Purim starts Monday night, the 9th of March this year. It is a Jewish holiday celebrating the way the beautiful Jewish Queen Esther saved the Jewish people from the villain Haman, an evil adviser to the king. Oznei Haman are traditional, triangular, baked goods with fillings made for the holiday. Depending on who you believe they are symbolic of the evil Haman’s pointy ears, pointy hat or a bastardization of the German mohntaschen – meaning poppyseed-filled pouches. Traditionally, Oznei Haman were made with poppy seed or prune filling. Both of these are horrifying flavors as children, the recipe below uses yummy strawberry or apricot.
Ingredients:
Pastry:
- 6-7 cups of flour
- 3 sticks of margarine (approximately 300gr)
- 2 cups of sugar
- 3 yolks
- 1 whole egg
- 1/2 cup orange juice
- Rind of 1 lemon
- Juice from 1/2 a lemon
- 1 tablespoon Vanilla Sugar
- 21/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 whole egg
Filling:
- Jelly / Jam – strawberry or apricot flavor
- Ground walnuts (or almonds)
- Sugar
- Sweet red wine
- Fine bread crumbs
Preparation:
1. Mix all of the ingredients for the pastry together. I put them all in a massive bowl, mixed briefly with the dough hooks on a hand mixer and then kept going with my hands.
2. In a separate, small bowl, mix all the ingredients for the filling together. There are no exact amounts, I tried getting my mother to be specific for each of the ingredients and she said “a little.” I don’t like walnuts in general, except for ground walnuts in cakes. I couldn’t find ground walnuts here, and didn’t want to take the time to bash whole ones so I used ground almonds and it worked fine.
2. Cover your work area with a light dusting of flour and take a bit under half the dough and roll flat with a flour covered rolling pin.
3. Cut out circles. I used a cup that had an approximately 3-inch diameter at the top to make the circles. Knead the scraps of dough from around the circles back into the larger batch still in the bowl.
4. Put about a teaspoon of filling in the center of each circle. Fold the circle down on three sides to make a triangle, pinching the corners to seal it.
5. Bake on a greased cookie tray at 190 degrees between 10 and 20 minutes (varies with the oven), until they start to brown up.
6. Keep doing this until you run out of dough. While you are in the middle it will seem like the dough is multiplying because every time you separate half you still end up with more in the bowl. It does run out eventually – makes 50-60 Oznei Haman.
Posted belatedly, but useful for next year.
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