7 Rules for Perfect Hummus

When was the last time you opened a tub of hummus and swooned? When was the last time a restaurant put a plate of hummus in front of you, and you said, “Oh my God.” ?

Most of the hummus recipes you come across on web sites, in print, on YouTube—they’re just wrong. Most of the hummus you buy in stores, or get served at restaurants—it’s just okay.

As hummus gets more and more popular, its manufacturers are aiming more and more for the middle. They are substituting variety for quality. You can get mediocre hummus in ten flavors (Avocado! Chipotle!), but try finding just one batch of perfect.

And perfect hummus does exist. Lina’s in the Old City of Jerusalem. Naji’s in Abu Ghosh. Light, almost fluffy, full of fresh flavor, creamy, warm. It’s not Middle East peanut butter.

I eat hummus every day. I make it about once a week. I’ve used recipes, I’ve created my own, I’ve tweaked like Steve Jobs (z”l) on a bender. Below you’ll find my basic recipe, which I’ve adapted from Erez Komaravsky’s, the Israeli chef and cooking teacher. (A story on Erez appears in this month’s Saveur, along with the recipe).

Whether you use it or find your own let these rules be your guide.

1. Do not used canned garbanzo beans. Ever. Take the canned beans in your cupboard and give them to a food bank.

2. Fresh ingredients are always better. Always. Fresh ground cumin seeds, fresh squeezed lemon juice, fresh garlic. Never used bottled lemon juice, though a touch of citric acid can help. Erez uses a mortar and pestle to grind his cumin. You’ll taste the difference.

3. Use good quality olive oil. Lots of it. In the hummus, as well as on top.

4. Don’t forget the pepper. I use Aleppo pepper, but hot paprika or ground chili works too.

5. Use water. This is key. Reserve the water you boiled the beans in. As you blend your hummus, add the water to achieve a creamy consistency. Use a bit more than you think is correct, because after it sits you’ll see the water is absorbed. If you’ve refrigerated your hummus, you can refresh it by whisking in some warm water.

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Bronx Borscht

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

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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How Do You Say "Cooking Show" in Yiddish?

Julia Child had her glass of wine, Emeril famously "kicks it up a notch," and viewers across Britain wish Jamie Oliver actually was a naked chef. Every great cooking show has a hook, and Est Gezunterheyt! ("Eat in Good Health!") is no exception. The brainchild of Rukhl Schaechter and Eve Jochnowitz, and produced by the Yiddish Daily Forverts, Est Gezunterheyt is a cooking show like no other. Mainly because, minus the subtitles, it’s all in mame-loshn.

Schaechter, an editor and writer, hails from a prominent family of Yiddish linguists, musicians, dramatists, and educators. Jochnowitz, a food ethnographer and blogger is more of a Yiddishist by choice.

In each episode, the co-hosts cook a traditional Jewish meal while serving up basic cooking tips (How should one cut an onion?), cultural context, and the occasional Yiddish song. Kasha varnishkes, sorrel soup, and potato kugel are all on the menu, and in one particularly delightful episode the duo make a Romanian cornmeal mush called mamelige and ultimately demonstrate a popcorn-and-milk parlor trick that defies the laws of fluid dynamics, and would make a perfect afternoon snack for any good farm girl, from Old World to New.

Chili With Cornbread Baked on Top

A recipe to bring to a new mom or dad.

This chili with cornbread is my favorite thing to make for parents of newborns. It's a delicious way of showing you care and are excited for and supportive of the new family.

The art of bringing food to a new mom (or dad) isn't just in choosing a recipe and making it. The whole point of bringing a meal is to be helpful and supportive, so you want to bring everything in a way that's as low maintenance as possible. I bring things in recyclable or disposable containers, and make it clear that I don't expect them to be returned. Often, I buy a new dish, bake the food in it, and give the meal and the dish to the family as a gift. When I bring the food I try to include a note about what's in everything, and I make an effort not to stay too long when I'm dropping off the food (unless I'm invited to stick around).

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Schnitzel: Israeli Cutlets

The ultimate comfort food

By Adeena Sussman

In all my years living in and visiting Israel, I never tired of the crisp, freshly breaded and fried cutlets known as schnitzel. Adapted by immigrants from the classic Viennese Wiener Schnitzel made with veal, the Israeli version originally featured turkey, which was much more plentiful at the onset of the Jewish State than beef, or even chicken.

In Israel you'll find a wide variety of schnitzel, adapted to adhere to familial or ethnic traditions and tastes. I like mine a bit spicy and add sesame seeds for a subtle nuttiness. I also prefer a coating of bread crumbs, which provide a crisper crust than matzah meal, which is denser and absorbs more oil.

The spices here are only a recommendation--it's fun to adjust the herbs to your liking. The smaller tenders make a great snack for kids, and any leftover schnitzel is superb as a day-after sandwich, stuffed into a pita with some salad and a drizzle of tahini.

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The Jewish Biscotti

Mandelbrot: Almond Bread

The Jewish biscotti may have Italian roots.

By Adeena Sussman

It was a long time before I made the connection between mandelbrot, the twice-baked cookies commonly found in Ashkenazi Jewish households, and biscotti, the twice-baked cookies of Italian provenance.

It's unclear how and when Ashkenazi Jews began baking mandelbrot, but Joan Nathan, in her book Jewish Cooking in America, suggests that the large Jewish population in Italy's Piedmont region may have been responsible for disseminating the recipe to German friends and family.

Though the term mandelbrot literally means "almond bread," many modern varieties abound, some with the addition of butter, chocolate chips and dried fruit. This is a traditional recipe, similar to the one my grandmother used to serve with steaming glasses of tea.

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Leftover Challah Recipes

Beyond french toast.

By Leah Koenig

Last spring, I received quite the shock upon opening my freezer for its annual pre-Passover cleaning. Inside, bag upon bag of forgotten scraps and ends of challahs-past sat shivering and waiting for redemption. I hadn't meant to let my leftover challah situation grow so ugly, but there it was, staring me in the face. With only a few days before I needed to be hametz-free, I decided to feed some of the challah to my compost worms, and dump the rest of it (guiltily) into the garbage. But I promised myself that next Passover I would

Of course, there is little I can do about the weekly surplus of challah that builds up after Shabbat. The real conundrum is what to do with all those odds and ends that accumulate into a freezer full of old challah. Conventional Jewish wisdom seems to suggest one acceptable option: French toast.

According to Arthur Schwartz's Jewish Home Cooking: Yiddish Recipes Revisited, challah French toast first showed up on menus in the 1940s, but was made famous in the 1950s and 60s by two Brooklyn restaurants, Wolfie's and Cookie's. "At Cookie's and Wolfie's," he writes, "they served big, crisp-edged wedges of deep-fried, egg-saturated challah with a paper soufflé cup of cherry preserves."

These days, challah French toast is so ubiquitous that recipes for it regularly turn up in mainstream Jewish cookbooks, and even some non-Jewish ones. Decades from now, culinary anthropologists may point to challah French toast as an example of American Jews' distinct and fascinating contribution to traditional Jewish cuisine.

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