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Purim 2009

Purim 2009

We invited the family over for dinner on Monday night to celebrate Purim. Everyone was awesome and came in costume. We had pirates, a bunny, Ali G., Pocahantas, a surfer, a lollypop lady, a monkey and a teletubby. Full set of pictures here.

Food was mushroom soup with bread, salad, lasagna (also plain pizza for young fussy eaters) and oznei haman with ice cream and a bit of golden syrup. Usually when we have people over we are still making the food when they arrive. This time we stayed up till 1:30 AM making it the night before so it just had to be heated up on the evening. The only reason it took this long was the mystery of never-ending oznei haman dough.

Made Mishloach Manot deliveries today and am off to see Gesthemane at the Theatre Royal in Newcastle.

Posted belatedly.

Food Friday 10: Oznei Haman, Hamantashen

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.

Food Friday 9: Shakshouka

Yossi’s Shakshouka Recipe

I brought back an external hard drive with me from my recent trip to NY. It is filled with all sorts of randomness including scans of assorted ephemera including this recipe for shakshouka written in Hebrew from my time living in Tel Aviv.

On Ibn Gvirol Street, where I lived, every other shopfront seemed to belong to hairdresser. Among these was Yossi, a sweetheart, who I would drop in on from time to time. One day while I was hanging out, he made the most amazing shakshouka. The owner of the kiosk nearby brought some fresh bread and the group of us had a great meal dipping the bread into a communal shakshouka.

If you happen to be in Israel, you can always go to Dr. Shakshouka in Yafo for a nice meal. Or if you come across a Hebrew recipe you want to try here is a link for translating Hebrew or Yiddish spice names.

Ingredients:

• Olive Oil
• Sliced Chilli Pepper
• 3 Garlic Cloves (however you like them)
• Salt
• 1 Cup Water
• Tablespoon of ground paprika
• 4 Grated tomatoes
• Eggs (2-6)
• Additional Chilli Pepper (optional)
• Red and/or Green Bell Peppers (optional)

Preparation:
1. Fry oil, chili pepper, garlic, salt, 1/2 cup of water, ground paprika for 10-15 minutes.
2. Add 1/2 a cup of water and the grated tomatoes.
3. Cook on large flame for 5 minutes.
4. Turn down the flame and break the eggs over the mixture.
5. Cover the pan and let cook for a bit.
6. If you want it super spicy you can add an additional chilli pepper. This dish also works with red and green bell pepper strips or pieces thrown in.
7. Serve in the frying pan with a thick white bread for dipping.

For thos of you who can read the recipe you will see it is not very specific. I find it hard to tie people down to specific amounts when they are dictating a recipe they have made for years. This is the case with the next recipe I will post, an Oznei Haman recipe from my mom. Posted belatedly, but I do want to have a Food Friday post written for every Friday of this year.

Kapparot for Vegetarians

Photo by
Yaffa Phillips