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[personal profile] shalom

It's Passover, so that means a prohibition on eating leavened bread. That also means lots of dishes based on matzoh and/or potatoes.

A traditional, delicious dish is matzoh meal pancakes.  These can be served as a main dish at breakfast, or as a side for lunch or dinner. This recipe elevates the basic matzoh meal pancake to new heights, with additions of nuts and a sweet coating of honey. Takes about 30 minutes and well worth the effort.



Ingredients
1 cup matzoh meal
1/2 cup (4 oz) finely chopped nuts (I used almonds, but walnuts would be fine)
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp granulated sugar
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1/8 tsp granulated ginger (optional)
1 cup water, sweet wine*, or mead
4 large eggs, beaten
Oil (canola or light olive oil)
1 1/2 cups honey

Directions
  • Mix eggs and water/wine/mead together. 
  • Add matzoh meal, nuts, cinnamon, sugar, salt, ginger.  Stir together and let sit for a few minutes; the mazoh meal will absorb the liquid (batter may at first appear to be too thin, but it isn't).
  • Consistency should be thicker, but pourable from a spoon.  If it's too thick, add a bit more liquid until you like the consistency.
  • Add oil to a frying pan over medium/medium-low heat.
  • Fry pancakes, turning when each is light brown, then remove from pan and put aside until all pancakes are made.  (I remove each and put on paper towels, to absorb any excess oil).
  • Drain oil from pan.
  • Add honey to pan and bring to a boil; it will thin and froth.
  • Working in batches, add the pancakes back in and coat them with the honey.  Plate the completed pancakes and pour any extra honey left in pan over them all.  Serve hot.
Notes
  • I tripled this recipe this morning and it made about 30 3" pancakes.
  • In tripling my recipe today, 1/3 of the liquid (1 cup) was some of my mother's horrid Manischewitz white cream concord wine left over from our seder the other night, and it was a great addition to the recipe.


     
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[personal profile] shalom


Latkes, traditionally made on Chanukah and fried in oil (fried food is symbolic of the holiday, which is why you'll also find people making fried jelly doughnuts - sufganiyot -  delicious as well), served with applesauce or sour cream.  Latkes are a bit time consuming, but these are delicious and so much better than the boxed mixes and/or frozen ones.

Difficulty:  Medium, due to all the prep work.  Difficulty increases if you do not have a food processor.  You can definitely use a hand grater, but this will take longer and the consistency of the latkes will be a bit different.

Time:  60 minutes 

As I like to do, here's the recipe, with info in parentheses to describe how I changed any of it from the original.

Ingredients
6 medium potatoes peeled and cut into eighths (I used plain russets)\
1 large onion (I used a sweet Vidalia), peeled and cut into eighths
2 eggs
3 Tbs flour
1 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 tsp baking powder
Vegetable oil (I used canola)

Directions
In small batches using a food processer with the chopping blade, process potatoes and onions to a rough consistency (NOT to the point of pureed).  Put chopped food into a colandar and let drain (you can help speed this up by squeezing it with the back of a large spoon in the colander).  Transfer the chopped and drained potatoes and onions to a large bowl, then add the rest of the ingredients except the oil, stirring well.  If the mixture appears too runny, you can add more flour.

Heat the oil (depth of 1/2") in a skillet/frypan.  Working in small batches, fry the potatoes without touching each other, turning once when darker golden brown.  Make sure not to make the latkes too thick or they won't cook in the middle.  Remove from pan and drain on paper bags/paper towel.  You can keep previous batches warm in the oven while you finish frying.

Makes about 15 latkes.
 

Mmmmmm.....worth the effort.

shalom: (Default)
[personal profile] shalom

In anticipation of Halloween, Alton Brown did a show all about garlic and vampires, in which he taught "The Count" not to be afraid of garlic.  Yes, it was hokey as hell - classic Alton Brown - but the recipe is ridiculously easy and very tasty.

Instead of a whole cut-up chicken, my grocery store had chicken thighs on sale for $0.73/lb, so this was also a steal to make.  Although I trimmed the skin on the thighs, I'm going to try it next time skinless, since there's no need for the additional fat, given the amount of olive oil in the recipe.  I used dried thyme as well, and a large (14" diameter) deep skillet, but if your frypan/skillet couldn't go into the oven, I think this would be fine to first brown it on the stovetop, then pop everything into a baking dish in the oven.  Given the ease of this recipe, it might make a good addition to a buffet dinner.  Either way, your kitchen will be filled with the delicious aroma of roasted garlic.

I served the many cloves of garlic over the chicken and on the side.  They were delicious spread on slices of fresh French bread.

Most time-consuming part of this recipe was simply skinning cloves from two large heads of garlic.  Once you separate the cloves, give each a light smash with a mallet or side of a broad knife to loosen the skins.

Ingredients

  • 1 whole chicken (broiler/fryer) cut into 8 pieces
  • 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 10 sprigs fresh thyme
  • 40 peeled cloves garlic
  • Salt and pepper

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Season chicken with salt and pepper. Toss with a 2 tablespoons olive oil and brown on both sides in a wide fry pan or skillet over high heat. Remove from heat, add oil, thyme, and garlic cloves. Cover and bake for 1 1/2 hours.

Remove chicken from the oven, let rest for 5 to 10 minutes, carve, and serve.

Original recipe here:  http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/40-cloves-and-a-chicken-recipe/index.html
 

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