by Gil Marks
To further stretch and enhance dumplings, fillings were frequently inserted, such as sautéed cabbage (káposztás gombóc). The most popular Hungarian filled dumpling contains a whole Italian prune plum (szilvás gombóc), featuring a fresh fruit that is widespread in the early fall during plum season, while pitted dried plums and lekvar are sometimes substituted at other times of the year. Gombóc, after cooking, are commonly rolled in browned bread crumbs.
Dumplings made from a creamy fresh cheese are popular throughout central and eastern Europe— called túrós gombóc in Hungary, topfenknodel in Austria and Germany, tvarohovo-srové knedliky in the Czech Republic, sirni halushki in Russia, and kluski z bryndza in Poland. Topfen and túrós are made with less whey than the similar German quark, making it drier and appropriate for dumplings. Since topfen and túrós are unavailable in America, you can add a little cream cheese to the firmer farmer cheese to approximate it. The dumplings themselves are not inherently sweet, but are flavored by topping with sweetened whipped cream, sour cream, browned bread crumbs, cinnamon-sugar, or jam. Cheese dumplings are an everyday dish as a main course or side, but in many central European households also traditional on Shavuot and Hanukkah.
(See also Dumpling, Gevina Levana, and Shlishkes)
Hungarian Sweet Cheese Dumplings (Túrós Gombóc)
about 24 dumplings
[DAIRY]
1 pound (2 cups) túrós or gevina levana (Israeli white cheese) for baking, or 14 ounces (1¾ cups) pot or farmer cheese and ¼ cup cream cheese or mascarpone, softened
1 to 5 tablespoons sugar
½ teaspoon table salt or 1 teaspoon kosher salt
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
2 tablespoons (¼ stick) butter, softened
About ¾ cup semolina, farina, or matza meal
1. In a food processor, blender, or electric mixer, combine the cheese, sugar, and salt. Add the eggs and beat until smooth. Beat in the butter. Stir in enough semolina to produce a soft, but manageable dough. Cover and place in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours.
2. Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a low boil. Using moistened hands, form the batter into 1½-inch balls.
3. Drop the dumplings in the water, stirring gently to prevent sticking. Reduce the heat and simmer, uncovered, until they rise to the surface, 10 to 15 minutes. Remove the dumplings with a slotted spoon. Keep warm in a 200°F oven. If desired, serve with sweetened whipped cream, sour cream, cinnamon-sugar, or jam.
Gomo (Sephardic Pastry Fillings)
From early in their history, Sephardim prepared various filled pies and pastries for the Sabbath and other special occasions. Almost anything can be used as a filling, but vegetable-cheese mixtures are the most prevalent, particularly during the spring and summer. Cheese fillings are popular treats at dairy meals, including Saturday and Sunday morning desayuno (brunch) and Hanukkah. Meat fillings are widespread for Friday night dinner and during the winter. Spinach, pumpkin, and winter squash fillings are traditional for Rosh Hashanah and sweet nut for Purim. During Passover, pieces of moistened matza are substituted for the pastry.
(See also Ajin (Middle Eastern Dough), Almond Paste, Boreka, Boyo, Bulema, Empanada, Masa (Sephardic Dough), Mina, Pastida, Pastelito, Phyllo/Fila, Sambusak, and Travado)
Sephardic Cheese Filling (Gomo De Queso)
about 4 cups; enough for forty-eight 3-inch turnovers or seventy-two phyllo triangles
[DAIRY]
8 ounces (1½ cups) crumbled feta or pot cheese
8 ounces (2 cups) shredded Muenster, Cheddar, or Gruyère cheese
2 large egg yolks or 1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 tablespoon cornstarch or all-purpose flour
About ½ teaspoon table salt or 1 teaspoon kosher salt
Ground black pepper to taste
In a medium bowl, combine all the ingredients.
Sephardic Chickpea Filling (Gomo De Garvansos)
about 4 cups; enough for forty-eight 3-inch turnovers or seventy-two phyllo triangles
[PAREVE]
3 tablespoons sesame or vegetable oil
2 medium onions, chopped
1½ to 2 teaspoons ground cumin
½ teaspoon ground turmeric
4 cups cooked chickpeas, mashed
About ¾ teaspoon table salt or 1½ teaspoons kosher salt
Ground black pepper to taste
1/3 cup chopped fresh cilantro or flat-leaf parsley (optional)
In a large skillet, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onions and sauté until soft and translucent, 5 to 10 minutes. Stir in the cumin and turmeric. Add the chickpeas, salt, and pepper and cook until dry. If using, stir in the cilantro.
Sephardic Eggplant Filling (Gomo De Berenjena)
about 4 cups; enough for forty-eight 3-inch turnovers or seventy-two phyllo triangles
[PAREVE]
3 medium (1 pound each) eggplants
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
3 tablespoons olive or vegetable oil
About 1 teaspoon table salt or 2 teaspoons kosher salt
Ground black pepper to taste
About ½ cup matza meal or bread crumbs, or 1½ cups mashed potatoes
Cut several slits in the eggplants. Roast over hot coals or broil 3 to 4 inches from the heat source under a broiler, turning occasionally, until charred and tender, about 20 minutes. Or place on a baking sheet and bake in a 400°F oven until very tender, about 50 minutes. Let stand until cool enough to handle. Peel the eggplants, place in a colander, and let drain for about 30 minutes. In a large bowl, mash the eggplants into a pulp. There should be about 3¼ cups. Add the eggs, oil, salt, and pepper. Stir in enough matza meal to make a thick filling.
Turkish Eggplant and Tomato Filling (Gomo de Handrajo)
about 4 cups; enough for forty-eight 3-inch turnovers or seventy-two phyllo triangles
[PAREVE]
Handrajo means "rags" in Ladino. This is a specialty of Turkey's third largest city, Izmir, (once known as Smyrna), which lies 210 miles southeast of Istanbul on the Aegean Sea. The filling is primarily used in borekas (borekas de handrajo).
2 medium (about 1 pound each) eggplants, peeled and cut into ½-inch cubes
About 1 tablespoon table salt or 2 tablespoons kosher salt
¼ cup vegetable oil
2 medium onions, chopped
1 cup (8 ounces) peeled, seeded, and chopped plum tomatoes
Ground black pepper to taste
1. Place the eggplant pieces in a colander or on a wire rack, lightly sprinkle with the salt, and let stand for about 1 hour. Rinse the eggplant under cold water, then press repeatedly between several layers of paper towels until it feels firm and dry.
2. In a large pot, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onions and sauté until golden, about 15 minutes. Add the eggplants, tomatoes, and pepper and cook, stirring frequently, until the eggplant is soft and the liquid evaporates, about 15 minutes. Mash, then let cool.
Sephardic Leek Filling (Gomo de Prassa)
about 4 cups; enough for forty-eight 3-inch turnovers or seventy-two phyllo triangles
[PAREVE]
3 tablespoons olive oil
3 pounds (8 large) leeks (white and light green part only), chopped
1 medium onion, chopped (optional)
¼ cup water
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
About ½ teaspoon table salt or 1 teaspoon kosher salt
Ground black pepper to taste
¾ cup matza meal or bread crumbs
In a large skillet or pot, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the leeks and, if using, onion and sauté until slightly softened, about 3 minutes. Add the water, cover, and cook until the leeks are tender, about 5 minutes. Uncover and cook, stirring frequently, until the liquid evaporates. Let cool, then stir in the eggs, salt, pepper, and enough matza meal to make a thick filling.
Sephardic Meat Filling (Gomo de Carne)
about 4 cups; enough for forty-eight 3-inch turnovers or seventy-
two phyllo triangles
[MEAT]
3 tablespoons olive or vegetable oil
2 medium onions, chopped
24 ounces lean ground beef or lamb
About 1 teaspoon salt
Ground black pepper to taste
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon or ½ teaspoon ground allspice (optional)
1 cup mashed potatoes or about ¼ cup matza meal
¼ to ½ cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1 large egg, lightly beaten
2 to 3 huevos haminados (Sephardic Long-Cooked Eggs (Huevos Haminados)), finely chopped (optional)
¼ to 1/3 cup pine nuts (optional)
In a large skillet, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onions and sauté until soft and translucent, 5 to 10 minutes. Add the meat and cook until it loses its red color, about 5 minutes. Pour off the excess fat. Add the salt, pepper, and, if using, cinnamon. Let cool. Stir in the potatoes, parsley, and egg. If using, add the haminados and/or pine nuts.
Sephardic Potato Filling (Gomo de Patata)
about 4 cups; enough for forty-eight 3-inch turnovers or seventy-two phyllo triangles
[PAREVE]
1½ pounds (3 large) baking (russet) potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
2 cloves garlic, mashed (optional)
3 tablespoons olive or vegetable oil
2 medium onions, chopped
About ½ teaspoon table salt or 1 teaspoon kosher salt
Ground white or black pepper to taste
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
½ cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley or cilantro (optional)
1. Place the potatoes and, if using, garlic in a large pot and add cold water to cover. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat to low, and simmer until tender, 15 to 20 minutes. Drain and mash in a large bowl. You should have about 3 cups.
2. In a large skillet, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onions and sauté until golden, about 15 minutes. Stir the onions into the potatoes and add the salt and pepper. Let cool. Stir in the eggs and, if using, parsley.
Sephardic Spinach Filling (Gomo de Espinaca)
about 4 cups; enough for forty-eight 3-inch turnovers or seventy-two phyllo triangles
[PAREVE]
2 pounds (about 8 cups packed) stemmed fresh spinach or chard, rinsed but not dried; or 30 ounces thawed chopped frozen spinach, squeezed dry
3 tablespoons olive or vegetable oil
1 medium onion or 8 scallions, chopped
1 to 1 1/3 cups mashed potatoes
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
About ½ teaspoon table salt or 1 teaspoon kosher salt
Ground black pepper to taste
About 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg, ground cumin, or paprika; or 1 teaspoon dried dill
1. If using fresh spinach, place it, with the water clinging to the leaves, in a large pot over medium heat, cover, and cook until wilted, about 5 minutes. Drain and chop.
2. In a large skillet, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onion and sauté until soft and translucent, 5 to 10 minutes. Add the spinach and stir until the liquid evaporates. Let cool. Stir in the potatoes, eggs, salt, pepper, and nutmeg.
Goose
Geese, part of the family of birds including swans and ducks, are among the kosher animals. The most important goose species for consumption is the migratory greylag, domesticated by the Egyptians around forty-five hundred years ago. As the name reflects, the wild greylag has gray-brown plumage, but some domesticated descendants were bred to have white feathers. As geese mature and become heavier, flying grows more difficult, and geese are therefore easily domesticated and maintained in yards and fields. Since at least ancient Roman times, domesticated geese were frequently force-fed in order to fatten them, a process probably originating as a means of making them too heavy to fly. Domesticated geese were prominent more than three thousand years ago in Israel. Scholars have identified the fatted fowl on King Solomon's table as geese, and later the Mishnah discussed goose breeding in Israel. Geese were well regarded among Jews, as is reflected in a comment in the Talmud: "One who sees a goose in a dream should expect wisdom." However in Talmudic times, pigeons and chickens were the principal poultry in the Roman Empire.
During the Middle Ages, geese lost significance in most of the Middle East, except primarily in Persia. Many Persians served roasted goose (duaz fenjo) as a traditional Rosh Hashanah main course. Sephardim tended not to favor the more intensely flavored goose flesh and, therefore, it never developed a substantial place in their culinary repertoire.
It was during the early medieval period that geese first attained widespread popularity in Europe, spreading northward through the continent to become the predominant fowl, particularly in urban areas. The Jews of the Rhineland, faced with exclusion from the trade guilds and from various traditional occupations, found raising geese an important source of income. Subsequently, geese (ganz or gandz in Yiddish; gendzl, a gosling) replaced pigeons in the Ashkenazic diet. Gregarious fattened geese, while not producing many eggs, offered a number of advantages over the more prolific chicken for early Ashkenazim: They flourish on lower-quality feed (grazing in fields), can live and reproduce for up to fifty years, form more cohesive family and group units, can be herded rather than carried, are less prone to diseases, and provide more fat for schmaltz. In addition, geese honk loudly and persistently when strangers approach or when frightened, so historically they have guarded themselves as well as their owners' property. In many areas, goose eggs were the predominant types consumed, while the feathers provided down—which was stuffed into mattresses and pillows for softness, and into quilts and clothes as insulation—as well as quills for writing.
In Franco-German Jewish communities, beef was the common Sabbath entrée, while goose was generally reserved for festivals, weddings, and other special occasions. Most Ashkenazic housewives kept at least a few geese in a pen to provide for the family, while some raised large flocks. Geese were also essential for their ample fat, as goose schmaltz served as the predominant cooking fat. Schmaltz was a necessity because oils were rare and expensive, while butter was unacceptable with meat foods. In the seventeenth century, chef Jean-Pierre Clause of Strasbourg used goose liver raised by Alsatian Jews to create the classic pâté de foie gras.
Only centuries later, with the movement of most of the Ashkenazim to eastern Europe, did the chicken emerge there as the principal fowl. Yet even in eastern Europe, many families raised a goose or two. Sholem Aleichem, in his short story "Geese," describes the manner of a woman fattening a flock of thirty geese in a shtetl. The old woman explains, "Geese is my business... but you think it's as easy as all that? The first thing you got to do is this: you start buying geese right after Sukkot [from peasants], in the autumn. You throw them into a coop and keep them there all winter, until December. You feed them and take good care of them. Comes Hanukkah, you start killing them, and you turn geese into cash."
Geese were fattened through the autumn. Then as free grazing material decreased at the end of the summer, around Rosh Hashanah, or disappeared before the onset of winter and the winter migration, around Hanukkah, most of them were slaughtered. Another goose or two might be purchased in January to serve as a Passover delicacy in March or April. In eastern Europe, where geese were rarer then western Europe, veal breast was frequently the traditional Rosh Hashanah and/or Sukkot entrée and brisket was the most traditional Hanukkah dish. But in Alsace, Germany, the Czech Republic, and Hungary, those roles were played by roast goose. Younger geese were served on Rosh Hashanah and Sukkot, and more mature, fatter geese were enjoyed on Hanukkah—besides serving as the traditional holiday main course, the larger bird supplied more schmaltz to last through the winter, and a separate crock of schmaltz was set aside for Passover cooking. However, in eastern Europe, chickens provided most of the fat for schmaltz.
For a special Sabbath treat, the goose's long neck was stuffed and roasted to make a dish called helzel. In Alsace, Jews cut up and salted geese, then simm
ered them in goose fat for hours to make confit d'oie; the pieces were stored in crocks, then added to Sabbath stews and the Sabbath choucroute garnie. The favorite Ashkenazic ways to prepare goose were roasted (gebratene) whole—the dish was called liba pecsenye by Hungarians—and braised in pieces (ganseklein) and, frequently, cooked along with sauerkraut or cabbage. Stuffings of fruit or potatoes perfectly complemented the rich, fatty meat of geese. Europeans traditionally served roast goose with braised cabbage or Brussels sprouts. Italian Jews prepared various goose dishes and have long used goose flesh in place of pork to make sausages, notably salame d'oca (goose salami). Braised duck (yiaourtli) was a traditional Sabbath lunch in central Greece.
The American turkey, arriving in Europe in the sixteenth century, gradually supplanted the goose, even in western Europe. Consequently, most modern foie gras comes from duck liver rather than goose liver. Still, goose remains a beloved holiday dish in Alsace, southwestern Germany, and Hungary. However, geese are infrequent at best in most modern kosher butcher shops and markets in America and Israel, even on Hanukkah.
(See also Bird, Gribenes, Hanukkah, Helzel, Liver, and Schmaltz)
Goulash
Goulash is a meat stew or soup simmered with lots of onions and seasoned with paprika.
Origin: Hungary
Other names: Czech: gulás; German: gulasch; Hungarian: gulyás; Polish: gulasz; Romanian: gulas, tocanita de carne.
Goulash is arguably the most famous of all Hungarian dishes. It is certainly among the earliest, dating back to the Magyars' nomadic days before the ninth century, when they cooked stews over campfires in easily transportable cauldrons called bogrács. At that time, Magyar shepherds made similar stews in which they cooked onions and rehydrated pieces of dried meat; the stew is called gulyás (literally "herdsmen") after its originators. Eventually, peasants adopted the term for the soupy stews that became the mainstay of their diet; these stews were prepared with any available meat, but preferably with beef (marha gulyás). After the Turks introduced paprika to the Balkans in the late sixteenth century, it made its way to Hungary, where peasants began seasoning their stews with this inexpensive spice and sometimes also caraway. The addition of paprika led to the emergence of the modern form of gulyás.
