Around the Passover Table (5 page)
Read Around the Passover Table Online
Authors: Jayne Cohen
DATE HAROSET
yield:
About 4 cups
This luscious Sephardi haroset is very easy to prepare. But its simple ingredients comprise a complex metaphor of the Exodus: the dark fruit and nut paste brings to mind the mortar formed from the silt of the Nile, used to build the pyramids; the wine evokes the bloodshed by the Hebrew slaves and, later, by the Egyptians during the tenth plague; and the sweetness is the taste of the Israelites' eventual freedom. In addition to these edible symbols, some Sephardim suggest the bitterness of the struggle with a few tart drops of citrus juice or vinegar, or a dusting of harsh spices, such as black pepper, cayenne, or ginger, to temper the sweetness. I like to play up the sweet-sour flavor with a squeeze of lime juice and yet another symbolic layer: a sprinkle of sea salt to recall the Red Sea crossing.
2 cups packed pitted dates (choose a soft variety such as Medjool), chopped
About
1
â
2
cup kosher sweet Concord grape wine or juice
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1
1
â
4
cups walnuts (best if lightly toasted)
Fresh lime or lemon juice or vinegar (optional)
Sea salt (optional)
PUT
the dates in a large heatproof bowl. Pour 1
1
â
2
cups boiling water over them and cover the bowl with foil. Set the dates aside to soften for about 1 hour, stirring occasionally. Scrape the mixture into a food processor and add the wine or juice and cinnamon. Working in batches, if necessary, blend to a smooth paste, adding more hot water if needed. Return the mixture to the bowl. Without rinsing the food processor, pulse the walnuts in it until they are chopped: a combination of coarse and fine will provide good texture. Stir the nuts into the date paste. Add the citrus juice or vinegar and/or the sea salt to taste, if using.
SET
the haroset aside, covered and refrigerated, to let the flavors mingle until ready to use. If the mixture is too thick, stir in additional wine or juice to thin it. Adjust the seasoning. Serve at room temperature.
TANGY HAROSET BITES
yield:
About 8 servings
When my daughter Alex and “goddaughter” Emily were preparing these seductive Haroset Bites for our seder in Paris, from a recipe I had devised for Food and Wine magazine, they consumed one for every two they managed to place on the Passover platter. Luckily, I always buy way too much food. So we had plenty to assuage our hunger pangs later, when the bites provided a welcome nourishing snack at “haroset time” during the service.
I always toast nuts for harosets. While it might seem excessive, it really does permit the slightly bitter, pure nut essence to shine through, parrying the sweet dried or fresh fruit in the paste.
1 cup walnuts
30 to 35 almonds
1
â
2
cup black raisins
1
â
2
cup dried, pitted dates (choose a soft variety like Medjool), coarsely chopped
1
1
â
2
heaping tablespoons dried tart cherries or cranberries
1
â
4
cup unsweetened purple grape juice or kosher sweet Concord wine
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1
â
8
teaspoon ground cinnamon
30 to 35 tart dried apricots, plumped in very hot water until softened, and patted dry with paper towels
TOAST
the nuts: preheat oven to 350°F. Spread the nuts out in a single layer in a baking pan and toast them, shaking the pan occasionally, until the nuts are fragrant and lightly toasted, 10 to 12 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool.
PUT
the raisins, dates, and cherries or cranberries in a bowl. Stir in the grape juice or wine, lemon juice, and cinnamon. Let the fruit macerate for at least 15 minutes.
WHEN
the nuts are cool, set the almonds aside and place the walnuts in a food processor. Using the steel blade, pulse on and off until the walnuts are coarsely chopped.
ADD
the macerated fruit and any liquid remaining in the bowl to the food processor. Pulse on and off, until the mixture is a coarse paste. Transfer to a bowl and chill so that mixture will be easier to roll. (The haroset tastes best if flavors are allowed to mingle for several hours.)
FORM
heaping teaspoons of the mixture into balls and place each on a softened apricot half. Press an almond into each ball at a jaunty angle.
EGGS
No less than twelve large brown paper bags spilled out of the kitchen for us to unpack when my father finished the Passover shopping. Every one, it seemed, contained at least one box of matzoh and a dozen eggs.
The matzoh lasted long after the eight-day holiday, when all our inventiveness had evaporated and we had thoroughly tired of eating it. But my father had to buy more eggs after just three or four days.
Eggs are indispensable for Passover cooking. Traditional favorites, like matzoh brie, knaidlach, and
bimuelos
and
bubelach
(Sephardi and Ashkenazi fritters), call for heaps of eggs to be mixed with matzoh or matzoh meal. And six to ten at a time, they are beaten into baked goods, replacing the forbidden leavening.
Symbol of life's mysteries and rebirth, they play a prominent role at the seder. There is the
beitzah
(roasted egg), on the seder plate. And most Ashkenazi Jews dip hard-boiled eggs into salt water, while the Sephardi seder favorite is huevos haminados.
Huevos Haminados
yield:
12 eggs
Huevos haminados, also served at life-cycle events and the Sabbath or holiday midday meal, were originally cooked on top of flavorful meats and legumes in hamins, the slowly braised Sabbath stews. But when hamin is not on the menu, or pareve eggs are desired, they are prepared as in this recipe, cradled in onion skins and gently simmered overnight in the oven or on top of the stove. Spent coffee grinds, or sometimes tea leaves, are added to the roasting materials for additional flavor. My friend Leyla Schick laughingly bemoaned the current paucity of cigarette smokers among her friends because some Turkish Jews claim a smidgin of cigarette ash enhances the roasted taste.
And what is the taste of a roasted egg? Huevos haminados are somewhat similar to the hard-boiled variety, but long hours of gentle cooking give them a softer textureâtender, never rubberyâand a rich, oniony fragrance.
Forget the discarded cigarette ashes. But do remember to save all your onion peels as they accumulate from cooking chores, storing them in a large perforated plastic bag in the refrigerator until needed.
4 to 5 cups packed outer skins of onions, rinsed if dirty
12 large eggs, in the shell (make sure the shells have no cracks)
2 tablespoons coffee grounds
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons vinegar
1 teaspoon salt
1
â
2
teaspoon black pepper
PREHEAT
the oven to 200°F. Arrange half the onion skins on the bottom of a large lidded ovenproof pot or casserole. Put the eggs on top. If the eggs are tightly packed, or if you must place the eggs in two layers, use additional onion skins to cradle them. Add the coffee grounds, oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper. Cover with the remaining onion skins. Pour in 2 quarts of cold water, adding a little more if necessary to cover the eggs. Cover the pot tightly and bake in the oven overnight or for at least 8 hours or up to 12.
REMOVE
the eggs and wipe them clean. Serve plain, hot, warm, or cold. Leftover eggs are easy to reheat (place them, unshelled, in a baking dish and warm in a slow oven until heated through). They are also wonderful sliced in salads (they make a terrific egg salad) or as a garnish for saucy stewed vegetables like ratatouille.
His own mother had spoiled him, her first-born son and the only child of her seven to go to college and then law school. My maternal grandmother Rebecca loved to spoil my father, tooâher tall son-in-law whose blue-black hair led strangers to mistake him for her own handsome son.
“Save that piece for your father,” she would admonish us. “Go, put on lipstick,” she'd urge my mother. “Max will be home soon.”
Ignoring her, we would strip the crackling, garlicky skin from just-roasted turkey or chicken, greedily devouring it before he arrived home. And only once can I remember my mother applying lipstick just for my father, in the candy shade of pink she wore to match the soft blush beneath her freckles. We knew when my father dished out the servings at the dinner table, the choicest morsels went first to the children, then to my mother, and he took what was left.
But if we wouldn't show him proper respect, Grandma Rebecca did. When she learned he loved chopped eggs and onions, she substituted it for the traditional Ashkenazi hard-boiled eggs dipped in salted water eaten at the beginning of the Passover meal.
I first ate eggs in salt water at a boyfriend's seder when I was seventeen. They tasted like a picnic ruined by high tide. Those who imagine I am impugning one of their favorite Passover foods might try the dish at any other time of year, without the spice of hunger to season it.
But chopped eggs and onions are delicious anytime. Spread on thin pumpernickel or egg matzoh, garnished with strips of roasted red pepper, black olives or skinny slivers of smoked salmon, it is light-years ahead of a traditional egg salad.