Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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Maybe it's the home comfort it exudes, maybe it's how easy it is to make, but for a variety of, mostly inexplicable, reasons, banana bread has become everyone's quarantine darling. There were a couple of weeks where I couldn't scroll through Instagram without seeing at least three loaves on my feed. Google confirmed it: Banana bread searches are way up compared to other baked goods. I'll be honest: I didn't get on board until recently. Besides for having a serious aversion to all things banana,...
My mother's stuffed cabbage is one of my favorite dishes in the world. She makes it with ground beef and rice and simmers the stuffed cabbage leaves in a rich, savory tomato sauce. I could eat trays of it. My late grandmother used to make a vegetarian version, hers included rice, mushrooms, and barley. The sauce was sweeter than my mother's, leaning a little more to the Polish side of tradition, where sweet foods are more prevalent. I could also eat trays of her stuffed cabbage and I savored...
If you think chicken kebabs sound boring, I don't blame you. Usually they are. And dry. But not this recipe. This recipe pays homage to one of the earliest forms of cooking: roasting meat on a spit over a fire. Roasting smaller cuts, like kebabs, became popular in areas like the Middle East, where firewood was scarce, as they proved more practical to cook over small fires. According to food historian Gil Marks, the word is derived from the ancient Persian "kabab," which most likely stemmed from...
Maybe it's the home comfort it exudes, maybe it's how easy it is to make, but for a variety of, mostly inexplicable, reasons, banana bread has become everyone's quarantine darling. There were a couple of weeks where I couldn't scroll through Instagram without seeing at least three loaves on my feed. Google confirmed it: Banana bread searches are way up compared to other baked goods. I'll be honest: I didn't get on board until recently. Besides for having a serious aversion to all things banana,...
If I'm hosting brunch, it's a pretty sure bet that I'll make shakshuka. Saucy, spicy and runny with egg, it's a universally beloved dish that, to its credit (and my eternal disappointment), never yields leftovers when I make it, a sure testament to its popularity. I make my regular shakshuka with fresh tomatoes and peppers, which leaves me in somewhat of a bind come wintertime, when neither are in season. Rather than use canned vegetables (they have their place; shakshuka is not it) I've...
This recipe originally appeared on The Nosher. If babka is the hip Jewish treat du jour, then kokosh cake is its slightly homelier cousin of yesteryear. But don't let that description turn you off because what kokosh cake lacks in razzle-dazzle, it makes up for in the most important of ways: rich, gooey, seemingly endless layers of chocolate. Named after the Hungarian word for cocoa, kakaó, a kokosh cake is flatter and longer than a babka and made with a yeast dough that's barely left to rise....
Cheese lovers who haven't tried halloumi, meet your new obsession. Halloumi is a semi-hard cheese originating in Cyprus. Made from sheep's milk, the briny yet mild cheese is popular in Greece and the Middle East, and increasingly in America, too. In Israel, you can find halloumi on practically every cafe menu. Its real magic lies in its high melting point: Halloumi can be grilled or fried without falling apart or melting into a pile of hot (delicious) cheese. Instead, it takes on beautiful grill...
(The Nosher via JTA)-There's nothing more comforting than a slice of babka and a glass of milk to break a long fast on. In my family, it's pretty much all we eat. But I don't always make babka, and I do always make challah, especially during the High Holidays season. So, for convenience, I started setting aside one portion of my challah dough, rolling it out like babka and filling it with chocolate, creating a babka-challah hybrid. It saves me time, tastes delicious and since my challah dough...
(The Nosher via JTA)-Harissa is a spicy, rich-flavored North African chili paste and it is one of my favorite condiments to use in the kitchen. It is traditionally made with roasted red pepper, chiles, garlic, and a mixture of spices, depending on the family and exact origin. You can easily find several varieties in the supermarket (usually in the ethnic foods aisle), but I prefer making my own, in part so I can control the level of spice. A traditional Nicoise salad features baby potatoes,...
(The Nosher via JTA)-Limonana is a classic Israeli drink that combines freshly squeezed lemon juice and mint leaves for a unique Israeli-style lemonade treat that's beloved throughout the country. Limonana is a combination of the Hebrew and Arabic words "limon" and "nana," which mean lemon and mint, respectively. While the drink may have originated elsewhere in the Middle East, it's an Israeli advertising agency that provided the catchy portmanteau of a name in the 1990s. In an attempt to get...
(The Nosher via JTA)-These bourekas are a mix of New York Jewish and Middle Eastern Israeli food cultures. It sounds a little crazy, but it's incredibly good: The flavorful seasoning blend, slightly sweet from the dried onion and garlic, balances out the salty, briny feta interior, and the cream and cottage cheese in the filling. A little bit of spinach, a personal must for me in cheese bourekas, adds color and flavor. Best part? These bourekas, made with store-bought puff pastry, are...
(The Nosher via JTA)-I had never been much of a rugelach baker until this recipe. While I gravitated toward challah and babka, I always found store-bought rugelach to be a bit bland and disappointing. But to my great delight, rugelach is supremely easy to make. Most recipes rely on a 1-to-1 ratio of butter and cream cheese in the dough for flavor and flakiness. I stick with that classic method (don't mess with perfection!), but also add a bit of sour cream for an extra tender texture. The dough...
(The Nosher via JTA)-Upside down cakes are one of my favorite types of cakes to make, mostly because they are an easy way to impress. In an upside down cake, the fruit is layered on the bottom of the pan along with sugar, and a simple, fluffy cake batter is poured on top. Once it's baked, the cake is inverted, and what was once the bottom of the cake becomes a gorgeously syrupy, fruity top. What could be simpler? American upside down cakes are traditionally made with pineapple and cherries, but...
(The Nosher via JTA)-I was first introduced to Turkish coffee in Israel. Prepared in the traditional copper cezve, it was served piping hot and in beautiful, delicate cups. I quickly became enamored of its strong flavor and clean, robust taste unmarred by sugar. In addition to the pure taste of coffee, there was another flavor I couldn't quite place. When I asked the brewer what it was, he told me it was cardamom. It seemed a strange combination at first, but as I kept drinking I found it was...
(The Nosher via JTA)-Look, I'm going to be honest with you: Deep frying is a huge pain. It's hot, it's splattery, sometimes things come out raw and it's not exactly healthy. BUT! Big, big but. It is also, when done right, one of the best things in the world. Deep frying has given us french fries, doughnuts, falafel and, perhaps most important, fried chicken. If there's a better food than fried chicken, I don't know it. To give this American comfort food classic an Israeli twist, I added plenty o...
(The Nosher via JTA)-I had my first proper halva experience at The Halva Kingdom in the Machane Yehuda shuk in Jerusalem. I'd never really liked halva before that-the one or two times I had tasted it, the texture was weird and crumbly and there was a slightly bitter aftertaste. But in the shuk, surrounded by dozens of varieties of blocks of halva, I couldn't resist trying the sample offered by the charming vendor. You guys, it was so, so good! I was pleasantly shocked at how much I liked it. It...
