Passover Menu

I love to cook ethnic dishes. In fact I really only enjoy cooking for special occasions and cooking either something ethnic or something I haven’t done before. My mom was the best cook ever. Growing up French in New Orleans, we ate gumbo, jambalaya, panne meat, oyster stuffing, shrimp creole, stuffed mirliton, po-boys, doberge cake, king cake, and more, just thinking about it makes me hungry. So for traditional holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas, I like to cook Cajun/Creole.

Once, I attempted to cook a traditional Indian meal for a visiting minister from India. I also invited some British friends over when I attempted to make Yorkshire Pudding, actually it turned out pretty good. The Indian meal was okay, but when I asked our friend if it tasted Indian, he told me it was “American Indian”. Okay, it was the spices. I also had my two kids who were eating with us so I couldn’t burn their little mouths. Real Indian food is SPICY! I’m getting my appetite juices ready for tonight: there’s a new Indian restaurant in town and Chuck and I are going to try it out tonight.

Well all of that was by way of introduction to our family’s Passover menu. I’ve been cooking Passover dinner now for a few years, so I have my menu pretty much down. Since I don’t have any background in Jewish cuisine, I’ve had to get everything from cookbooks. I’m getting quite good at making Matzah Ball soup, if I do say so myself. I have a great recipe that requires boiling a whole chicken with some vegetables on the first day, removing the chicken and vegetables and cooling it overnight, defatting the broth, and then starting over with another chicken and more carrots and onions. Means you have to plan ahead because it takes at least two days to cook. Plus, my daughter Aimee is quite an expert Matzah Ball roller, so the soup was good.

Last year I added a potato kugel and cooked it again this year. I’m not going to get my cookbook to look up the names, but it requires some great Yiddish ingredients which include schmaltz and gribbbez?. Please excuse me if I’ve butchered the names, like I said I’m not going to look them up. But schmaltz is melted chicken fat and the gr. stuff is made when you take the chicken fat, melt it and cook thin onion strips and chicken skin for about 45 minutes so it gets really crunchy. Then you mix it in with boiled potatoes, add some chicken broth mash it up and bake them in a casserole for a potato kugel.

Then there’s the charoset, which is a mixture of apples, walnuts, raisins, cinnamon and grape juice or wine. Charoset is a reminder of the mortar used by the Israelites to make bricks for the Egyptians. It goes on the Seder plate and I also serve it with dinner. Then there’s steamed asparagus with lemon juice, avocado salad, matzahs, oh yes and roast lamb. For dessert we always have this great chocolate cake made with matzah meal, grated apple, grated semisweet chocolate and six egg beaten egg whites and sugar. Since there’s no baking powder, soda, etc. to make the cake fluffy, the egg whites and the grated apples do the trick.

Now what are we having for Easter?