Category: Passover

Gefilte Fish Patties in Tomato Sauce

If you follow my blog, you’ve probably realized by now that my family is big into gefilte fish. I’ve already posted quite a few variations. This one however, is even closer to home – it’s a family recipe. My mom has been been making her gefilte this way ever since I can remember, and my Bubby before her. My kids love these patties so much that I even make them for dinner every now and then. They like it without the sauce, so I just leave some out. These are best served fresh and warm because they fluff up in the tomato sauce. They can also be served at room temperature with or without the sauce.

NOTE: These patties freeze very well. If you are like me and don’t like to fry a lot, just make a double batch and freeze half of the patties. When you are ready to use, just defrost, cook up the tomato sauce and add the patties. They’ll taste as fresh as the day you made them.

Gefilte Fish Patties in Tomato Sauce

2 loaves frozen gefilte fish, defrosted (I like Raskins Sweet)
2 eggs
1/3 c matza meal
1 bag frozen mixed vegetables
2 15 oz. cans tomato sauce
2-3 tbsp sugar
salt, to taste
pepper, to taste
canola oil, for frying

Method:

Mix gefilte fish, eggs and matza meal in a bowl. Heat oil in a frying pan over medium heat. Form patties from the gefilte mixture and fry until golden brown on both sides. Remove to paper towel. In a separate pot, cook mixed vegetables in salted water and drain. Bring tomato sauce, sugar, salt and pepper to a boil and add mixed vegetables. Add gefilte fish patties and simmer for a few minutes, or, spoon sauce over patties.

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Deviled Eggs

Deviled eggs are a great way to turn a basic food into a gourmet dish. They make for a fun and tasty hors d’oeuvre as well as a low-carb and filling treat. I often serve deviled eggs on Shabbos day instead of egg salad for a more substantial side dish. There are hundreds of recipes and even a few books dedicated to the art of making deviled eggs. But all you really need is a little creativity and perfectly hard-boiled eggs to create this delicious dish. Click here for my tutorial on how to make eggscellent hard-boiled eggs!

I have experimented with many different fillings including sundried tomatoes, horseradish and pickle relish, but my classic recipe below is our all time favorite.

Deviled eggs

7  hard-boiled eggs
1/3 cup mayo
1 heaping tbsp spicy mustard
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/8 tsp salt
pepper, to taste
paprika, for garnish
chives, for garnish

Method:

Follow my instruction in this tutorial to hard-boil your eggs. For easier peeling, use 1-2 week old eggs (fresh eggs do not peel well). Peeling them underwater also helps. Cut eggs in half and gently remove yolks. With a fork, mash yolks well and add all ingredients besides for paprika and chives. You can spoon the filling into the eggs, or for a prettier presentation, pipe them using a ziploc bag. To do this, insert a ziploc bag into a measuring cup (this makes them easier to fill), folding the top of the bag over the rim of the cup. Spoon all the filling into the bag and twist closed, pushing all the filling down towards the corner. Snip the tip of the bag with scissors and pipe into egg whites. Garnish with paprika (try smoked paprika for added flavor!) and chives.


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Spice-Crusted Chicken

There is no one on this earth that cannot make this recipe. It’s that easy. Well maybe not no one – you’ve got to have an oven, chicken, and a few basic spices. If you’ve got that, and you’ve never cooked anything other than eggs in your life, you can do this.

This has to be my #1 go-to recipe for a quick weekday dinner. It’s got tons of flavor with minimal effort, and it pleases even the most discriminating palette. I like to make this recipe when I’m cooking dinner for our local Bikur Cholim because I’m pretty sure anyone who will eat chicken will eat it.

What makes this chicken so good? Well for one, it’s baked in it’s skin, keeping the chicken nice and moist. Baking it on a high temperature (400 degrees), with the help of some olive oil, makes the skin super crispy, and all those spices get toasted to perfection.

Here’s the best part. If you’re on one of those low-carb or no-sugar diets like atkins or south beach, you can make yourself a super flavorful dinner without store-bought BBQ sauce that is so full of carbs. If you are watching your fat intake as well, don’t eat the skin, but feel free to scrape off the yummy spices and spread it on your chicken. If dieting is not on your agenda, go ahead and sop up all the drippings from the bottom of the pan, they are seriously delicious!

Quick & Easy Chicken

1 package chicken, quartered
garlic powder
onion powder
paprika
salt
black pepper
extra virgin olive oil

Method:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Clean chickens (do not remove the skin) and pat dry. Sprinkle generously with spices (but go light on the pepper). Drizzle with olive oil. Bake, uncovered, for one hour.

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Roasted Beet & Orange Salad

This salad is delicious and refreshing, and a nice change from the typical shredded beets or vinaigrette made on Pesach. It is usually made using mixed greens (bitter ones work best) but if you don’t use them on Pesach, it can be made without as well.

Beets have a delicious robust flavor when roasted. Many people boil their beets in water, but that releases the flavor into the water. When you roast the beets, the flavor just intensifies (this is true for boiling vs roasting all vegetables).

For a nice presentation, you can use both red and golden beets (just roast and cut them separately because the red ones will bleed), and serve them sliced on a bed of greens. Top it off with regular and/or blood oranges.

Roasted Beet & Orange Salad

3 medium beets
3 medium oranges segmented (do this over a bowl to catch the juices, which you can add to the dressing)
1/2 cup thinly slice red onion
bitter greens such as arugula, mesclun or radicchio
3 tbsp walnut oil
2 tbsp orange juice
1 tbsp lemon juice (or vinegar, if you use during pesach)
pinch of sugar
1/2 tsp salt
pepper, to taste (if you use during pesach)

How to:

Wash beets well and dry. Wrap in foil. Roast at 400 degrees for 1-2 hours (depending on the size of the beets, check with a fork, if they are soft enough for you to pierce easily, they are done).  Leave the beets to cool. When they are done cooling, the peel can be easily removed using your hands. They just slide off. If you’d like, you can use a paring knife. I like to do this with gloves over an aluminum pan, because it can be quite messy (and your hands will definitely turn purple if you don’t)! Slice beets. Segment oranges. Arrange on top of mixed greens, or alone. Garnish with red onion and drizzle over with dressing.

Alternatively, you can shred roasted beets in the food processor, or by hand, using a grater. Dress with oil, lemon juice and salt.

Another popular beet dish uses potatoes, carrots and beets, all cooked and cubed. Mix with oil, lemon juice, sugar and salt and some thinly sliced red onion.

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Mock Chopped Liver

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With only one week to go until Pesach, it’s about that time to stop pushing off the inevitable…cooking (or at least planning the menu)! Thankfully, I have not yet made Pesach, and I don’t plan on it, as long as my mother, or in-laws will have me! A lot of people I talk to seem to feel the same, but there are definitely those who are of the opinion that Pesach food is delicious and exciting. Pesach is a yom tov that is so grounded in tradition. The whole idea of the hagaddah is “Vehegadita LeVincha,” passing on the torch to our children. To me, food is so much a part of that. Think about your childhood and so many of your memories will revolve around the smells and tastes of your mothers cooking. If you think back to a certain chag, it’s the traditional family recipes that transport you back to that special time. So for me, Pesach food isn’t about how gourmet it is, or looking for that new recipe. It’s simply about making the foods that my mother made, and those that my children, after me, will continue to make. And for generations, those same delicious smells will continue to waft through our homes, carrying on our traditions for eternity.

One of the recipes that my mother has always made is vegetarian chopped liver. To me, it’s like Pesach on a spoon! Eating it just transports me. She would whip up a few containers on erev yom tov, and we’d eat it alongside the fish at each meal. We could never shmear it on the matza, so we’d eat a spoonful of the liver and promptly follow it with a bite of matza.

Mock Chopped Liver
adapted from the Spice & Spirit Kosher for Passover Cookbook

1 onion, sliced into half circles
6 hard-boiled eggs, quartered
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 tbsp sugar or  3 tbsp liquid sugar
oil or shmaltz, for frying

How to:

Saute onion until golden. Put eggs, walnuts and onions (including the oil it was sauteed in), salt and sugar in the food processor. Process until smooth.

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