Carol Goodman Kaufman

Food

Eating my Words

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I’m currently in the midst of cleaning for Passover and, while dusting off my cookbook shelves, I found a gift from my mother-in-law, a Julia Child cookbook inscribed to me. That started me thinking of the movie Julie and Julia, which then got me thinking that it’s time to start a new project. Because I’m often asked to review cookbooks, I have a LOT of them, but so many others that go untouched from year to year. So, I’m going to try to make one recipe picked at random from each book over the next several months. Let’s see how that goes. There’s quite a selection: Chinese, Spanish,Italian, Asian, African, Israeli, Persian, Lebanese, Syrian …

Gotta go. I’m getting hungry.

Back in the Saddle

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To prepare the seder plate for the recent Passover festival, I opened the fridge to retrieve the bottle of horseradish — red, as J prefers. Unfortunately, it had spoiled. There was no time to run to the supermarket and, frankly, I was too nervous to have done so in the current climate.

Of course I vented on Facebook. A couple of days after posting, our doorbell rang. Upon opening the front door, we found the dearest, sweetest Sara Jacobson standing ten feet away, having dropped a baggie of horseradish roots onto our front porch. We used one of them on the seder plate.

After Passover, I planted the root that we had used during the seder in the hope that we would have an annual supply of the root veggie. A previous attempt had rotted in the ground after too much rainfall.

But I had forgotten that the really big root was still in its bag in the back hall. Not wanting to waste it, I thought why not prepare our own horseradish? So, wearing my trusty swim goggles and gloves, I peeled and grated until I had a nice pile of white shreds. With a little salt and white vinegar, we were good to go.

The result? I should probably get a grater with smaller holes, as it was a bit too coarse. But, the flavor was exactly what one would expect — and want — to spread on a sandwich or over your gefilte fish or as an ingredient in cocktail sauce.

If you plan to do this, be forewarned: When you remove said goggles, the fumes will assault you in ways that make you think “riot squad.”

Ghee Whiz!

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I love Indian food, and when given the choice as to what kind of restaurant I’d like to visit, it is more often than not an Indian one — except with certain friends who shall remain nameless. They won’t go near the stuff.

I love the fact that there are so many vegetarian options. I love the music in the background. And most of all, I love the amazing flavors of the various dishes. Before the quarantine, J and I had even been making plans to travel to India next winter.

Needless to say, that probably won’t happen. Nor will visiting an Indian restaurant any time soon.

So, to Plan B. While trying to keep things interesting (in the kitchen) during this plague year and test as many recipes as possible for my cookbook-in-process, I decided to make carrot halwa. But even though my cabinets have many of the herbs and spices frequently used in Indian cuisine (e.g., ginger, garlic, turmeric, cardamom, even garam masala), I didn’t have ghee.

Frankly,  I’ve always been a little nervous about trying to make it, under the impression that it would be difficult to do. And the little jars of the stuff can fetch as much as $35 each. That was not going to be an option for this home cook.

But since we are at home and can’t get to our favorite restaurants, why not try making it myself? And guess what! It’s not hard at all. You just need patience. If for no other reason than the heavenly, buttery aroma that wafts through the house, I would recommend giving it a go. I used a bit on tuna steaks, and they were absolutely delicious.

Then, last night  (and the reason I actually started this little experiment, if you can remember that far back) I made the first of a series of recipes for carrot halwa. It was a fabulously flavorful pudding, and super easy to whip together with only a handful of ingredients.

Ghee whiz!

Fishing for Compliments

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My grandmother was a phenomenal cook and baker, of the Old Country style. From her lokshen to her strudel, everything she put on the table was divine. Witness my hip measurements. But, as many kids, it didn’t occur to me to ask many questions, much less to request her recipes. But when I turned 19 I finally had the presence of mind to ask Bubbie for them. Of course, they were all in her head so she would have to write them down for me.

Bubbie was a tough customer. She told me that if I could read and write Yiddish, her native language, she would write them down.

“But, Bubbie,” I whined. “I read, write, and speak Hebrew!” (Maybe I fibbed. In truth, my skill at the time was rudimentary at best.)

“Yiddish or nothing,” she replied.

Bubbie died two months later. Nobody got the recipes.

Fast forward to 2020. While doing research recently for an article on gefilte fish, I had to prepare some. I followed the traditional method of making a fish broth (with a fish head, no less — yuck.), chopping the flesh, and mixing it with various other ingredients. Frankly, it was simply a way to connect with my bubbie. If only she had written down her fabulous recipes. The recipe I did use, from a book auspiciously titled The Encyclopedia of Jewish Cooking, didn’t yield terrific results. Worse, the house reeked so badly that I had to bake a chocolate cake the next day to counter the malodorous fumes.

Having learned through research that the original stuffed fish recipes called for roasting or baking, I went to my friend Dr. Google and found a recipe for a semi-homemade gefilte fish using the frozen loaf you can find at your local grocery store. You don’t have to club the fish. You don’t have to clean the fish. You certainly won’t need to brew up a stinky broth with a fish’s head. No, you can simply follow this easy recipe and do as our ancestors did before the broth: They baked it!

This gefilte fish recipe, adapted from Jamie Geller, is so good that it doesn’t even need horseradish. It is, in fact, the best I have ever tasted.

Enjoy!

Ingredients:

1/4 cup olive oil, plus more for drizzling

2 teaspoons paprika

2 teaspoons dried parsley

2 pinches ground allspice

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 loaf frozen gefilte fish, paper removed, not thawed

3 large onions, sliced in rounds

3 garlic cloves, minced

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Pour the olive oil into the bottom of a loaf or small baking pan. Add the paprika, parsley, 1 pinch of the allspice, the salt, and pepper.

Roll the frozen loaf in the oil and spices to coat.

Remove the loaf from the pan, arrange the onion on the bottom of the pan, and place the loaf on top of the onion.

Sprinkle with the garlic and the remaining 1 pinch allspice. Finish with a drizzle of olive oil.

Cover with aluminum foil and bake for 2 hours.

Cool the gefilte fish completely, then refrigerate overnight.

Serve cold, sliced and topped with the onions.

 

A Sticky Business

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A few years ago, J and I went to dinner at a little place in the Berkshires. We had decent salad and entrees that were meh. But, since we had eaten said salad and fish (so healthy, right?), we decided to order one dessert to split between us. A lover of all things British, I voted for the sticky toffee pudding that I had read about in many English novels. It came in a little ramekin and was so delicious that we could have eaten another three of four of them. Each. No kidding. It was that good.

Flash forward about ten years and we are in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, sitting at the bar in The Merchantman restaurant. J had a great fish dinner and I had a scrumptious seared tuna salad. That, of course, meant that we were entitled to have dessert (salad and fish: so healthy, right?). We chose The Merchantman’s version of the same decadent dessert. It was fabulous.

“You should try to make this at home,” said J.

So when our good friends Elena and Steven came for dinner, I did. The particular recipe I chose uses not the customary ramekins, but a bundt pan. Much easier, I thought. And it’s true; it’s not a difficult recipe to make, but it does require lots of steps, several pots, and much patience. BTW, nowhere in the name is there a clue that this dessert is based on dates.

The cake soaked up a lot of the toffee syrup through holes poked in both top and bottom, and was served with even more poured over the top. With a sprinkle of turbinado sugar over it and a dollop of whipped cream, it looked gorgeous. (Bundt pans do make every cake look better.)

It was spectacular. So good, in fact, that when I brought a few slices to share with my writing group, my normally generous-to-a-fault J was a bit put out.

Given that this dessert is made with lots of butter, heavy cream, and dark brown sugar, I would recommend eating nothing but salad in the days preceding a sticky toffee indulgence. Or perhaps, a full-on fast.

Then again, dates are fruit. Right? Must be healthy.

Here is a link to the recipe I used, The only change I made was to puree the date/water mixture in my Ninja rather than simply mash with a fork.

https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/double-ginger-sticky-toffee-pudding-56390054

The Key to Happiness

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I’ve never been to the Florida Keys, but my family and I have loved key lime pie since the first time we tasted it, and we can certainly understand why it is the official pie of the state of Florida. So, one day I decided that it would be fun to try to make one. But, in what can only be described as a temporary break from reality, I decided to grow my own key limes. What began as two little saplings have grown tall in my sunroom, and every year they produce a crop of about a dozen limes each. And every year I harvest the fruits, squeeze them, and freeze the resulting juice.

For those readers who aren’t aware, key limes are tiny. Each one produces about a half teaspoon of juice. So it will come as no surprise that it has taken four years to get enough juice to make a pie. Two pies, actually, because by this time my family has grown to include our three kids, their spouses, and six grandchildren. And my rule was that all would have to be present in order to partake of this legendary dessert.

This past Sunday was the big day, as all fourteen of us were together at son Seth’s house (although little Tali isn’t on solid food yet, so I gave her a pass).

The pie recipe itself was actually quite easy, with only four ingredients, plus the three for the graham cracker crust.

But I was nervous. After all, I’d never prepared any recipe for key lime pie before. What if the one I’d chosen wasn’t good? Would I have to wait another four years before making it again?

To add to my angst, it turns out that the recipe I had was not the traditional one calling for raw egg yolks. In that original recipe, the protein of the egg yolks and condensed milk react chemically with the acid of the lime juice. This reaction causes the filling to thicken on its own without requiring baking. Today, because consuming raw eggs can be dangerous, the pie is usually baked, even if only for a short time.

Would my recipe, made with sweetened condensed milk, sour cream, key lime juice, and zest — but no eggs — make for a runny pie?

As if all that wasn’t enough to worry about: I can’t make a pie crust to save my life, so I no longer have pie pans in the house. Luckily, a quiche pan that must have been a wedding gift was tucked away in a cabinet. That, and a round cake pan of the same diameter, did the trick.

It turns out that graham cracker crusts are super easy to make.  (I may make more pie!)

The verdict: the pie was delicious and not at all runny. And, although my friend Sue insists that the whipped cream garnish is mandatory, I inadvertently left the cream in the fridge at home. Just as well. The pie was so rich that nothing else was needed.