Black Bean Hummus

 A new twist on a Middle Eastern staple.

By Leah Koenig for MyJewishLearning

While chickpeas--with their tiny stature and unassuming flavor--maintain a humble persona, their significance throughout history commands serious respect. One of the earliest plants to be domesticated for human use, chickpeas were first planted along with wheat, barley, lentils, and other ancient grains and legumes in the Fertile Crescent some 10-12,000 years ago. Fittingly, chickpeas have long been a staple of Middle Eastern cuisine, found in everything from stews and savory pies to fritters to spreads

Hummus, which literally means "chickpeas" in Arabic, is arguably the most popular recipe in the chickpea canon. The exact origins of this spread of smashed chickpeas softened with tahini and olive oil are unknown, but likely stretch back for centuries. Hummus continues to be a favorite throughout the Middle East, including Israel where, as Janna Gur writes in The New Book of Israeli Food, "Israelis hold hummus in such high regard that it is rarely made at home." Instead, she writes, residents flock like pilgrims to their favorite hummusia (hummus joint) for plates of warm hummus topped with fava beans or a hardboiled egg and accompanied by plates of pickles and fluffy stacks of pita.

Vegetarians and health food enthusiasts like Mollie Katzen first helped to introduce the protein-packed spread to the American palate in the 1960s and 1970s. Today it is nearly ubiquitous: Sabra is becoming a household-recognized brand, hummus and pita platters show up next to mozzarella sticks and nachos on diner menus, and the dip has become a familiar-enough cultural reference to carry scenes in major motion pictures (i.e. the infamous "hummus scene" in Don't Mess with the Zohan).

The New York Times published an article discussing hummus' growing popularity in the United States, especially flavored versions that add savory mix-ins like sun-dried tomatoes, roasted red peppers, and avocado. MyJewishLearning.com's blog Mixed Multitudes mentioned a New Hampshire-based company that launched a line of dessert hummus that includes flavors like caramel apple, chocolate mousse, and pumpkin pie. The three recipes below do not take hummus innovation to such extremes, but do offer some unexpected twists on the classic.

Of course, purists can make their own traditional hummus by following this recipe.

This black bean based-riff on traditional chickpea hummus is packed with serious flavor thanks to the fresh cilantro and ground spices.

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Easy Roasted Red Pepper Soup

Sukkot and the Seasonal Shift

It happens like clockwork. Here in Connecticut, Rosh Hashanah is generally warm and sunny and by Yom Kippur the nights are downright chilly.
Sukkot comes just five days after and the foliage is suddenly tinged with vibrant oranges and happy yellows of Autumn. The festival of Sukkot requires us to shift our moods suddenly also, from the days of contemplation and solemnity to a spirit of joyful thanksgiving and celebration. Our menus quickly transition to warming foods and for many of us, that means soup.

In order to not overwhelm the cook with complicated recipes as we head into yet, another holiday, I share this super easy recipe by one of my blogging gal pals, Hannah Kaminsky. Hannah is a brilliantly accomplished cook, author and photographer. I am awed by her ambition and accomplishments, especially considering that she is only 22 years old!
I interviewed her recently, after the release of her book Vegan Desserts Sumptuous Sweets for Every Season. It has become my indispensable guide to non-dairy and vegan desserts. Her recipes are both easy and convenient for kosher cooks who require non-dairy soups, sides and desserts to accompany meat meals. Thanks for sharing , Hannah.

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Bronx Borscht - Perfect for the Sukkah

From the old world to the new, nothing 'beets' this classic soup

By Marion Jacobson for Kveller

Usually, the sight of a root vegetable other than potatoes sends my kids running and screaming from the kitchen. But the beet claims a special place in our house whenever I make borscht.

Beets were a cheap commodity in Eastern Europe, so they caught on like wildfire in poor communities, both Jewish and Polish. Borscht (or borsch) is the generic name for a soup of Ukrainian origin that appears in hot and cold variations, but always with beets. Cold borscht is a true summertime soup, and I offer a thick, hearty version more like a Jewish take on gazpacho. Whatever kind of borscht you make, don't leave out the dill--a staple of Polish and Eastern Europe cooking.

A Generational Dish
My borscht obsession started with my first taste of my mother's soup, which her immigrant mother cooked and chilled every summer for her family of seven in a South Bronx tenement. Grandma Lena made a special Passover Borscht with russel (brine in Yiddish and Russian). She'd put the beets in wooden barrels with vinegar and water and let them sit for three to four weeks. Every few days, she'd skim off the fermented crust that would form at the top. My mother recalls this version being especially popular with some of their more (ahem) intemperate neighbors. But Grandma wasn't trying to get anyone drunk--she was just trying to get borscht to keep longer. Fermented borscht could keep for weeks or even months without refrigeration.

My grandmother made borscht in a pressure cooker, the old jiggle-top kind. If a food particle clogged the vent, or if she got distracted and forgot to turn down the heat (not an infrequent occurrence in a large household) the regulator blew off, taking the contents of the pot with it. The pink splotches on the ceiling are one of my mother's most vivid memories of her childhood kitchen.

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Has the kosher cheeseburger arrived?

By Talia Lavin for JTA

NEW YORK (JTA) — When the world’s first lab-grown burger was introduced and taste-tested on Monday, the event seemed full of promise for environmentalists, animal lovers and vegetarians.

Another group that had good reason to be excited? Kosher consumers.

The burger was created by harvesting stem cells from a portion of cow shoulder muscle that were multiplied in petri dishes to form tiny strips of muscle fiber. About 20,000 of the strips were needed to create the five-ounce burger, which was financed partially by Google founder Sergey Brin and unveiled by Mark Post of Maastricht University in the Netherlands.

PETA hailed the event as a “first step” toward humanely producing meat products. A University of Amsterdam study shows that lab-grown meat could significantly reduce the environmental impact of beef production.

For kosher-observant Jews, the “cultured” burgers could open the door to radical dietary changes — namely, the birth of the kosher cheeseburger.

That’s because meat produced through this process could be considered parve – neither meat nor dairy — according to Rabbi Menachem Genack, CEO of the Orthodox Union’s kosher division. Thus under traditional Jewish law, the burger could be paired with dairy products.

Several key conditions would have to be met to create kosher, parve cultured beef. The tissue samples would have to come from an animal that had been slaughtered according to kosher rules, not from a biopsy from a live animal, Genack said.

The principle underlying this theory is much like the status of gelatin in Jewish law: Though it is derived from an animal, it is not meat (the OU certifies some bovine-derived gelatin as parve).

Genack noted another source for viewing cultured meat as parve: a 19th century Vilna-born scholar known as the Heshek Shlomo wrote that the meat of an animal conjured up in a magical incantation could be considered parve. It may not be too much of a stretch, then, to apply the same logic to modern genetic wizardry.

But kosher chefs aren’t heating up the parve griddles just yet.

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Best Rosh Hashanah Recipes from the LA Times

Would you like to try something decidedly different this holiday? How about Baked pumpkin jam with cinnamon and ginger, served with couscous, Cilantro tomato soup with Syrian meatballs, Artichoke hearts with harissa salad, or Ejjeh b'kerrateh/Leek fritters? Be a little daring and add something not necessarily in your family's tradition this year. And if your family is Sephardic, go for the Ashkenazic matzah balls!