Encyclopedia of Jewish Food

by Gil Marks

  The small, oily kernels have a soft texture, a delicate flavor, and a high protein value. However, pine nuts, even from the same source, fluctuate greatly in quality—ranging from rich, sweet, and buttery to insipid and plastic-like. The Mediterranean pine nut, called pignoli in Italian, tznovar in Hebrew, snobar in Arabic, and camfistigi in Turkish, has a slightly sweet, piney taste, an oblong shape, a uniform off-white color, and a thinner shell than the squat, beige, and pungent piñon. Chinese pine nuts, the most inexpensive and widespread in the United States, are slightly triangular and have an uneven color. Pignoli, which are more expensive than the other types, are preferred, especially for baking, as they have a more delicate flavor.

  The stone pine, a native of the Mediterranean, was introduced to the Levant before the start of recorded history; it has been used as food and traded for thousands of years. Some scholars believe it was the "evergreen fir tree" of Hosea. The Greeks, Romans, and Arabs considered it an aphrodisiac. The Moors introduced organized pine nut cultivation to Spain, still the world's leading producer, and these seeds became an important component of Sephardic cookery. Pine nuts are also an important ingredient in Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, and Far Eastern cuisine; they are added to numerous dishes, including pilafs, meatballs, salads, stuffed vegetables, grape leaves, chicken dishes, omelets, sauces, and pastry fillings. The addition of pine nuts and raisins is a signature of Roman Jewish Sabbath and holiday fare, such as sogliola di rolatine (fillet of sole with raisins and pine nuts) and pizzarelle con miele (matza fritters drizzled with honey, pine nuts, and raisins.)

  Pinzette

  Pinzette is a pan-fried meat or chicken patty.

  Origin: Italy

  Other names: pizzette ebraiche.

  Among the unique foods of the Italian Jews is a pan-fried meat patty called pinzette. The name means "pincers" in Italian, perhaps reflecting the way the patties are plucked from the frying pan using tongs without piercing them, which would release the juices. Pinzette are made from various meats, but lighter ones like veal and chicken are the most prominent. Unlike patties from Austria and Germany, these Italian patties do not include bread or eggs. They are, however, dredged in flour before frying. The patties can be served plain, but are usually enhanced with a light flavoring, such as nutmeg and lemon juice. As pinzette are light, filling, and nutritious, they are traditionally served on the meal before the fast of Yom Kippur.

  Italian Veal Patties (Pinzette)

  6 patties

  [MEAT]

  1½ pounds veal chuck, finely ground

  About ½ teaspoon salt

  Ground black pepper to taste

  Unbleached all-purpose flour for dredging

  Olive oil for frying

  ¼ cup fresh lemon juice or ½ cup dry Marsala (optional)

  1. Combine the veal, salt, and pepper. With moistened hands, shape the meat into 6 patties about ½ inch thick. Dredge the patties in the flour.

  2. In a large skillet, heat a thin layer of oil over medium heat. Add the patties and fry, turning once, until the patties are golden brown and the center registers 148°F on an instant-read thermometer, about 5 minutes per side.

  3. If using, drizzle with the lemon juice and cook until the liquid evaporates, about 1 minute. Serve warm.

  Pirog

  Pirog is a filled, boiled pasta dumping.

  Origin: Poland

  Other names: Poland: pierog; Russia: vareniki; Slovakia: pirohi, pirohy; Ukraine: perohy, pyroh.

  There exists some confusion over a variety of Russian, Polish, and Ukrainian foods, all of whose names come from the Slavic word pir (ritual feast) and the related pyro (ritual wheat bread), both from the Greek pyros (wheat). Pirog (pirogen/pirogn plural) is the Yiddish variation of the filled half-moon-shaped boiled pasta. Jewish fruit-filled versions are sometimes called varenikes.

  Pirogen differ from the similar kreplach, which are triangular and typically filled with meat; the half-moon pirogen usually feature a potato or other vegetable filling. Kreplach were generally reserved for festivals or sporadically offered on the Sabbath, almost always floating in a bowl of soup, while pirogen were everyday fare, occasionally served in soup, but more often adorned with sour cream, fried onions, or even mixed with kasha. In general, pirogen were considered peasant food, while kreplach held a more elevated status.

  The original Polish pierogi were large turnovers filled with meat or fish; these dishes were common in medieval Slavic countries, where they were either deep-fried or baked in the oven after the bread was finished. The advent of boiled doughs in eastern Europe around the late thirteenth or fourteenth century led to the modern boiled pasta form of the dish, while a smaller baked version became popular with the spread of home ovens in the nineteenth century. The idea of filled pasta may have been brought to Poland from the east by Tatars (Mongols), who made man tou, filled pasta with crimped edges, and invaded Ukraine and Poland in the sixteenth century, or it may have arrived later from Persia by the way of Russia or south from Italy. Pierogi and pirogen reflect similarities to both the Italian ravioli and the northern Chinese jiaozi; the latter is made from dough rounds and typically served with a dipping sauce.

  In the early twentieth century, pirogen became a favorite dish at Catskills resorts and various Jewish cafeterias and luncheonettes in New York City, from Ratner's on the Lower East Side to Famous Dairy Restaurant on the Upper West Side and, in between in the garment district, Dubrow's Cafeteria, all of which closed toward the end of the twentieth century in the face of rising real estate prices and changing tastes in food. Pirogen experienced a sharp decline in popularity, supplanted by wontons and ravioli. Cynthia Ozick, in her 1989 short story Rosa, conveyed a sense of nostalgia and melancholy when she mentioned this dish. She wrote, "But the women only recited meals they used to cook in their old lives—kugel, pirogen, latkes, blintzes, herring salad."

  (See also Kreplach/Krepl, Lokshen, Pasta/Noodle, and Varenik/Varenikes)

  Piroshke

  Piroshke is a small baked or fried half-moon turnover.

  Origins: Russia

  Other names: Russian: pirozhok; Ukraine: pirishke, pyrizhky.

  Besides the boiled pirogen, another food derived from the Slavic pir (ritual feast) is a baked or fried turnover, called in Yiddish piroshke. Jewish cooks prefer sour cream pastry or, for nondairy meals, oil pastry for their piroshkes. Most Russians make their pirozhki (Russian plural) with the original yeast dough. Piroshkes make delicious zakouski (appetizers) as well as a tasty accompaniment to borscht and other soups; the duo commonly constitutes a Russian lunch. Many cooks employ two or more fillings for each batch, typically including the classic potato filling. Cabbage and carrot are other popular fillings. Sweet fillings, such as apple and prune, and cookie variations are more common in Ukrainian pirishkes.

  (See also Pirog)

  Russian Turnovers (Piroshke)

  about forty-eight 3-inch turnovers

  [PAREVE or DAIRY]

  Potato Filling:

  3 tablespoons vegetable oil

  1 large onion, chopped

  2½ cups mashed potatoes

  1 large egg, lightly beaten

  Salt and ground black pepper to taste

  1½ pounds Ashkenazic Flaky Pastry (Muerbeteig), Ashkenazic Oil Pastry (Boymlteig), Egg Pastry, Potato Pastry, or Sour Cream Pastry (see Teig/Teyg (Ashkenazic Pastry Dough))

  1 large egg white, lightly beaten, for brushing

  Egg wash (1 large egg yolk beaten with 1 teaspoon water)

  1. To make the filling: In a large skillet, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onion and sauté until golden brown, about 20 minutes. Stir into the potatoes. Add the egg, salt, and pepper.

  2. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper or lightly grease the sheets.

  3. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the pastry dough 1/8 inch thick. Using a floured biscuit cutter or drinking glass, cut into 3-inch rounds.

  4. Place a heaping teaspoon of the
filling in the center of each round. Brush the edges with the egg white and fold over to form a half-circle. Pinch the edges or press with the tines of a fork to seal. Reroll any excess dough.

  5. Place on the prepared baking sheet and brush the tops with the egg wash. Bake until golden brown, about 20 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.

  Pistachio

  These pale green nuts covered with a papery skin grow on a small deciduous tree native to Persia, the area that still produces the best pistachios. The pistachio, which has been found in some of the earliest dated archaeological sites in Iraq, is one of the first cultivated nuts. It is also one of the few nuts mentioned in the Bible by name (botnim); it was among the choice items of Canaan sent by Jacob to the prime minister of Egypt. Today, pistachios remain a favorite in the Middle East.

  After the nuts are harvested, they are dried, a process that splits the shells. The traditional method of processing also stains the shell and, therefore, some merchants dye the nuts red.

  Cultivated pistachios have a subtle flavor. Most Americans associate the flavor of pistachios with that of salt, since most of these nuts are sold heavily salted, or with that of almonds, since almond extract is used to flavor pistachio ice cream. In the Middle East, pistachios are utilized like almonds in pilafs, sauces, and desserts, such as baklava, ma'amoul (filled cookies), and various puddings. In most of the rest of the world, the high price generally limits its use to a decorative effect or a snack.

  Pita

  Pita is a round leavened flatbread, sometimes with a pocket.

  Origin: Middle East

  Other names: pitta, pocket bread, Syrian bread; Arabic: khobiz, khubz adi; Egypt: aish, baladi; Farsi: naan; Turkish: pida; Yemen: salufe.

  Round flatbreads, such as the biblical kikkar, are among the most ancient and basic of foods and have been baked throughout the Middle East since before the dawn of history. Middle Easterners did not use silverware for dining, so pieces of these thin, firm breads proved ideal for grasping food. Or the loaves were torn into bite-sized pieces, the chunks were spread over a platter, a stew was poured over the top, and diners popped chunks into their mouth. Pieces were also dipped into soups. Warm flatbread with honey and samneh (clarified butter) was a special treat.

  Today in America, the name most associated with flatbread is pita, a word commonly attributed to the Greek language. Yet pita was not an ancient Greek term for bread, and there is no related ancient Greek terminology from which it could reasonably derive. The Turkish equivalent pida, borrowed from the Greek, appeared rather late. On the other hand, the Hebrew word paht, meaning "piece of bread," and its Aramaic equivalent pita, have been used for many millennia. Already in the book of Genesis, Abraham employed the term paht lechem (piece of bread) and in the book of Ruth, Boaz tells her to "dip pitaik [your piece of bread] in vinegar."

  A baker in the Old City of Jerusalem uses a domed sajj cital to make old-fashioned thin flatbreads called khubz sajj cital but better known in the west as lavash.

  Israeli pita bread called kmaj or khobiz in Arabic is thicker and contains a pocket.

  When Sephardim arrived in Salonika in large numbers after 1492, the word pita had not yet appeared in the Greek language. Perhaps to differentiate the small, round flatbreads they found in the eastern Mediterranean from the thicker types of loaves they were accustomed to making in Spain, Sephardim began calling them pita. Greek Sephardim also use the word pita to denote various savory pies, especially those made from crusts of matza or phyllo, the equivalent of the Ladino pastel and mina. In Salonika, where from 1519 until the early twentieth century Jews constituted the overwhelming majority of the population, it was only natural that the word spread to non-Jews and then throughout Greece. (The sixteenth-century Neapolitan word pizza probably also came from this source.)

  At some more recent point, bakers in the Levant or Egypt developed a variation of flatbread, creating a round loaf with a natural pocket. The distinctive compartment is produced by baking a lean, moist, yeast-leavened dough in an extremely hot oven; the heat turns the water inside into steam, which then puffs up and separates the interior of the bread into two layers. The Middle Eastern method is to form the loaves on a machbazi, a round wicker basket covered with a cotton cloth, then slap the dough round onto the side or floor of the hot oven. The bread is not turned during baking, so only the bottom of the loaf touches the oven's surface, while the top is cooked by indirect heat.

  In Greece, the term pita is not limited to pocket bread, but more commonly connotes standard pocketless flatbreads. The Greek pita is primarily used to enwrap souvlaki (gyros are an American innovation). Before the 1970s, Greek and Turkish restaurants in America only served the pocketless type of pita. Yet since then, most Americans have come to associate pita with pocket bread. Jews were responsible for this change of meaning.

  In the Levant, round flatbread is known as khubz adi (ordinary bread), simply khubz, or taboon, which is the Arabic name of the traditional small domed brick and/or clay oven in which it is baked. At the beginning of the twentieth century, as Jews began arriving in large numbers in Israel, they adopted some of the local foods. Sometimes they kept the names, like hummus and falafel. However, to differentiate pocket bread from standard round flatbreads, Jews began using the term pita.

  In modern Israel, the term pita (pitot plural) only applies to pocket bread. In the early days of the state, the simple, relatively inexpensive bread provided a filling food in a time of tzena (austerity). It is still commonly found at most meals, whether at home or in restaurants. Many households keep a bag in the freezer for emergencies. As it lent itself to inexpensive fillings, hot or cold, pita emerged as the basis of Israeli fast food, such as falafel, shawarma, Tunisian sandwiches, kebabs, schnitzel, hamburgers, omelets, salads, and innumerable other foods. It is included in every mezze (appetizer assortment), typically warm, as pieces of bread are ideal for scooping up various dips and salads, such as hummus and baba ghanouj. Before the 1970s, Israeli pizza consisted of pita rounds topped with tomato sauce and cheese. Manaeesh is a Lebanese flatbread topped with za'atar and olive oil.

  Pita became a staple of the Israeli diet, but is rarely homemade. In practically every Israeli supermarket, pita bread is the most purchased item—it is typically procured on a daily basis. In 2010, Israel's largest bakery, the Angel Bakery in Jerusalem, produced ten thousand machine-made pitas daily for the city, while many smaller specialized pita bakeries turned out numerous more, some still handmade.

  Israelis and visitors to Israel helped popularize the term pita in America, where it generally denotes pocket bread and not generic flatbread. The term first appeared in an American source in the December 16, 1949 issue of the Pittsburgh newspaper, The Jewish Criterion. In the article "A Guide for Tourists," the paper recounts, "the bland succulence of "tehina" and "chumus," eaten with hunks of the platter-shaped bread, peeta." There was an attempt to introduce it more widely to America at the 1964 World's Fair in New York City, where the loaves were featured in the General Foods pavilion as "Israeli bread." It would be another decade, however, before pita moved out of the ethnic enclaves to become mainstream fare. It is now sold in every grocery store and the name has been adopted as common American parlance.

  (See also Bread and Khobz)

  Middle Eastern Pocket Bread (Pita/Khubz Adi)

  eight 6-inch or twelve 5-inch breads

  [PAREVE]

  1 package (2¼ teaspoons) active dry yeast or 1 (0.6-ounce) cake fresh yeast

  1½ cups warm water (105°F to 115°F for dry yeast; 80°F to 85°F for fresh yeast)

  1 teaspoon sugar or honey

  2 teaspoons table salt or 4 teaspoons kosher salt

  About 4 cups (20 ounces) bread or unbleached all-purpose flour, or 3 cups flour and 1 cup whole-wheat flour

  1. Dissolve the yeast in ¼ cup water. Stir in the sugar and let stand until foamy, 5 to 10 minutes. In a large bowl, combine the yeast mixture, remaining water, salt, and 2 cups flour. Gradual
ly add enough of the remaining flour to make a very soft dough.

  2. On a lightly floured surface, knead the dough until smooth and elastic, 10 to 15 minutes. Cover with a large bowl or pot and let rise in a warm, draft-free place until doubled in bulk, about 2 hours.

  3. Line 3 large baking sheets with parchment paper or sprinkle the ungreased sheets with cornmeal. Punch down the dough and knead briefly. Divide the dough into 8 equal pieces (4 ounces each) or 12 equal pieces (2.5 ounces each). Shape each piece into a ball, cover, and let stand for about 15 minutes.

  4. Flatten each ball. Roll the 4-ounce pieces into ¼-inch-thick rounds, 6 inches in diameter; or the 2.5-ounce pieces into ¼-inch-thick rounds, 5 inches in diameter. Place on the prepared baking sheets, making sure they do not touch, cover with a kitchen towel, and let stand until puffy, about 30 minutes.

  5. Position a rack in the center of the oven. Preheat the oven to 475°F.

  6. Baking one sheet at a time, place a baking sheet on the middle rack and bake—do not open the oven during the first 5 minutes—until the pitas are puffed and the bottoms begin to brown, about 6 minutes. To keep the breads soft and warm, stack on top of each other and wrap in a kitchen towel.

  Pite

  Pite is a tart-like cake, most often filled with apples.

  Origin: Hungary

  Pite, probably from the Greek Sephardic pie called pita, is commonly referred to as a cake, but it is actually more of a tart, with bottom and top pastry layers. Those made without the top crust are sometimes called lepény. The most popular crust contains sour cream and egg yolks, making it very tender. Cooks also use a yeast dough for the crust, which is appropriate for meat meals.

  Hungarians love filling this dough with various types of fruit, but apple (almás) is far and away the most popular. Soft cheese (túró), walnuts (diós), and poppy seeds (mákos) are also common. Apple is a favorite Sabbath and Sukkot treat, while cheese is traditional for Shavuot. Pites are customarily cut into squares to serve and are frequently accompanied with another foodstuff the Turks introduced, coffee (kávé).