Fermented Food Adventures & Recipes
Although here in the South people normally identify brisket as a barbecue food, being raised by Jewish Yankees reversed my experience. Growing up I always had that sweet, juicy braised brisket at the holidays. I once stayed at a friend’s house and was told we’d be eating brisket, I assumed […]
Growing up with my New-York born Jewish parents, weekend bagel brunch was a given, and I have such fond memories of us sitting around the table, laughing, my father reading the paper and me reading the Sunday funnies, surrounded by all the classics: bagels, cream cheese, lox or smoked salmon, […]
NOTE: This post gives complete guidance on smoking whole whitefish, but if you can’t find whole raw whitefish in your area or don’t want to spend the money to order it and still want to make your own whitefish salad and whitefish spread (which is superior to buying it pre-made), […]
Both my grandmothers used to make this traditional Eastern European Jewish dish. In my hazy memory, I think I was really doubtful I would like these, but the sweetness pulled in the otherwise picky young eater I was. I wish now I could ask them what any of their tips […]
Ready to leave those plain old white hard-boiled eggs behind? Umami is a popular term nowadays, but these eggs were bringing it centuries before we were using this special word to describe that rich meaty flavor. I do not have a Sephardic background (Jews from Spain and the Levant). I […]
For the last several years, I’ve been getting pretty experimental with my latkes (potato pancakes) at Hanukkah time. Eating oily and fried foods is part of the Hanukkah tradition and relates to the holiday’s miracle of the oil that burned for eight days. Latkes are normally just potatoes, matzah meal […]
I recently put up a post about making kvass – a drink with Russian & Eastern European origins – which wasn’t specifically a beet drink originally but beets were sometimes added. In case you hadn’t noticed, beets impart an incredible color to liquids and most anything they touch. Although I […]
If you’ve never heard of charoset, you can think of it as a kind of biblical-era ambrosia. It is one of several symbolic foods eaten by Jews during the holiday of Passover. Charoset can be understood to mean “mortar,” derived from the Hebrew word cheres which is clay, as its […]
Passover is just around the corner. Well, six weeks might not be just around the corner to some, but in the fermenting world that’s no time. For maror, horseradish, I recommend at least several weeks to a month ferment time, and starting now like I’ve done is all the better. […]