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I have a whole world in my bowl

My building's holiday party was this Sunday. I made

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meringues flavored with cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and ginger and with dried cranberries added for a bit of flavor and texture contrast.

The party was lovely. people were generous in how much they brought to the pot-luck celebration. Most of a gorgeous vegetable platter was left untouched.

 

I brought it home, roasted all of the vegetables and made soup. My son commented that it looked like industrial waste but tasted delicious.

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Actually it looks like the crud I used to clean out of the industrial dish washer back in my dish washing days in college.  It did taste really good despite it’s appearance.

 

I have Chanukah on the mind and was remembering seeing recipes for cheese kneidlach in some of my older cook books.  There is a tradition to serve dairy at Chanukah because of the Judith and Holofernes story. ( Judith serves salty cheese to Holofernes, he slakes his thirst with lots of wine allowing her to hack off his head and save the Jewish people.)

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I have been using substituting arepa flour for matza meal  the last few times I have made kneidlach. Why you ask? for one it’s on the shelf right in front of me. I also love the slight perversity of making a really traditional dish in a multi-culti way. I also like the flavor of corn flour. I had finished the last of the cottage cheese for lunch so I used ricotta cheese instead.  The kneidlach were spiced fairly traditionally  with salt, pepper, parsley, ginger and smoked paprika.

 

I think I put the kneidlach into the water a bit early. The water ought to have been at a more vigorous boil

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They were good though.

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The soup was really filling.  I added a big dollop of Korean hot pepper paste to my bowl. I am grateful to live in a place where Eastern Europe, Korea, Italy and Mezzo America call all coexist happily in one delicious bowl.

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Comments

  1. Nancy KDecember 16, 2014 at 10:04 AM

    I need to get some arepa flour! I'd love to make knaidlach again and this sounds great. Do you just sub out the matzah meal with the arepa flour? Can you just use cornmeal or is the arepa flour finer?

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  2. Sarah JacobsDecember 16, 2014 at 10:19 AM

    Arepa flour is the corn meal version of Minute Rice, that is par boiled and then de-hydrated. When I make kneidlach for Pesach I actualy measure the ingredients, becausemy mother will be eating them and people expect exactly what my mother used to make. For my during the year kneidlach I start with the three eggs and add stuff by feel. During the year I get funky with the kneidlach. Pesach I am a strict traditionalist. I think that it is a 1- for 1 substitution the arepa flour for the matza meal. The arepa flour is finer than regular corn meal. But you can also just whizz regular corn meal in a blender or food processor for a few moments. Given how little work goes into making kneidlach I would be willing to risk failure. it probably won't even be a failure...but not exactly what you were expecting. Making kneidlach with regular white flour was a failure..that felt like eating flavored blobs of congeled library paste.Corn meal won't get gluey so there is no danger of that. I also think that the knedlach would have been improved by a longer wait between mixing the dough and boiling...that's what gets you a fluffy matza ball. no one complained while eating dinner last night though.

    ReplyDelete

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