consult the pictures and not the recipe I just concocted something that resembled the picture. Since then the recipe has somehow evolved and is now one of my husbands favorites. I have therefore no idea whether it really is some variety of a sailor’s pie, but the name stuck. Lets keep it that way

About mashed potatoes and fish. Yes, first I was a little bit hesitant, too, but by now this dish has won the hearts and stomachs of quite a few people…..I’m therefore quite sure you will come to find that it matches just perfect.

The feasibility of this recipe depends on whether you have the custom to cook fish and milk products together. If not you can substitute the fish chunks with some diced carrots or some other vegetable you like. At the end you will find some more hints for a completely pareve variation.

The mashed potatoes:

Prepare mashed potatos after one of your own recipes or use the following:

Peel about 1-1.5 kg of potatoes, dice, cook in salted water until very done. Drain water, mash potatoes with a fork and add some chunks of butter. Mix well. Add some cream, salt, nutmeg and keep mixing until it has a thick and not too wet consistency.

Topping:

- 2-3 tins of white tuna (net weight all together about 300-350 grams (or else substitute the tuna with some other white meat fresh fish freed from bones and cut into small pieces)

- 250-300 gr. sour cream

- 2 fistful shredded cheese

- chopped parsley

- chopped chive or dill, whatever at hand

- white pepper

- salt

Combine all above mentioned ingredients (but leave one fistful of shredded cheese aside). Put mashed potato in an oven pan, layer the sour cream mixture on top. Add the rest of the cheese on top of the sour cream mixture. Bake for 20-25 minutes at 200° Celsius.

Here the pareve Italian variation:

Prepare mashed potatoes without cream/butter. Instead add some pareve margarine and if desired some thick soy cream. Prepare a very thick Italian tomato sauce after your liking, add tuna fish (pink tuna). Proceed as described above but leave away the cheese. Enjoy!

Well here a very short and quick “how to” for a matching gravy to accompany the meat loaf. (Besides I’m starving…..it’s Taanis Esther….). Again, the * marks all ingredients which better be cut on a pareve board due to the fact that they will later go into the food processer.

 You need:

1 onion, 1-2 red sweet pepper(s)*, 1 yellow sweet pepper, 3 tomatoes*, 3 potatoes, 2 carrots, some roast gravy powder dissolved in water (about 2-3dl), salt, pepper, paprika (lots), red wine, oil.

Chop onion, peel red pepper(s) and tomatoes. Put peeled pepper(s) and tomatoes in mixer until well blended. 

Stir-fry onions in a pan, add red wine and then the blended paprika/tomato. In case this is to dry add some water.

Now cut the potatoes, carrots and yellow peppers in the shape you like (I usually do large chunks for the potatoes, smaller ones for the carrots and fine strips for the peppers).

After about 10 Minutes add gravy and potatoes. Let boil some more minutes. Add spices to your liking. Generally it takes quite some paprika to get the right taste so don’t be shy…..At the very end add the yellow sweet pepper.

Well, that is about it. Enjoy.

Meat loaf can be a bit tricky….it gets too dry or too wet or it does not stick together. I concocted this recipe myself and although I never absolutely stick to it it has never ever failed to yield an impeccable meat loaf. I might add that even my father, a feared meat loaf critic, just loved it……

Here it comes (serves about 6 persons):

(You will have to cut up the ingredients marked with an asterisk with a pareve knife as they will go into the food processor afterwards)

750 gr. minced meat, 2 eggs, about 50 gr. mazzomeal, 1 tablespoon olive oil, 1 onion*, 2 cloves of garlic*, 1 red sweet pepper*(peeled if possible), 3 small mushrooms* (whatever your taste, fresh or dried and soaked overnight), a tiny bit of grated lemon peel, 1 tomato*, 1 sachet of kosher Osem Roast Gravy (or any other, this one contains 22 gr. of powder per sachet), some fresh red chili* or your favorite Israeli chili dip (about one teaspoon), spices: paprika, pepper, salt, herbs: parsley, rosemary.

If you possess a fancy potato peeler (for the Swiss folks: the famous “Sparschäler”) peel the red sweet pepper before putting it into the food processor or else try to remove some skin with a knife, the fewer left the better.

Put all ingredients marked with an asterisk into the food processor. Blend until smooth. Put into one bowl with minced meat, knead until well mixed. Add all other ingredients. Add quite a bit of spices as minced meat does absorb a lot of their taste and will otherwise taste boring. You should be able to smell the spices well when putting your nose over the mixture. Go rather easy on the salt; consider that kosher meat already contains some salt and so does the roast gravy. Wait some 15 minutes.

The “dough” shold now be moist but not wet. If it is too wet, add some more mazzomeal, if it is too dry, add another blended tomato (or if really extremely dry, another egg). Usually the mixture will turn out just fine.

Put mixture into a longish rectangular pastry pan lined with baking paper. Press on well, the mixture has to stick together.

Put in preheated oven ( 160° celsius) for 50-65 minutes.

If too much moisture starts to swim on top of it, take the pastry pan out and drain liquid. Put back into oven.

Let cool in pan, serve with homemade goulash and noodles. (You can refrigerate half of it for a later date, it will not lose taste)

I bought every child’s dream…..a chocolate fondue set. Not that this is in any way necessary in life, but it does stir up happy childhood memories of ravenous uncontrolled chocolate consumption and being awfully sick afterwards…..well, the first part is definitely the better

The only reason I write this is because I am testing whether it is possible to serve this on shabbat. I really wonder whether the chocolate sauce will survive the plata…..don’t worry I’ll keep you posted!

Voilà here come the findings:

The chocolate sauce can be easily heated on shabbos by pouring hot water from the samowar into a large bowl and then putting the fondue bowl into that hot water (bain-marie method). This seems to be in line with halacha, too (I checked in “Hilchos Schabbos” by Rav Posen, where heating by hot water is discussed, e.g. heating the contents of a baby bottle). No plata needed at all.

In an orthodox household you will not be able to use the stand with the candle that comes with the fondue set for keeping it warm on shabbos, as the candle gets too hot (and many other considerations).

But if heated in the above mentioned way you can get the chocolate hot enough to stay warm for some time and can still put the bowl onto the stand (without candle) just for the sake of style. If you do not own a fondue set, you can improvise with a heat resistant bowl and small forks.

Anyway chocolate fondue is never lasting for hours….it’s just too good!

How to: Melt pareve chocolate by bain-marie method. You can add some soy-cream or other pareve cream to reduce sweetness and make it more creamy. Let cool in bowl. Cut different fruits in small cubes to dip into the chocolate (you can also take cookies, marshmallows etc.). Set aside. Heat again during main course……so it will be ready for dessert. Serve and enjoy. (If children are present: make sure your fine white linen is safely put away or covered with plastic foil )

This a really simple “add all ingredients and let simmer….simmer…simmer”-recipe that will win you loads of compliments. It tastes great with rice, couscous or farvel.

Ingredients: Lamb meat in cubes or big chicken chunks with bone, 2 onions diced, a pinch of saffron powder dissolved in some warm water, ras el hanout (moroccan spice mix), olive oil, about 5 tomatoes diced, two fistfuls of chickpeas soaked overnight and cooked until about half done, about 8 prunes in halves, salt, pepper, 1 cinnamon stick, kosher broth cubes if needed.

Preparation: Heat oil in skillet, add meat, stir-fry until well roasted on each side, add onions and stir for some more minutes. Add all other ingredients and water and simmer until the meat is well done.

If you like your sauce very rich, add some more olive oil at the very end.

SWEETNESS: The sauce will be slightly sweet. You can vary the taste from rather “on the tomato side” to “rather on the sweet pruny side” by adjusting the amount of tomato/fruit to your taste and adding/leaving away the cinnamon stick. I myself like it really sweet and with lots of cinnamon. Cinnamon and lamb are definitely a match made in heaven

SPICES: If you are insecure about how much spices to add just add only a bit and season according to your taste afterwards. You can buy ras el hanout online or in stores wiht a large spice assortment. It can also be prepared at home if you posses a large variety of spices already. I found the recipe below on www.recipezaar.com but I have not tested it. It looks like a very basic ras el hanout mixture and I am sure it will work for the stew above. (Trivia: the real has el hanout is very complex and some very elaborate mixtures can contain up to 100 ingredients, like rose buds and ground lavender.)

This is a really simple recipe but still a favourite of mine.

Ingredients: 1 onion finely chopped, 1 carrot diced, 1/2 celery root diced, beef in medium cubes, 4 large pickled gherkins, some of the liquid from the gherkins, a fistful of white rice, kosher beef broth cube, oil, spices.

Preparation: Stir-fry the meat with some oil, add onion, stir til the onion gets slightly translucent, add celery root and carrots, stir for about half a minute more, add water and broth cube. When the meat is done add rice. After about 10 minutes add the chopped or ground gherkins and some of their liquid. Let simmer some more until the rice is done and serve hot. This soup is supposed to have a slightly sour taste from the gherkins.

Milchig version: If you leave away the meat, the soup can be made richer by adding some thick cream together with the gherkins. Do not use milk, as the liquid from the gherkins will split up the milk into curd and whey…which will not happen if you use cream because it has a higher percentage of fat.

This is basically a stew with potato and meat dumplings where the individual parts are later on joined, making it an “all in one pot” recipe.

It is fleishig, but if you take pareve broth cubes and leave away the meatballs it is completely pareve.

Please note that the lima beans need to be soaked overnigth! The recipe serves two to three persons depending on what you serve before and after

Start with the potato dumplings:

1 kg potatoes, 2 eggs, 125 gr. flour, 1 teaspoon baking soda, salt, pepper, nutmeg, some fresh or dried thyme and rosemary.

Peel potatoes, cook till well done in salt water, mash in a bowl, let cool. Add eggs, flour and all seasonings. Boil saltwater in a big pot. Shape dumplings of equal size. Simmer dumplings in hot (no rolling boil) saltwater for about 10 minutes. (Best try with one dumpling first, cook it and then slice it in two to check whether it is well done on the inside. You might need to prolongate cooking time if your dumplings are rather large or adjust heat if it falls apart.)

Next the stew:

250 gr. dried lima beans (soaked in water overnight. You can take any other bean variety you like or even mixed beans), 2 tomatoes diced, 1 sweet corncob sliced, 1 onion minced, 2 carrots sliced, 1/2 celery root diced, 1 celery peeled and diced, oil, 1 kosher beef broth cube, 1/2 cup white wine, fresh parsley, pepper, paprika, chilli.

Cook lima beans in saltwater until half done (about 10-15 minutes). Rinse and set aside. Heat oil in a pan, add onions, stir well until golden. Add the rest of the veggies except tomatoes and sweet corn, sauté for some minutes, cool with white wine. Dissolve broth cube in water, add to veggies (abot 1.5 litres, or until you have a clear broth), then add tomatoes, sweet corn, lima beans, pepper, paprika and chilli. Cook for about 30 minutes. You wil have to check whether all ingredients are well done and adjust the seasonings to your taste. (Keep parsley for decoration)

Then the meatballs:

250 gr. minced meat, 1 egg, bread crumbs (about 2 tablespoons), salt, pepper, paprika, oil for skillet.

Combine minced meat, egg and bread crumbs, let sit for 15 minutes. The mixture should now be dry enough to form dumplings without sticking too much to your fingers, but still moist in touch. Form all dumplings, heat oil in a skillet, fry until done on all sides.

In a big pan or heat-resistant dish mix together stew, potato dumplings and meatballs. Sprinkle with parsley and enjoy!