Thanksgivukkah Watch: Pumpkin Custard Kugel

By Scott Kearnan for Zagat Boston


This is getting big - in Boston, anyway. Last week we took a look at Thanksgivukkah, November's unusual calendar alignment of Thanksgiving and Hanukkah, via Kitchen Kibitz: a new Jewish cuisine pop-up that's throwing an early celebration on November 10. But we've just scratched the surface of what's turning into quite a craze. Not only has Boston's Combined Jewish Philanthropies launched an entire website dedicated to the day, but it includes a new (hilarious) video with Mayor Menino promising that November 28 will be proclaimed "Thanksgivukkah Day" in Boston. As they say in the comments section: First!

Naturally, area restaurants are getting in on the action with Thanksgivukkah-apropos dishes. Among them is the pumpkin custard kugel chef Marjorie Druker is serving at the Modern Rotisserie annex of her New England Soup Factory in Newton. Druker shared the recipe for the dish, so at-home chefs can start celebrating early.

Pumpkin Custard Kugel

Ingredients:

1 pound of cooked wide egg noodles (slightly undercook noodles by 2 minutes)
1 stick of butter
16 oz. of cream cheese
1 pint of sour cream
1 15-oz. can of pumpkin purée
8 extra-large or jumbo eggs
1 3/4 cups of sugar
1 tablespoon of pure vanilla extract
1 quart of whole milk
1/2 cup molasses
1 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon allspice

For topping:
3/4 cup of chopped pecans
1 tablespoon of cinnamon
2 tablespoons sugar

Directions:

In a mixing bowl whip together the butter and cream cheese. Add the sour cream, pumpkin purée and sugar, and mix again. Add the eggs one at a time, beating a little after each one. Add the milk, salt, molasses, nutmeg, ground cloves and allspice, and mix to incorporate the custard.

Place the cooked noodles in a large mixing bowl. Pour the custard over the noodles and mix well. Pour into a large baking dish that has been generously buttered. Place this dish in an even larger roasting pan and add water so that you create a water bath for the pudding. Add enough water so that it comes halfway up to the pan of kugel.

Sprinkle with the pecan and cinnamon topping and place in a 350 degree pre-heated oven for one hour uncovered. Remove from the oven and let rest a day before serving. Cut into pieces and warm up in a 350 degree oven for 15-20 minutes before serving.

Thanksgiving with a side of Hanukkah: recipes for a once-in-a-lifetime event

by Vered Guttman for Haaretz

The delicious combinations are endless between the fall flavors of Thanksgiving and the extravagance of Hanukkah, which begin this year on the same day.

I can still remember the first time I heard about Thanksgivukkah. Well, it happened only three weeks ago. Thanksgiving and Hanukkah, the most American of holidays and the most extravagant of Jewish holidays, coincide to make the once-in-a-lifetime mother of all holidays. What a concept! Little did I know that I would then hear about it again and again, at least three times a day, every day, from excited Jews and their media outlets.

Oy, the pressure. If this is indeed a once-in-a-lifetime, or for accuracy’s sake, a once-in-a-77,000-years experience, the meal too should be the best one ever made. And it should combine the fall flavors of Thanksgiving - pumpkins, green beans, turkey and pies, with those of Hanukkah (meaning, fry everything).

The combinations are endless: Latkes topped with cranberry sauce; yam latkes; brussels sprouts latkes; soufganiya stuffed with turkey and cranberry sauce; gelt pie; turkey in Manischewitz brine, stuffed with gefilte fish and roasted carrots and served with chrein.

My head is spinning!

Trying to make more sense of this unnatural situation, I’ll give a few more reasonable recipes in the upcoming weeks before Thanksgivukkah. This week, I’ll focus on side dishes, my favorite part of Thanksgiving. And this time with a Hanukkah twist: Brussels sprouts mini soufganiyiot, roasted tzimmes, and kasha with smoked turkey and butternut squash in bourbon.

 Continue here for recipe.

Israeli Chefs Bring a New Spin on Middle Eastern Food to America

Shakshuka is on menus all over the country, and za’atar appears in Rachael Ray’s recipes. Can America love Israeli cuisine more?

By Leah Koenig for Tablet Magazine
Einat Admony is gearing up for a busy autumn. The Tel Aviv native and longtime New York-based chef already runs two bustling eateries: Taïm, a celebrated Greenwich Village falafel restaurant with a partner food truck, and a Middle Eastern trattoria in SoHo called Balaboosta, which does wonderful things like top-grilled lamb chops with Persian lime sauce, and nestle-fried olives in a pool of creamy labneh.

But next month, Admony’s life will kick into warp speed. That’s when her cookbook, also called Balaboosta, drops—a vibrant and inviting collection of personal stories and recipes designed, as the book puts it, “to feed people you love.” Shortly after that, Admony will add a new restaurant to her mini-empire, Bar Bolonat in Greenwich Village. As is the case with Taïm and Balaboosta, its menu will center around the Israeli flavors that Admony has said “are my comfort zone, my heart and core.” But it will be the most playful of the three restaurants, deconstructing familiar Israeli flavors and liberally incorporating ingredients from other ethnic cuisines. Case in point: a dessert of tahini cookies that she will serve alongside green-tea gelato. “I want to put the gelato in those gold-rimmed Moroccan tea glasses, which will look beautiful without being gimmicky,” she said.

Admony is an established champion of “new Israeli cuisine,” a term that refers to Israel’s emerging food scene and vigorous recent embracing of its many overlapping food cultures. And she is far from alone. Over the last decade, a new crop of wandering Israeli chefs and food purveyors has begun to make a significant mark on the way Americans cook and eat. The vision of Israeli food that they are bringing moves far beyond falafel or the Sabra brand hummus that sell like gangbusters across the country; it is fine dining—elevated and innovative.

Consider the following: Admony’s first restaurant, Taïm, opened in 2005. Three years later, the Israeli-born, Pittsburgh-raised chef Michael Solomonov launched his restaurant Zahav in the heart of Philadelphia. Within months, his inspiring take on new Israeli cuisine—dishes like fried haloumi cheese with carrots and pine nuts, grilled ground lamb served with pickled ramps, and halvah mousse with chickpea praline—was being lauded on must-eat lists in Philadelphia and beyond.

 Continue reading.

Jamie Geller, the ‘Kosher Rachael Ray,’ Dresses Up Simple Family Meals

‘I still don’t like to cook. I love to eat. I love to watch my children eat,’ she says in her new cookbook, ‘Joy of Kosher.’

By Lucy Cohen Blatter for Tablet
Jamie Geller has been described as the “kosher Rachael Ray” because of her propensity for crafting approachable, get-me-out-of-the-kitchen-quickly recipes. But the similarities don’t end there: Like the woman who made 30-minute meals a major brand, Geller has created a large media presence, albeit in the kosher world. She founded and is chief creative officer of Kosher Media Network, which includes JoyofKosher.com and Joy of Kosher With Jamie Geller magazine (which merged with Bitayavon last year), as well as JDeal and JBlasts—two Jewish-centric sites her company acquired—plus JGives, BuyIsraelWeek, and MetroImma. She has sold close to 60,000 cookbooks and counts 30,000 subscribers to the magazine.

But her latest endeavor, a cookbook tiled Joy of Kosher: Fast, Fresh Family Recipes being published this month, is a crossover into the more mainstream world of celebrity chefdom. Geller’s first two books—Quick and Kosher: Recipes From the Bride Who Knew Nothing and Quick and Kosher: Meals in Minutes—were put out by the Jewish publisher Feldheim; the new book is published by HarperCollins imprint William Morrow. “Last time around, my mother-in-law and I were picking out fonts,” said Geller. “This time there’s a lot more pressure to do something new and to do something on-trend.”

Staying on trend is increasingly important in the kosher cooking world. “Just like everyone else, people in Jewish communities have become foodies,” said Geller. “Kosher websites and blogs abound, and they showcase kosher Vietnamese, Mexican, Thai, and all different kinds of food. At fancy food shows you can see that many ethnic products want kosher certification because they know kosher cooks are using all of them.”

The new cookbook is a continuation of Geller’s ever-expanding Joy of Kosher brand, although she says it also continues in the style of Quick and Kosher before it: “Cooking quick and kosher is at the core of my being. I haven’t abandoned the essence of that brand.”

Continue reading.

Jewish Coffee Cake

No coffee required.

By Tamar Fox for MyJewishLearning

Ashkenazic coffee cake, most often made with sour cream, is a dish with a history going back to 17th century Eastern Europe. Recipes for this pastry have changed over time. Though the original Jewish coffee cakes called for coffee as one of the main ingredients, today most such cakes are perfect partners for a hot cop of joe, but are totally caffeine-free.

In contemporary Jewish homes coffee cake is often served for breakfast on Shabbat and holidays, and at the break fast table after Yom Kippur and Tisha B'Av. When enjoying coffee cake after Shabbat, some families like to sprinkle the fragrant spices used in havdalah on top of the cake. Sweet, and containing nuts, cinnamon, and/or chocolate, a slice of coffee cake is one of the best ways to make a meal special.

This recipe comes from my mother, who liked to make coffee cake for celebratory brunches. The filling can be adapted for the crowd. If you're hosting some chocolate-lovers, try the chocolate filling. If your family gobbles up raisin challah, try the raisin-nut filling. The simple combination of pecans and walnuts in the nut filling is surprisingly elegant. Any way you go, you're bound to end up with a table full of smiles and crumbs.

 Continue reading.

Sauteed Cabbage, Perfect Fall Recipe

 Sauteed Cabbage - Serves 6

It's so good you can't stop eating it. So simple you can't believe it!

1 small head of white cabbage, including outer green leaves (2 1/2 pounds)
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Fleur de sel to taste (optional)
Cut the cabbage in half and, with the cut-side down, slice it as thinly as possible around the core, as though you were making coleslaw. Discard the core.

Melt the butter in a large sauté pan or heavy-bottomed pot over medium-high heat. Add the cabbage, kosher salt, and pepper and sauté for 10 to 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the cabbage is tender and begins to brown. Finish with another sprinkling of kosher salt or fleur de sel. Serve hot.

Copyright 2001, Barefoot Contessa Parties! by Ina Garten, Clarkson Potter/Publishers, All Rights Reserved

Pumpkin Challah

Perfect for a Fall Shabbat.

By Leah Koenig for MyJewishLearning

I have never met a homemade challah I didn't like. There is something undeniably cozy and inviting about warm, fresh bread on the Shabbat table. Few other tastes can rival this.

On the other hand, challah's ubiquitous appeal means that it's hard to find one loaf that stands out from the crowd. Enter: pumpkin challah.

With a heady mix of pureed winter squash, cinnamon, and cardamom braided into deep, strawberry-blond loaves, pumpkin challah is at once exotic and familiar to my Ashkenazic taste buds. A rare find, indeed.

In Maggie Glezer's indispensable baking book The Blessing of Bread she writes that pumpkin challah--a.k.a. pan de calabaza--is a Sephardic specialty imbued with deep meaning. Like other foods made with pumpkin, it represents the hope that God will protect the Jewish people just as the pumpkin's thick shell protects the flesh inside.

Sephardic Jews traditionally serve this bread during Rosh Hashanah, when eating auspicious, symbolic foods is especially popular. Still, it is equally delicious served on any cold autumn or winter Shabbat when the added heartiness and kick of spice can be fully appreciated. Needless to say, the leftovers make a spectacular base for challah French toast. Continue reading for recipe.