“I can’t believe it’s KOSHER!”
The five magic words every Jewish cooks wishes to hear during Passover. Beginning this Monday evening, we will have to find creative and delicious ways to feed our families without the use of bread, pasta, rice, cereal, and a whole bunch of other no-nos–including beer and mustard. Throw a couple of giant family feasts (Seders) with very specific ceremonial foods that must be served and you’ve got the culinary challenge of the year on your hands.
Most Kosher-for-Passover recipes call for substituting taboo ingredients for the their Kosher counterpart, but that’s not how I roll. I don’t want something to be delicious even though its Kosher, I just want it to be delicious.
Luckily, over the past 20 years of cooking for Passover, I’ve amassed a stockpile of Passover recipes that you don’t have to be Jewish to enjoy. Here’s a couple of my favourites:
Charoset
I’ll be honest, Charoset is really one of the ceremonial foods we eat during the Seder. But its so delicious that people always wonder why we don’t eat it more often. This comment led me to do some research to find out if there’s any reason why we can’t eat Charoset outside of the seder and what I found out was shocking. In a nutshell, besides being able to eat it any time of the year, Charoset commemorates sexual freedom and each and every ingredient it contains is considered an aphrodisiac…
Ingredients
1/3 cup finely chopped green apple
1/3 cup chopped dates
1/4 cup walnuts
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tbsp sweet red wine
Directions
1. Blend the above in a food processor until it is a chunky paste. You still want to see and taste big chunks of apple and walnut.
2. Roll approx. 1 tbsp of the mixture into a ball. You should be able to get about 6 balls from this recipe.
3. Cover and chill until ready to serve.
Brownies
These brownies aren’t just kosher for Passover, they’re also gluten-free and so rich, they should be on the Forbes’ annual list. Personally, I prefer them to traditional flour-based brownies.Ingredients:
3/4 cup of butter, softened
3/4 cup of sugar
3/4 cup of finely ground almonds (I also use ground walnuts).
a little less than 1 cup of good quality dark chocolate
5 eggs, separated
Directions:
1. Preheat your over to 350 and grease (but don’t flour if you want it Kosher) an 8 x 8 pan.
2. Over a double boiler, melt the chocolate until smooth. Let cool to room temperature while you do the rest.
3. Cream together the butter and sugar. When its light and smooth, add in the egg yolks.
4. Mix in the melted chocolate and ground almonds.
5. Put this aside and beat the egg whites until they have soft peaks.
6. Carefully fold the egg whites into the chocolate mixture until its uniform.
7. Pour into the prepared pan and bake for 40-45 minutes or until the centre is just set. It’ll puff up a lot while its baking but then deflate while it cools
8. Let cool completely before cutting.