Celebrating With The Kosher Butcher’s Wife
By Sharon Lurie
(Random House Struik, R220)
The Jewish calendar year has many festivals and Sharon Lurie’s second cookbook takes a colourful look at these with an array of traditional recipes with a contemporary feel.
Lurie shares how she and her family celebrate the various Jewish festivals.
In separate chapters, she shares recipes and anecdotes about Shabbat, Pesach, Shavuot, Rosh Hashanah, Sukkot, Purim and Chanukkah.
The first page of each chapter has a beautiful illustration of a celebratory table setting and a colour theme which is carried through the chapter.
Married to a butcher, Sharon is an expert on cooking meat cuts from the forequarter and the meat recipes in the book are particularly good.
Although not every recipe has been photographed, those that have look mouthwatering and delicious.
With one of the most important festivals, Pesach, starting on Monday, I asked Sharon how she prepares to celebrate.
“Although Pesach is an eight-day festival, preparations actually commence four to six weeks before,” she says.
Everything has to be thoroughly cleaned to remove any traces of “chometz” (leavened foodstuff).
As Sharon doesn’t have a separate Passover kitchen, she has come up with a plan to overcome this obstacle.
Two to three weeks before Passover, she cleans out her freezer and turns her patio into a Pesach kitchen.
“You would be amazed what comes off a two-plate stove and out of a mixer,” says Sharon.
With careful planning and lots of pre-preparation, she makes sure she is able to enjoy this very special occasion without working up too much of a sweat behind a hot stove.
l We feature four recipes from the Pesach section in the book.
Chol Hamoed steaks
1 paw paw, peeled, and deseeded
30ml red wine vinegar
15ml sugar
4cm piece of ginger, grated
6 beef steaks
oil for drizzling
ground black pepper and salt
In a processor, combine the paw paw, vinegar, sugar and ginger. Blend until smooth.
Place the steaks into a sealable plastic bag and pour in the paw paw mixture. Mush it around so that the steaks are evenly coated and leave to marinate.
Do not let them marinate for more than 3 hours, otherwise they go like chopped liver.
After 2½-3 hours, remove the steaks from the bag, discard the marinade and rinse the steaks very well under cold running water. Pat dry.
Place the steaks side by side in a rectangular roasting dish and drizzle with oil. Sprinkle with some ground pepper. Turn over and repeat on the other side.
Cook the steaks to your preference.
Remove from the heat and brush with a little more oil. Cover with foil and stand for about 10 minutes.
Sprinkle with salt before serving with gnocchi.
Serves 6.
Gnocchi
4 large potatoes
3 eggs
45ml potato flour
6ml baking powder
6ml salt
oil for frying
Boil or microwave the potatoes with their skins on until soft. Allow to cool, then peel and mash them. Put them into a large bowl.
Whisk the eggs and add them to the potatoes with the potato flour, baking powder and salt. Mix well to form a soft but not too sticky dough.
Sprinkle some potato flour on to a board and start rolling pieces of the dough into a long thin sausage, about 1cm in diameter. Slice these into 2cm pieces.
Heat oil in a frying pan and deep fry the gnocchi until golden brown.
Serve with the steak.
Thai salmon fishcakes
418g can of salmon
1 onion, peeled and finely grated
30ml chopped coriander
5ml grated ginger
juice of 1 lime
2 eggs
160ml matzo meal
15ml desiccated coconut
oil for frying
Sweet-and-sour sauce
80ml lemon juice
80ml golden syrup
15ml tomato sauce
5ml potato flour dissolved in 250ml cold water
salt and pepper
Combine the salmon in its liquid with the rest of the ingredients, except the oil, in a large mixing bowl.
Roll into balls and fry in hot oil until golden brown. Serve with sweet-and-sour sauce.
SAUCE: Combine the ingredients in a saucepan. Mix until smooth.
Bring to the boil over a medium heat, stirring until the mixture boils and thickens. Adjust the sweetness to your taste.
Makes 12-15. - Daily News