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Challa
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Chreima

Shabbat loaves and fishes

Avigail decides to return to her first love - home cooking. Everything changed after that, including her becoming orthodox

I have been writing about food for many years. For 12 years, I worked as a professional chef both in Israel and abroad until I realized that one could write about food and not just prepare it. What fun, I thought - let someone else sweat in the kitchen - I’ll stay home and cook only what I love and then I’ll write about it afterwards.

 

What a celebration - I turned my back on the steam table of the industrial kitchen that I never liked anyway and returned to my first love - home cooking. Everything changed after that, including my becoming orthodox. 

 

Very quickly I started writing a recipe column for the ultra orthodox weekly ‘Family’ which comes out ever Friday. I severed ties totally with the world I used to know. For many years I wrote about eggplant and carrots, wine vinegar and mushrooms, cream cakes on Succot and dairy dishes for Shavuot until I felt a need for change.

  

The idea ‘to host’ someone each week in my column invented itself. I would be a guest in the home of these wonderful families for Shabbat and I always asked for recipes. I decided that instead of writing about vegetables and meat, I would write about the people and include their recipes. Each one had at least three wonderful dishes and the people I met were way more interesting than cabbage and carrots.

 

Writing a column taught me a lot about food and people. The food was different from what I had known up to that point - other people dishes, that is, what they actually eat. Not the kind that requires shopping in five different stores, not the kind that is pricey or trendy but food that is part of one’s life - tasty and interesting. Sometimes Indian, sometimes Italian, sometimes Syrian and sometimes a recipe from grandma - depends on who my ‘guest’ was on any given Shabbat. I also found that it is not possible to describe Jewish cookery as ‘simple’.

  

If one looks really closely, one uncovers real treasures and since we have to start somewhere - I am hosting myself with two of my favorite recipes:

  

Braided Challot for Shabbat

  

The dough rises by late Friday morning and the children compete who gets to punch it down. By the afternoon, the rising loaves painted with an egg wash and poppy seeds fill the kitchen counter and at about three the last tray comes out of the oven filling the house with the aroma of the Sabbath. Eating these crispy fresh loaves with salads is a kind of heaven on earth. It’s a lot of work but divided up - first 10 minutes, then another ten and then another five.

 

Prep Time: 20 minutes + 2.5-3.0 hours for the loaves to rise

 

Ingredients (3 large loaves):

 

5-6 C flour (half white half whole-wheat is the best) 

½ C bran (optional) 

l tsp salt 

5 tbs. sugar or honey  

2 tbs. dry yeast 

½ C canola oil 

 

For the top:

Beaten egg

Seed mix (poppy, sesame, rye etc) 

 

Let's get working 

 

Sprinkle the bottom of the mixing bowl with the salt. Follow with the flour and everything else but the oil. Using the mixer’s kneading tool, start to combine the ingredients at a low speed. Add warm water - 1 to 2 cups and increase the speed slightly.  

 

Continue mixing, adding the water as needed until smooth dough is achieved (3-4 C of water). Add the oil and mix at a higher speed for about five minutes. Transfer the dough to a lightly greased bowl and cover with a towel. Every so often punch the dough down and continue to let it rise for about two hours.  

 

After the final rising, remove it from the bowl and divide it into three sections. Make braided loaves out of each section and leave to rise on a cookie sheet covered with wax paper. Wash the top of the loaves with the beaten egg and sprinkle with the seeds. Leave the loaves to rise again about 40 minutes. Bake at 375 degrees for 20-25 minutes until the tops of the challot turn golden brown. Take them out and transfer them to a wire rack to cool.

 

Chreima – Fish in Red Sauce

 

Nothing will help. Even if I try to diversify, to introduce new dishes - next Shabbat - everyone asks for Chreima which we all sop up with the previous recipe. Children love the simple sauce and we make it out of the Nile fish but any thick fillet of white fish is suitable. It is also possible to use fish steaks.  

 

Ingredients

 

2 lbs. of fish cut into portions 

3 tbs. tomato sauce 

1/3 C canola or sunflower oil 

2 tbl sweet paprika 

a small green chili pepper (optional) 

½ tsp cumin seeds 

8-10 garlic cloves peels and slices 

1 red or yellow pepper cut into strips  

salt and pepper 

Fresh cilantro 

 

Let's get working 

 

In a deep skillet or pot combine the oil, the tomato sauce paprika, garlic, hot pepper, pepper strips and cup of water. Bring to boil, stir well and simmer for 15 minutes. Stir and add more water if necessary.  

 

Rinse the fish and press out any additional water. Add the pieces to the simmering sauce together with the salt and pepper, the cilantro and another cup of water. Bring to a boil, adjust seasoning. Cover the pot and simmer for another 20 minutes until the sauce has thickened.

 

Beteavon!

 


פרסום ראשון: 07.14.06, 11:17
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