And today we have the final installment in this week's Cook the Book series. It's a recipe for Stuffed Cabbag from Arthur Schwartz's Jewish Home Cooking. Stuffed cabbage is easily one of my favorite comfort foods, and though I typically go for a mushroom-onion-and-rice mix, the sweet-and-sour meat-stuffed cabbage here is irresistible.
Purim starts tonight, and one of the traditional foods associated with the holiday is Hamantaschen. The triangular treats are said to either resemble the villain Haman's tri-corner hat or his triangular pockets (hamantaschen literally means "Haman's pockets"). Though originally associated with Purim, this little pastry pocket is traditionally filled with lekvar (prune paste), mohn (poppy seeds), or apricot paste. Schwartz goes a little out of the pocket here with a chocolate-filled version.
Today's recipe from this week's featured cookbook, Arthur Schwartz's Jewish Home Cooking, is for Boiled Brisket. Boiling beef, of course, doesn't make for the greatest-looking dish, but if you've ever had boiled brisket, you know that beauty is only skin deep—or that it's in the mouth of the beholder. A bonus with this dish is that you can serve the broth over lukshen (fine egg noodles) as a first course.
The following recipe is from the March 19 edition of our weekly recipe newsletter. To receive this newsletter in your inbox, sign up here!
If you're not lucky enough to have grown up with a bubbe fussing over you and cooking you some of the most amazing comfort food ever, then Jewish Home Cooking by Arthur Schwartz can help you approximate the experience yourself. Here's an adaptation of Schwartz's potted sweet-and-sour meatballs, which can be used in stuffed cabbage, stuffed peppers, sweet-and-sour cabbage borscht, and more.
Today's recipe from this week's featured cookbook, Arthur Schwartz's Jewish Home Cooking, is for Potato Latkes. You basically couldn't write a book by that title or blog about it without highlighting these little fried potato pancakes. Here, Schwartz recommends using matzo meal instead of flour for a crisper surface. Another trick he recommends is stirring the mixture with a tarnished silver spoon, leaving it in between stirrings—it helps prevent the potatoes from turning gray. Latkes are typically served at hanukkah, but we couldn't resist bringing you this recipe several months in advance—it's not like you can't make them any ol' time.
The first of this week's recipes from Arthur Schwartz's Jewish Home Cooking is for Mushroom Barley Soup. I couldn't resist highlighting this one, because a good mushroom barley soup is one of my favorites. I've never made my own, prefering to get a decent one at a handful of delis here in New York, but Arthur Schwartz doesn't make this seem so difficult. The most time-consuming part might be making the chicken soup that serves as a base, but even that's not too crazy—and you can sub in four quarts vegetable broth for the chicken soup and water listed below.
This chicken soup can be served alone as a clear broth or with the addition of matzo balls, kreplach, lukshen, or soup nuts (mandlen). It's adapted from Jewish Home Cooking by Arthur Schwartz.
Editor's note: Mario Batali had never participated in any Hanukkah rituals until he came to New York and met his wife, who loves making a big deal about Hanukkah for their kids. But just because he was a Hanukkah neophyte doesn't mean he didn't have a strong point of view about latkes and apple sauce, as you can tell from this. —Ed
We love to celebrate all holidays—especially the ones that have a specific food item. In the case of the first night of Hanukkah in our house, we make latkes and apple sauce. We celebrate alone with no guests and keep it very simple. We peel spuds and apples like devils and then make the stuff. Then we light the candles and say the prayers in our limited ability and then eat happily. It's a tradition.
I've never entered a latke-making contest, I've never even tried to come up with one on my own. That doesn't mean I'm not one of the great latke eaters of our time. When my grandmother was alive she would sometimes make a hundred latkes at chanukah. I'm sure she never used a recipe, and if she did, it was never passed on to us. So about ten years ago, when we started hosting my family's Chanukah party I searched high and low for a latke recipe that could withstand the intense scrutiny the Levine family would subject the recipe to. That's where Lydie Marshal's Passion for Potatoes
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