In honor of my congregation’s 100th anniversary, I was asked to do a cooking workshop. (As if I would say “no”!) But why limit ourselves to one dish and one workshop? So, I thought, let’s do one recipe from each of the main streams of Diaspora life: Ashkenazi (Eastern European), Sephardi (originating in Spain and spreading eastward due to the Inquisition), and Mizrahi (Middle Eastern).
First up was Ashkenazi, but I didn’t want to do the same-old, same-old with which we are all familiar. You know, rugelach, matzah brei, stuffed cabbage. Could there be something I’d never had? Yes there was! Hungarian shlishkes, a gnocchi-like potato dumpling. Now, Eastern European Jews depended heavily on potatoes in the shtetl because they were easy to grow and within their budgets. And nutritious. Remember Mark Watney of Martian fame? But they were ubiquitous to the point that there’s even a Yiddish folksong satirizing the daily menu of potatoes:
Sunday potatoes. Monday potatoes. Tuesday and Wednesday potatoes. Thursday and Friday potatoes. But shabbos, for a change… potato kugel!”
Anyway, here’s the link to the recipe: https://carolgoodmankaufman.com/wp-content/uploads/Hungarian-Jewish-Shlishkes.pdf
This recipe makes a lot. Share prep duties with a friend!
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