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!

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.