Seder Wrap Up

Friday, I engaged in what I think of as Olympic cooking.  I made a carrot  potato kugel, cooked the quinoa, shredded and sliced the horseradish for the Seder table made a few batches of Passover puffs and I concocted a pie.

No, I don’t have photos of the pie. You do have to trust me on this one. it was beautiful and it was delicious. I made a nut crust in the food processor using left over ground almonds and pecans whipped together with a bit of matza meal sugar, salt and a bit of water. I think there was about a cup of nuts, a table spoon of the matza meal, a scant tablespoon of sugar , a smidge of salt and a tablespoon or two of water.

I pressed the mixture into the bottom of a spring form pan and had the mixture go up an inch or two up the sides of the pan.

I baked the crust. Then I made a lemon curd. I love lemon curd, but it is often dairy. I sort of followed  a recipe for lemon filling from Leah Leonard's, Jewish Cookery. Most lemon curd is too sweet for my taste. So I made it tart, to my taste.

Lemon Curd

1 c sugar

3 T potato starch

mix together and put in a small pot

add 1/2 cup fresh lemon juice and 1/2 cup water

heat on medium until mixture boils, stirring the whole time

remove from heat

whisk in 3-4 egg yolks  ( mine were left over from making meringues)

then finish with a small blob of olive oil ( or a knob of butter if you are making this dairy)

mix well

I piled the curd into the crust and let it cool in the fridge. Then I covered the top with strawberry halves. I melted some apricot jam and brushed it over the pie and let that set.

The crust crumbled a whole lot but it was incredibly delicious. I love that this dessert didn’t feel like a Passover dessert. 

The rest of the food for Passover came out well.  I can’t count the batches of meringues and Passover puffs that I have made. I even made one batch with oil using Mark Ruhlman’s ratio ( 4 eggs/1 cup fat/1 cup water) . I ‘m thinking that the secret of really puffy puffs is both using four eggs and letting the mixture cool before adding the eggs.

My youngest went to a birthday party this afternoon and brought a batch of orange scented  meringues that he made with only minimal direction.