For Passover....

[3113]

Such a fun holiday. Gripping, BDSM story which includes infanticide, secret origins (very Superman there, the babe sent out from home to another world...), burning plants that talk, sticks that turn into snakes, plagues (cool!), Star Wars style Pharaohs ("Leave now? In our moment of triumph! I think you over estamate their chances...") oceans parting, and trips out into the desert for etched tablets of stone.

It really has everything. Most important of all...it has food!

So what are your favorite recipes for Passover? Some good chopped liver? Secret Matzo ball soup (remember, to make the matzo balls fluffy, boil in water with a very tight, weighted down lid for no more than 20 minutes!), grandma's brisket?

Let's get to the important stuff here

 

[dr_mabeuse]

We don't do much and our house is full of cha'ametz (that's leavened stuff to you goy - bread stuff), so I guess I've been like totally cut off from the Nation of Israel big time, but we still have a bit of a seder-ish dinner with a tablecloth and Elijah's cup in the center, and just the sight of the silver cup against the white linen and the taste of the Mogen David makes me feel my grandparents, and makes me remember how interminable those damned 4-hour passover seders were. God!

The Bread of Our Affliction, the Meat of Our Affliction, the Apple Sauce of Our Affliction, the Stewed Prunes of Our Affliction, the Moist Hand Towelettes of Our Affliction... Give it a rest already!

I make charosets: Apples, walnuts, honey, wine and cinnamon, a little lemon juice, all chopped together and left in the fridge for a few hours to marry. It's so simple and good that we keep on making it for a few weeks after Pesach to spread on matzi.

My matzoh balls are from a mix. They just seem better that way. But we don;t usually make soup for Passover. We go right to the gefilte fish, which the kids won't eat. I load up on the horseradish and blow my sinuses out something huge. Eating gefilte fish with horseradish and watching Uncle Julie's ears turn crimson was always the high point of the seder meal when I was a kid.

No one eats chopped liver except me and my wife, and we don;t use schmaltz, I saute a big wad of onions in butter till they're sweet and carmalized and then add some water and the chicken livers and cook till tey're done and the water's pretty much reduced. Salt and pepper and let it cool. Add a lot of hardboiled egg - maybe 6 to a pound of liver - and then chop it all up in the same wooden bowl my grandmother used.

No one will eat it if you tell them it's chopped liver. Tell them it's pate, though, and it's gone. (Of course, I don't like it chpped that fine.)

We do brisket too, and I found a very cool way to do it, although it's not as traditional as the old soup-mix method. You brown it and throw in your vegetables, then add a jar of pitted, stuffed green olives with the brine (not sure if that's cha'ametz or not) and a half a pound of raisins. A few bay leaves and pepper and some salt. Seal it up and roast it as usual, The olives and raisins give it a nice piquancy.

Now tell us about the plagues. The plagues were always the coolest part, except I was always a little disappointed that the Lord God and Master of the Universe had to resort to dropping frogs from the sky and giving people boils and chasing them around with flies. That's the kind of stuff you do at summer camp.

 

[glynndah]

When my husband-to-be was in law school, we'd have a big dinner once a month and do different ethnic cuisines; Mexican, Italian, Chinese, Indian, etc. We'd drag out all the cookbooks, plan a menu, divvy up the courses between the 7 or 8 of us, chip in money for the booze (very important), etc. The last spring of law school we decided to do a "Jewish" dinner. A nice brisket, chicken soup, tsimmes, chopped liver, gefilte fish, bagels, kugel pudding, etc. Of course, we made no pretentions to it being "kosher". It was just for fun. Being a group of quasi-Christians, we had no real idea what most of these things were supposed to look like, let alone taste like. But we muddled through with the help of the Molly Goldberg cookbook. The night of the dinner everything was great, except for the gefilte fish. I'm sure the recipe was followed precisely, but we must have missed the mark. Even the hostess's kittens wouldn't eat it.

 

[intothewoods]

When my husband-to-be was in law school, we'd have a big dinner once a month and do different ethnic cuisines; Mexican, Italian, Chinese, Indian, etc. We'd drag out all the cookbooks, plan a menu, divvy up the courses between the 7 or 8 of us, chip in money for the booze (very important), etc. The last spring of law school we decided to do a "Jewish" dinner. A nice brisket, chicken soup, tsimmes, chopped liver, gefilte fish, bagels, kugel pudding, etc. Of course, we made no pretentions to it being "kosher". It was just for fun. Being a group of quasi-Christians, we had no real idea what most of these things were supposed to look like, let alone taste like. But we muddled through with the help of the Molly Goldberg cookbook. The night of the dinner everything was great, excepstet for the gefilte fish. I'm sure the recipe was followed precisely, but we must have missed the mark. Even the hostess's kittens wouldn't eat it.

Gefilte fish is an aquired taste.

 

[glynndah]

Gefilte fish is an aquired taste.

I'm trying to pare down my acquistions. BTW, a professor we'd invited as the guest of honor to the dinner was Jewish and said that we'd nailed the taste and texture of everything, including the gefilte fish, and he didn't like it either.

 

[3113]

The Bread of Our Affliction, the Meat of Our Affliction, the Apple Sauce of Our Affliction, the Stewed Prunes of Our Affliction, the Moist Hand Towelettes of Our Affliction... Give it a rest already!

LOL! Yeah, the were interminable, especially when done in Hebrew as one Sedar was that I went to.

I make charosets: Apples, walnuts, honey, wine and cinnamon, a little lemon juice, all chopped together and left in the fridge for a few hours to marry.

Yum, indeed. One of the best parts.

The rest of the recipes look good as well. I miss grandma's chopped liver. Never made it myself, but it was so yummy. And monsterously cholesterol ridden. I half wonder if all the heart-attacks on my dad's side of the family could be chalked up to chopped liver and schmaltz.

Now tell us about the plagues. The plagues were always the coolest part, except I was always a little disappointed that the Lord God and Master of the Universe had to resort to dropping frogs from the sky and giving people boils and chasing them around with flies. That's the kind of stuff you do at summer camp.

Well, if you view the story as competing gods, then you've got the Jewish God doing battle with Horus there, and, yeah, they might be a pair of kids at Summer Camp. You know, "My snake-stick can eat two of your snake-sticks!" that sort of thing.

A little religious musing here: I always kinda wondered if the Moses story was less popular than the Jesus story because Moses is a prince who finds out he's a commoner (a son of slaves, no less), while J.C. is a commoner who turns out to be the son-of-god. I think most folk like it better if the farm boy turns out to be a king rather than the other way around.

 

[3113]

I'm trying to pare down my acquistions. BTW, a professor we'd invited as the guest of honor to the dinner was Jewish and said that we'd nailed the taste and texture of everything, including the gefilte fish, and he didn't like it either.

Oh, I'm sure you nailed it. As said, it's one of those things you have to aquire a taste for in childhood--and even then most of us won't finish it. The *really* weird folk are those who like *sweet* gefilte fish (*shudder*).

 

[dr_mabeuse]

When my husband-to-be was in law school, we'd have a big dinner once a month and do different ethnic cuisines; Mexican, Italian, Chinese, Indian, etc. We'd drag out all the cookbooks, plan a menu, divvy up the courses between the 7 or 8 of us, chip in money for the booze (very important), etc. The last spring of law school we decided to do a "Jewish" dinner. A nice brisket, chicken soup, tsimmes, chopped liver, gefilte fish, bagels, kugel pudding, etc. Of course, we made no pretentions to it being "kosher". It was just for fun. Being a group of quasi-Christians, we had no real idea what most of these things were supposed to look like, let alone taste like. But we muddled through with the help of the Molly Goldberg cookbook. The night of the dinner everything was great, except for the gefilte fish. I'm sure the recipe was followed precisely, but we must have missed the mark. Even the hostess's kittens wouldn't eat it.

Oy! I don't know anyone who actually makes gefilte fish anymore, even SuperJews. Everyone buys it.

The key to gefilte fish is the chrain or horseradish, the red stuff, made with beet juice. Gefilte fish should be bland and just slightly sweet, and the chrain should knock the top of your head off and make your eyes water. Together, they're kind of the Yiddish version of sushi and wasabi.

The secret of Jewish cooking is to make things both dry and greasy at the same time. The comedian Buddy Hackett talked about being drafted and waking up one night in a cold sweat. For the first time in his life he didn't have heartburn from his mother's cooking and he thought it meant his fire had gone out and he was dying.

 

[Guest]

Such a fun holiday. Gripping, BDSM story which includes infanticide, secret origins (very Superman there, the babe sent out from home to another world...), burning plants that talk, sticks that turn into snakes, plagues (cool!), Star Wars style Pharaohs ("Leave now? In our moment of triumph! I think you over estamate their chances...") oceans parting, and trips out into the desert for etched tablets of stone.

It really has everything. Most important of all...it has food!

So what are your favorite recipes for Passover? Some good chopped liver? Secret Matzo ball soup (remember, to make the matzo balls fluffy, boil in water with a very tight, weighted down lid for no more than 20 minutes!), grandma's brisket?

Let's get to the important stuff here

I had a band director once who crashed our Home Economics cooking class to give us a lesson on making matzo balls.

He insisted they should be cooked in broth, not water, for the best flavor. He had everyone taste the difference.

He was a great guy, fairly decent trumpet player, looked a great deal like Einstein. It was fun to hear his take on food issues.

 

[3113]

He insisted they should be cooked in broth, not water, for the best flavor. He had everyone taste the difference.

He could be right. My brother is the matzo ball cook in our family, not I. And all of his advice I recall is that the lid has to be weighed down (almost pressure cooker like) and that, no matter the size, the matzo balls take 20 minutes

 

[Guest]

He could be right. My brother is the matzo ball cook in our family, not I. And all of his advice I recall is that the lid has to be weighed down (almost pressure cooker like) and that, no matter the size, the matzo balls take 20 minutes

What I remember most is the junior high boys giggling over the name Matzo Balls.

 

[glynndah]

What I remember most is the junior high boys giggling over the name Matzo Balls.

That's so immature. We just drew pictures of the deballed Matzo animal on the menu. No giggling. Just artistry.

 

[Guest]

That's so immature. We just drew pictures of the deballed Matzo animal on the menu. No giggling. Just artistry.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

That's so immature. We just drew pictures of the deballed Matzo animal on the menu. No giggling. Just artistry.

Matzo foreskins are the real treat, if you can find them.

 

[Guest]

Matzo foreskins are the real treat, if you can find them.

Just spit out my drink!