Persian Meatball Soup
Serves
6
I
got this recipe from my brother-in-law, Isaac Lifschutz,
who’s a pretty good cook himself!
Meatballs
1.5
lbs./ 3/4 kilo ground beef
2 medium onions, minced or grated
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1/3 cup chopped fresh parsley
1 tsp. salt
½ tsp. cardamom (hel
in Hebrew) or cinnamon
¼ tsp. turmeric
1/8 tsp. ground black pepper
Method:
Combine
all the ingredients in a medium bowl and refrigerate until the mixture
is easy to handle, at least one hour. Meanwhile, prepare the soup.
Soup
2 quarts chicken soup
3 medium carrots, sliced
3 medium red potatoes, peeled and quartered
½ tsp. turmeric
Pinch of cayenne or red pepper flakes
Method:
Place
the soup, carrots, and potatoes into a large pot and bring to a boil
over a high flame. Cover, reduce the flame to low, and simmer for 30
minutes. Add the turmeric and cayenne.
Raise
the flame and bring the soup to a boil. Using wet hands,
form the
meatball mixture into 1-inch balls. Add the meatballs to the soup,
cover the pot, reduce the flame to low, and simmer about 1 hour. Taste
to see if it needs more salt.
Very
Berry Salmon Steaks
Serves
4
4-5
fresh salmon steaks, about 5-6 oz. each
3 T. olive oil
1 very small bunch of fresh parsley, chopped
¾ cup semi-dry white wine
1/3 cup fresh orange juice
3 T. balsamic vinegar
¼ tsp. pepper
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. honey
1 T. potato starch
1 cup fresh blueberries or strawberries, cleaned, hulled, and chopped
2 scallions, chopped
2 chives, chopped, optional
Method:
Preheat
the oven to 375 degrees F / 190 degrees Celsius.
Clean off the fish steaks. Line a small baking pan with baking paper.
Lay the fish steaks in one layer onto the lined pan. Brush each steak
with olive oil. Sprinkle on the chopped fresh parsley. Bake for 15-20
minutes until the center of the fish steaks flake easily with a fork
and they are just baked through. Don’t overbake the fish or
it will not be tasty and delicately textured.
Place the semi-dry white wine,
orange juice, balsamic vinegar, pepper,
salt, and honey in a small pot. Simmer it together on a low flame until
it starts to bubble around the edges. Dissolve the potato starch in a
small amount of water in a cup or small bowl and mix it with a spoon so
it is smooth. Add it to the sauce and stir immediately. The sauce
should thicken somewhat. Turn off the heat and allow it to cool for 10
minutes. Then add the blueberries or quartered strawberries, scallions,
and chives.
Stir the sauce and pour it over
the steaks. Serve immediately.
Cauliflower “Mock
Potato” Salad
Serves 6-8
1 large fresh cauliflower (you
can use one package of Bodek frozen but
the fresh is tastier)
2-3 hard boiled eggs, chopped
Salt and pepper to taste
½ green pepper, diced
½ red pepper, diced
½ orange pepper, diced
3-4 T. mayonnaise
Dash of onion powder
Method:
Boil the cauliflower in mildly
salted water until it is soft. Drain.
Mash the cauliflower and drain off the excess liquid. Add the eggs,
salt, pepper, diced peppers, mayonnaise, and onion powder. Mix well and
refrigerate. Serve scooped over a bed of lettuce.
This makes a tasty and pretty “mock” potato salad!
Spinach and Cheese Frittata
Serves 6
2 T. olive oil
6 small potatoes, peeled and sliced
1.5 cups fresh spinach leaves, washed and torn into bits
1-2 scallions diced
1 small white onion, diced
½ tsp. salt ¼ tsp. pepper
6 eggs or 8 egg whites
1/3 cup milk
½ cup shredded cheese, any kind (cheddar, swiss, mozzarella)
Method:
Heat the olive oil in a large
frying pan over a low flame. Add the
sliced potatoes, cover the pan, and cook for 20 minutes, until the
potatoes are softened. Add the spinach, scallions, and onion and
continue to cook for another 3 minutes. Sprinkle in the salt and
pepper.
In another bowl, whisk together
the eggs and milk; pour it over the
vegetables. Sprinkle on the shredded cheese. Cover this mixture and let
it cook until the eggs are firm, about 10-12 minutes. Serve
immediately.
Charoses Petit Fours
Thanks go to my friend Sima
Gordaon for sparking the idea for this one,
from an idea she gave me years ago on how to do this in a log form.
And, while I can’t really say that this is halachically what
our Sages meant when they told us to dip our maror in charoses, it sure
does make for a fun treat that feeds a large family with all sizes of
children! When we ate these, I found they served great semi-frozen,
just a few minutes out of the freezer…
200 grams (about 1.5 cups)
dried dates, pitted and checked for bugs
½ cup yellow raisins
100 grams (about ¾ cup) dried apricots
1 green apple, shredded
3 T. semi-dry red wine
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 cup finely ground walnuts
½ cup finely shredded coconut, optional
Method:
Check all the dried fruit for
bugs according to the laws of the area
that you live in. Place them all into your food processor, fitted with
the metal blade. Add in the green apple, wine, and cinnamon. Puree
until smooth, stopping and scraping down the sides of the processor as
necessary.
Scrape the contents of the bowl
into a plastic container and
refrigerate it until it is firm enough to roll into balls. If you want
to do this quicker, put the container into the freezer for one hour.
To create the petit fours:
Removing just a small amount of the mixture at a time, so the rest
stays firm, roll it into bite-sized balls, then roll it into the finely
ground nuts (and the coconut, if you chose to use it). Place each one
on a baking tray lined with plastic or directly into tiny decorative
muffin liners. Once they are all rolled and coated, slide them back
into the freezer until use. Alternately, you can use a long,
rectangular plastic container and line up the petit fours in one row.
Continue by covering them with a piece of parchment paper and then
lining up the next row on top of them.
