Food Friday- ברוך אתה בעיר ברוך אתה בסדה

My older son threw a New Year's party. There were several liters of soda left. We generally don't buy soda. My youngest suggested sort of halfway as a joke that I cook  Shabbat dinner with the soda.

We have been known to do themed Shabbat dinners in this house. Caveman Shabbat (chicken wings and beef ribs) is a perennial favorite. PuPu Shabbat with little bits of tasty bites is also popular.


So this week is officially Soda Shabbat, or as the punchline of the old Yeshivish joke might put it ברוך אתה בסדה. The joke is both too dopey and too complicated to translate into English so let this terrible joke be a bonus for my readers who can read Hebrew.

We were left with a 2-liter bottle of Pepsi, one of orange soda and one of Mountain Dew. After a bit of discussion and some searching on the internet, we decided that we would make a Pepsi based barbecue sauce and a cake with the Mountain Dew.

I made three London broils.

I figured that the Pepsi would need to be boiled down.

I discovered that hot flat Pepsi is not particularly tasty. I boiled down the Pepsi by about 3/4 and it was still kind of pallid tasting.  I added a generous amount of mustard, black pepper, cayenne pepper, ginger, and some molasses and the result isn't bad.

I will add this sauce to the meat after I slice it up and warm it in the oven for Shabbat dinner.

I haven't drunk Mountain Dew in about thirty years. My youngest reminded me that it had a lemon-lime flavor. It seemed to me that it would work in a cake.

I made a bundt cake with a cup of Mountain Dew as the liquid. I also added some fresh lemon rind and some powdered ginger.

We still had most of a 2-liter bottle left.  Perhaps a Mountain Dew-based custard should top the cake.

I boiled down the soda. With about 3/4 of the water boiled away, it tasted like watered down lemon jello with a hint of the sensation I remember from my years wearing braces and I would bite down on the metal ferrule on my yellow #2 pencil. I guess another way to describe it is a chemical flavor sort of like chewing a tin can.  I added some fresh lemon juice, some rum, the last bit of triple sec from an old bottle and since my son mentioned it needed a bit of something boring to balance the flavor, some vanilla. The custard is thickened with potato starch.

The cake looks beautiful, but I don't have great hopes about the flavor.

I don't think I would go out of my way to do this again. The barbeque sauce is good, but I have made better. My youngest just asked me if I could figure out a way to cook with the orange soda. I don't know if my skills in the kitchen go quite that far.


Shabbat Shalom...and

ברוך אתה בעיר ברוך אתה בסדה