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Thanks for the praise everyone. They are surprisingly easy to produce, albeit labor-intensive.

A 2"x2" square of dough + a teaspoon ball of filling. Fold into a triangle. Seal the edges and bring the corners to meet around your thumb and crimp together, tortellini-style. The key is having consistently-sized dough squares (in area and thickness). Next year, I'm considering trying a pasta roller and finding a square cookie cutter.

Best,
Michael

So, after many years of trying, I have finally convinced my aunt that I might be able to contribute something to the Holiday Dinner.

I am tasked with the Gefilte fish - beg, borrow, grind or buy.

My preference is to try to do the (near) impossible and make the darn things. I know a couple of people here stated they are not strangers in the way of the Fish.

Maybe this is another thread entirely, but please, share your wisdom. The only way we can preserve tradition is to share it (and practice, practice, practice).

I know this might be a fruitless question, but do any of you follow an actual recipe? With fancy, modernish accoutrements like measurements and time intervals?

If so, please do post. If I am successful, I'd be happy to make a video for posterity as well.

I have made very unconventional gefilte fish following a recipe for "Seafood Sausages" from Spa Food by Edward Safdie. It was very good, pretty easily identifiable as fish, yet believable as gefilte fish. This is a version of the recipe (my description, not theirs, therefore postable). Quantities to make 4 small servings.

12 oz fresh spinach
1/2 bunch watercress (I'm not sure the cress added anything, and believe
it could be substituted with more spinach)
1 tsp unsalted butter or mild flavored oil
2 tbs minced shallots
6 oz fillet of sole
1 egg white
2 tbs skim milk (should be able to sub wine or broth)
8 oz mixed boneless fish (I used salmon, you could use halibut, etc)
cut into 1/4 inch dice
1 tsp chopped fresh tarragon or dill
1 tsp chopped fresh chives
ground white pepper to taste
pinch of nutmeg
pinch of salt or to taste

clean, destem greens. dry thoroughly, chop coarsely. In a nonstick pan melt the oil/butter and saute the shallots over medium-low heat until translucent. Do not burn! Add greens and toss to coat with oil and shallots and wilt just for a minute. Remove to mixing bowl and chill in refrigerator until cold.

Puree sole for 30 seconds, add egg white, puree for 15 seconds. Stop food processor to scrape down bowl (note that unless you have a really small bowl, this isn't a lot of stuff in it). Run again for 15 seconds while adding liquid in a thin stream. Cover with plastic in a small bowl and refrigerate until cold.

When all is cold, mix the greens, fish mouse, and other ingredients together.

Make 4 rectangles out of aluminum foil - 8x6 inches. Oil one side of each piece, put 1/4 of mixture along the long edge, make into cylinders ( 4 inches long, 1.5 inches thick) Roll up in the foil and twist ends to seal. At this point you can cook, or you can refrigerate and cook later.

bring 2 quarts of flavorful stock or water to a fast simmer, add the foil packets and simmer for 6-8 mins. Remove packets from stock with slotted spoon and unwrap.

_________________
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I first made this as a new bride 27 years ago. Two things I learned early on:

1) Do not leave out the sugar. This amount will not make the fish taste sweet, and without it the fish will not taste right.
2) Clean the food processor really well after you make the fish. Otherwise a few days later you will be really sorry .

Gefilte Fish

2 -3 lbs fish (whitefish and pike or all whitefish (I use all whitefish)), with bones and heads
---------------
THE BROTH:
fish heads
fish bones
water
2 t salt
1 t sugar
pepper
2 stalks celery
2 large carrots, cut up
3 onions, whole, peeled
---------------
THE FISH:
the fish
2 medium-small onions
2 eggs
1 t sugar
1 carrot (optional)
1¼ - 1½ t salt
a lot of pepper
¼ c matzah meal
---------------
1 large carrot, cut in slices
Boil the broth ingredients until you have finished preparing the fish mixture. Strain. Return broth to pot. While the broth is cooking, check the fish for bones and then grind the fish ingredients in a Cuisinart or a meat grinder. (Purists would insist on the meat grinder, perhaps grinding the fish twice, or would even chop it by hand. I use the Cuisinart, just be careful not to make a fine paste.) Add ice water to the proper consistency. Form into patties and add to gently cooking broth. Cover. Cook 1½ hours. Take fish out. Usually I throw away the carrots used to make the broth and add new carrot slices to the cooking fish about 30-45 minutes before it is done. Otherwise the carrots get too mushy.

Michael, I agree. Those are the most beautiful kreplach I have ever seen. They even inspired me to ask my family why we don't serve them, to which I got a non-committal shrug as I was told my great-grandmother only liked to make kneidlach ( Matzoh balls).

BTW, firm and flavorful is the only way to go with kneidlach. You also have to add my great-grandmother's secret spice, ginger, to get the right flavor.

Happy holidays,
Kim

Thank you very much. I just hope they taste half as good as they look My wife really fears the yearly scrutiny of my grandmother, who's been making these for longer than we've been alive.

My wife's family also always had kneidlach at every holiday (only at Pesach for us).

My theory is that it takes about an hour to form some matzoh balls (longer if you want to make some schmaltz first), but it takes about 8 hours total to make these kreplach. I'm not suggesting that your great-grandmother was lazy, but rather that the longer a food takes to produce, the less likely it is to survive as a widely held tradition.

For me it's kreplach in the fall, kneidlach in the spring. No other way.

Gnome, I can look for the "recipe" but as my grandmother always said, it's all about the feeling.

In our family, we do NOT use sugar (even though I like the sweeter styles when I buy it) but use TONS and TONS of pepper. I know we use at least 3 types of fish, mainly whitefish with some pike and occasionally carp.

I have bought the ground up fish in the past from the Northbrook Dominick's....it's a fraction of Sunset's price and they give you the bones without an additional charge. I use my Nana's old fish pot (along with another stockpot). She was very picky about cutting the carrots on the bias LOL and she always insisted I taste the mixture raw. Let me tell you I prefer to eat raw fish when it's sushi quality, NOT pike and carp from Dominick's. LOL

Probably not enough time to plan for this holiday, but maybe there's enough interest in doing a group gefilte fish project some time...could be fun.

That is something that I would gladly participate in. My Mom got my grandmother's "recipe" before she died (my grandmother, that is) and after making the fish for a couple of years, she declared it too much work and has not made made it again for many years, instead buying it somewhere. I'd love to give homemade a whirl.

_________________
Steve Z.
Photographer/Pseudojournalist

"The only time to eat diet food is while you’re waiting for the steak to cook." - Julia Child

That sounds like fun - mmmmm, homemade gefilte fish.

Michael,

Those kreplach look wonderful!

Since I am also from a family where we made lots of kneidlach, but not kreplach , I am wondering if the meat inside them is already cooked or if it's raw.

You guys missed all the fun today... my very own twice a year gefilte fish project for The Standard Club.

Twice this week, I brought in 200 lbs. of fish bones for fumet (peeled onions, celery, parsley and white peppercorns, no carrots).

Today we brought in 150 lbs. each of whitefish and walleye pike, which I order to come in already filleted and also skinless (bones boxed seperately to produce yet another 16 or so gallons of fumet) . Yield on the fish is about 50% so roughly 150 lbs. of fish fillets were ground before being mixed in four batches in our Hobart 80 qt. mixer. We use ground onion, eggs, matzo meal, salt, pepper, and sugar.

Tomorrow we'll do the scooping, rolling, and cooking, for about one and a half hours. Any less cooking time and the fish comes out tough. We add sliced carrots for the last twenty or so minutes.

I use enough sugar in both the broth and the dumplings to achieve a nice round flavor, but not sweet to the taste. And even with 500 lbs of fresh fish bones, I find that I sometimes need to add a bit of unflavored gelatin for that perfect consistency.

I've tried using 1/3 carp but didn't love the darker color and gamy flavor.

Yesterday, we braised 600 lbs. of first cut brisket (purchased from G Wiv approved Excel Corned Beef, on Lake St) in Coca Cola and Lipton's onion soup mix, in our 80 gallon steam jacket kettles.

My mostly Mexican crew (they love the kugel) does a great job with everything, including an eighty lb. batch of chopped liver which we'll do on Tuesday, but the GF, brisket, and tzimmes are my personal pet projects that I enjoy doing (with a lot of help) each time the holidays come around.

_________________
"Playing the trumpet with The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is the most fun that you can have with your clothes on." Adolph "Bud" Herseth

You really could do a class!! Ronnie, I would like to come and work in your kitchen. LOL

It's cooked. It's a mixture of braised chuck roast and chicken thighs, a bit of cooked beef liver, and some sauteed onions.

My bubbe usually saved kreplach for Purim. Kneidlach were for shabbos and Pesach. (I was stunned when I learned that many ultra-Orthodox Jews shun matzo balls during Passover, because they consider matzo shruyo -- matzo which has been soaked in water, aka gebrokts -- unacceptable Passover fare. See this discussion for various viewpoints.) For Rosh Hashanah, we often had borscht, because of the tradition to eat sweet foods in hopes of a sweet new year.

Sometimes we had kreplach for erev Yom Kippur. (Tradition has it that you eat kreplach during the Days of Awe because it symbolizes God's stern judgment -- the meat -- wrapped in the softness of His mercy and justice -- the dough. I'm not sure how this applies to kreplach with nonmeat fillings.) However, we all liked the Purim version much better because the Yom Kippur eve variety always had to be underseasoned in order not to evoke thirst during the next day's fasting.

When it came to gefilte fish, Bubbe ultimately gave up making her own from scratch and instead saved labor by buying a high-quality commercial brand which she would then "doctor up" by re-cooking the quenelles in their broth with added vegetables and seasonings and then chilling them overnight in the enhanced broth.

When I was first married, I went to the effort of making gefilte fish from scratch a few times -- but the results always tasted exactly like Bubbe's "doctored up" version, so I came around to her way of thinking. It just didn't seem worth the work.

However, a friend gave me the recipe below for baked gefilte fish (from "Our Man in the Kitchen," a 1964 cookbook by Hyman Goldberg -- who wrote a cooking column for the New York Post under the nom de plume "Penny Prudence"). It's very different. The fish mixture is much the same but baking gives the fish a much different texture.

BAKED GEFILTE FISH

2-1/2 pounds whole whitefish
2-1/2 pounds whole pike
1 tablespoon salt
3/4 cup oil
2 pounds onions, chopped
1 head garlic, peeled and minced
3/4 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon paprika
3 eggs
1/4 cup water (approximately)
1/4 cup matzo meal
2 carrots
4 bay leaves
8 cloves

Have the fishmonger skin, fillet and grind the fish fine (discard the heads, bones and skins or save for another use). Mix the salt into the ground fish; refrigerate overnight. Saute the onion in 1/4 cup of the oil over low heat until brown; refrigerate overnight.

The next day, combine the garlic, fried onions, ground fish, pepper, paprika in a large wooden chopping bowl and chop together. Add the eggs, one at a time, alternating with spoonfuls of water, and using the hackmesser to mix and combine. Add the matzo meal, continuing to chop and mix. Grate one of the carrots and chop it in.

Put the remaining 1/2 cup oil in a large, 2-inch-deep baking pan. Place it in a 350-degree oven for 5 minutes. With wet hands, form the fish into patties and place in the hot oil. Slice the remaining carrot into coin shapes, putting a couple of slices on each fish cake, and scatter the remainder in between. Divide the bay leaves and cloves among the corners of the pan. Bake until browned, 45 to 60 minutes, basting at least three times with the oil in the pan.

Remove the fish to drain on paper towels. Chill thoroughly, and serve with horseradish. 10 servings.


PS-Sugar in gefilte fish is one of the fundamental differences between Galitzianers and Litvaks; the Gefilte Fish Line was once as significant as the Mason-Dixon Line.


May you all be inscribed for a delicious new year!

_________________
LAZ
Dining Chicago
Index to LTHForum Recipes, 2004-2008

My wife and I did a great deal of research and planning for this year's Rosh Hashana meal, using our vast repertoire of Jewish cook books (about 30). Obviously, we've tried as much as possible to make use of local ingredients as well as various Jewish traditions and customs. Here's the planned meal:

Apples (Macoun from Nicholl's) dipped in Honey

Green Olives

Round Challah w/raisins from Prairie Bread Kitchen in Oak Park

Claudia Roden's Black-eye pea salad with Sandhill Organic heirloom tomatoes (an Egyptian Jewish New Year special, echoed in Low Country traditions)

Libyan spicy fish, using Whole Foods Great Lakes whitefish

Couscous w/seven vegetables (carrots, squash, sweet potato, zuke, chick peas, cauliflower, red pepper; all local except the chick peas)

Beef-leek patties - Using more of our cow

Swiss chard w/carmelized onion and raisins (or other dry fruit or concod grapes), all locally grown except the raisins which should be local.

Bee stinger cake from yesterday's Trib Magazine, with whipped cream

_________________
Think Yiddish, Dress British - Advice of Evil Ronnie to me.

The Local Beet's very big list of 2013 Farmer's Markets

Rob,

Let us know how the bee stinger cake comes out...I, too, cut it out of the paper to try.

L'Shanah Tova everyone

_________________
"Seize the moment. Remember all those women on the Titanic that waived off the dessert cart"
--Erma Bombeck, Humorist/Writer, 1927-1996

That sounds like an excellent menu. I'm lucky to be leaving this year to my mom so I'm in her hands.

But I too am curious about the Bee Stinger Cake . . . it looked delicious and sounded intriguing -- can't wait to hear your thoughts.

Sorry for the delay, the bee stinger cake came out quite nicely, even in a 10 inch springform instead of the required 9. The recipe called for stuffing the cake with flavored whip cream. My wife asked if I wanted that. At first, I said no, why bother, let's just throw the cream on top. Then, I noticed how pretty the top was, so I said can you stuff. Stuffing did not work so hot, the cake, being so honey-infused, crumbled a bit. She used the whipped cream to hide the cracks. So, it was still very good but no longer as pretty.

As to the rest of the menu, my wife had the brilliant idea of using local wild rice instead of the couscous. She garnished the rice with the non-local but very traditional pomegranate. I could not find black eye peas or a similar item at the market so we used fresh local cranberry beans for the salad. Finally, since we did not have couscous, we roasted seven veg instead of steaming them. The seven (all local) zucchini, butternut squash, sweet potato, red pepper, cauliflower, carrot, and turnip.

_________________
Think Yiddish, Dress British - Advice of Evil Ronnie to me.

The Local Beet's very big list of 2013 Farmer's Markets

Taste is most important -- sounds good enough to give it a try. Thanks for the report.

Rosh Hashanah 2008 (5769)

The stars of the show are ready for their closeup


Best,
Michael

Beautiful stars they are too.

I follow my grandmother's practice--kreplach for Kol Nidre (eve of Yom Kippur). My grandmother's dough was so thin it was literally translucent, and I doubt I shall ever eat their like again. I take the shortcut of using wonton wrappers for the dough but of course make my own filling from a small piece of pot roast. I've tried some mushroom fillings for my vegetarian sister-in-law but haven't found the perfect one yet.

A healthy, happy, and peaceful new year to all!

I'm not sure this is the right thread, but I figured it was a good place to start.

Basically, I had a bad kugel experience at a wedding recently, which of course made me crave my mother's amazing kugel (good timing, right?). Anyways, it got me thinking about all the various different types of kugels one can make - noodle, potato, firm, mushy, raisins, apples, savory, sweet, etc.

In talking this over with my family, we decided to have a kugel-off at this years break-the-fast and are hoping to get between five and eight kugels to judge. Of course that means my mom will be making her recipe, which is the one I usually defer to. So, I'm looking for other suggestions. To give you an idea what I'm up against, hers is on the savory side but still a little sweet (we serve it as a side dish, not dessert), doesn't contain fruit of any kind, is firm and holds its shape when cut.

Any suggestions?

_________________
www.foodiereflections.com

I probably won't be able to post until after Rosh Hashanah (but well before Yom Kippur, I promise) with my mom's creamy sweet deliciously yummy kugel. Sour cream, butter, apricot preserve, eggs, frosted flakes, a true retro dish that you just can't help but eat more of.

Here's what I'm making this year:

Applesauce Noodle Kugel
Submitted By: Angela Creighton, allrecipes.com

Prep Time: 20 Minutes Cook Time: 70 minutes
Ready In: 90 minutes Yields: 12 servings

INGREDIENTS:
1 (16 ounce) package wide egg noodles
3/4 cup golden raisins
1 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup sour cream
1 1/2 cups egg (approx 5-6 eggs)
1 3/4 cups white sugar (could go down to 1 1/2, too)
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/4 cup graham cracker crumbs (optional)
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, or to taste

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Coat a 9x13 inch baking dish with cooking spray. Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Cook noodles and raisins in boiling water for 8 to 10 minutes, or until noodles are al dente. Drain.

In a large bowl, mix together butter, sour cream, eggs, sugar, lemon juice, vanilla extract, and applesauce.

Stir in noodles. If you choose to, spread graham cracker crumbs on the bottom of the prepared dish. Pour the noodle mixture over the crumbs. Sprinkle top with cinnamon. Bake 45 to 60 minutes in the preheated oven, or until set. Cover with foil if it browns too quickly.

Moroccan Salmon Cakes with Garlic Mayonnaise
also from allrecipes.com

PREP TIME 20 Min
COOK TIME 25 Min
READY IN 45 Min

GARLIC MAYONNAISE:
* 1/2 cup mayonnaise
* 1 clove garlic, crushed (shallots are also good!)
* 1/8 teaspoon paprika

SALMON CAKES:
* 1/2 cup couscous
* 2/3 cup orange juice
* 1 (14.75 ounce) can red salmon, drained
* 1 (10 ounce) package frozen chopped spinach - thawed, drained and squeezed dry (flat
parsley and dill could also be used, chopped & well-drained)
* 2 eggs, beaten
* 2 cloves garlic, crushed (also good with shallots)
* 1 teaspoon ground cumin
* 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 3 tablespoons olive oil

In a small stainless steel or glass bowl, stir together mayonnaise, garlic, and paprika. Set aside.

Prepare couscous according to package directions using the 2/3 cup of orange juice in place of water.

In a mixing bowl, combine the cooked couscous, red salmon, drained spinach, egg yolks, garlic, cumin, black pepper, and salt. Form into patties.

In a large skillet over medium heat, heat the olive oil and fry patties until golden brown turning once, about 8 to 10 minutes. Serve with garlic mayonnaise.

I've made the kugel many times before and it's usually gone before I even get any. I made the salmon cakes for the first time last year, but I made a few changes. I made them as appetizers, using a mini-cupcake pan and baking them in the oven (350 for probably 10-12 mins.) I'm not a spinach person, so I used flat parsley as my "green" in there. I think I'll add some dill, too, this year. I wish I had made notes about what I did because I changed the proportions a little, but don't remember exactly what I did. Well, I'll try to remember to do that this year and I'll post it if there's anything else I do.

ETA: From reading the comments other people on the salmon recipe, most people say to use a whole egg (1 or 2), not just the yolks and someone else suggested using green onion in there- ooo!

I made the two recipes above for our early Rosh Hashanah dinner tonight. I used flat parsley and dill in the salmon cakes, and also shallots instead of garlic in both the cakes and the sauce. It was very tasty! It also took two whole eggs to get the consistency right and 25 mins at 350 degrees in a mini-cupcake pan.

Also, in the kugel, it should be noted that it takes 5-6 eggs to get 1 1/2 cups, depending on the size of the eggs. Also, the butter should be softened before adding. I've edited the recipes above.

I would love a recipe or at least some simple instructions for how to make the kreplach filling and the dough.

Thanks so much,
Lyle

There's not much to it, and no real exact measurements. I'll get together the notes my wife took from watching my grandmother and post some more details.

Best,
M

After extensive prodding and pleading from my family, I made round challahs for my mothers Rosh HaShana table. She is making everything else this year. I think it's been about 10 years since I made this particular challah recipe.

When I was a girl, we had a family friend who would bring fresh homemade challahs for Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur. This is the family friend who taught me to make gefilte fish 15 years ago. She would make dozens of her sweet challahs each year and loved nothing better than to share them with family and friends. When my parents moved to the southern suburbs from the city, we stopped getting the challahs from her because she was having health issues. She started bringing them again about 20 years ago. I called her and asked her if she would share her sweet challah recipe with me, which she was delighted to do. Sadly, about 13 years ago she passed away.

Yesterday I baked nine challahs from Bea Weingart's recipe. I miss her, but I think she would be happy to know that I followed her tradition of giving most of them away.

Suzy

_________________
" There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life."
- Frank Zappa

For tonites dinner,

We're starting with vegetarian chopped liver from elegance in meats.

Moving on to matza ball soup (made by grandma)
and butternut squash soup-for the vegetarians

Challah, fresh-picked apples, and honey

I made the vegeteraian tsimmes recipes from last week's trib, except I added about 5 fresh apples.
I also cooked it in a dutch oven in the oven at 325. If i did it over, I'd run the sw pototoes and carrots for the first 1/2 hour or 45 min alone, and then add the fruits for another 1/2 hour.

I also made the noodle kugel recipe from the trib, but substituted 1 lb of neufchatel for the 8 oz cottage cheese and 8 oz cream cheese. (yuck) I also used a combination of dried cherries and golden raisins instead of all goldens. I'll have to let you know how it turned out, but it looks good.

Will also have brisket made by grandma thankfully for us carnivores.

For desserts my home baked dark and fruity honeycake, and JoelF's Doom Bars, which turned out awesome!
(but I have taken to calling turtle brownie bars, so my less- imaginative family knows what they are...)

I might run over to the affy tapple outlet and see if they have any chocolate covered apple chips......

_________________
"If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay home."
~James Michener

The challahs were a huge hit -- the temple president came up to me and told him the cantor ate half of his on Sunday, after intending to just have one slice. I've now been roped into making about 18 for next week. . .

Suzy

_________________
" There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life."
- Frank Zappa