Encyclopedia of Jewish Food

by Gil Marks

  Zalabia

  Zalabia is a deep-fried pastry commonly known as funnel cake.

  Origin: Middle East

  Other names: Arabic: zalabiya, zelabiya, zelebi; Farsi: zoolbia, zoolbiya, zolubiya; India: jalebi; Iraq: zengoula, zingzoola; Kurdistan: zülubiye; Syria: zinghol, zingol; Turkey: zulbiye.

  Funnel cakes became a mainstay of American fairs, carnivals, and ballparks in the late twentieth century, transforming a localized Pennsylvania Dutch breakfast dish into a national snack. The concept of "funnel cake," however, actually dates back to the early medieval Persian and Arabic worlds, where similar yeast-risen dishes were first prepared and later spread to Europe. German immigrants brought the yeast dish to America, originally called drechter kuche, and around 1879 developed the baking powder version along with its new name, funnel cake. Unlike the Pennsylvania Dutch version, the Middle Eastern funnel cake was a special treat, not breakfast fare.

  There were two widespread deep-fried yeast-dough dishes in the medieval Muslim lands: one consisted of simple balls of regular loose yeast dough (lokma, what Sephardim called bimuelos), and the other was a more elaborate version made by drizzling a runny batter into hot oil in an overlapping stream to create lacy cakes. Zalabia (from the Farsi zulab "water of vitriol") date back more than a millennium. The tenth- century cookbook from Baghdad by Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq contains recipes for both zalabiya mushabbak (latticed fritters) and zalabiya ghayr mushabbaka (unlatticed fritters). In an anonymous Andulsian cookbook of the thirteenth century, there was a recipe for "Zulabiya," denoting a funnel cake. The recipe directed, "Knead the flour and gradually add water to make a very loose dough." Cooks were then instructed to drop the batter into the oil by means of a "vessel with small holes in the bottom."

  Variations of zalabia are popular in the swath of land from the Maghreb to India, the flavor and texture varying slightly from place to place based upon the type of leavening and the type of soaking syrup. The batter is not sweet, but in the typical Middle Eastern manner, the fried pastry is enrobed with a honey or sugar syrup, frequently accented with rose water, or, in a more modern manner, the pastry is sprinkled with confectioners' sugar. Some people dye the syrup a bright orange, yellow, or red, and the color then soaks into the pastries. Indians typically use a combination of rose water and saffron.

  Persians frequently make these pastries with yogurt and they are crisper than the Arabic style and typically accompanied with another Persian treat, bamieh, deep-fried, flattened, ridged dough balls, akin to doughnut holes. Among Arabs, zalabia is a traditional sweet eaten to break the fasts of Ramadan; they are made in homes and featured at most Middle Eastern sweet shops.

  A thin, pourable dough makes decorative fried pastries commonly called funnel cakes in the United States, zalabia in the Middle East, and jalebi in India. They are enjoyed for Hanukkah and Purim.

  The concept of funnel cakes arrived in medieval Italy, then traveled north. The Harleian Manuscript 279 (c. 1430), a collection in the British Museum, contains an early English recipe for "Cryspey," a yeast-raised form of this dish, which was prepared using the crude method of drizzling the batter into the oil with the fingers. The German work Practisches Kochbuch fur die gewöhnliche une feinere Küche by Henriette Davidis (1845) recorded a recipe for "Spritzkuchen," in which cooks were directed to use a syringe to "spritz" (squirt) a loose cream puff dough into hot oil. The modern American funnel cake developed in the late nineteenth century after the invention of baking soda and baking powder, which eliminated the need to wait for yeast to rise, a benefit that was particularly helpful for early morning fare. Indians tend to use baking powder rather than yeast to make jalebis.

  Unlike thick doughnut dough and cream puff pastry, funnel cake batter should be thin enough to pour, but not too thin. For each pastry, the batter must be continuously poured into hot oil to form a single mass. The original Middle Eastern fried yeast cakes did not contain egg, but it is sometimes added to modern versions, contributing richness and helping to prevent the absorption of oil. As the name reflects, an early way to form the cakes was using a funnel. The Pennsylvania Dutch invented a special pitcher with a long spout to drizzle the batter.

  Zalabia are traditional Middle Eastern and Indian Hanukkah and Purim treats. Kurds customarily also serve them on Tu b'Shevat. Forms of the Arabic pastry and name were adopted in modern Israel as well.

  (See also Bimuelo, Doughnut, Lokma, Sfenj, and Yoyo)

  Middle Eastern Funnel Cakes (Zalabia)

  about twelve 4-inch cakes

  [PAREVE]

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

  2 cups warm water (105°F to 115°F for dry yeast; 80°F to 85°F for fresh yeast), or 1¾ cups water and 1 large egg, lightly beaten

  1 teaspoon sugar

  2½ cups (12.5 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour

  ¼ teaspoon table salt or ½ teaspoon kosher salt

  2 teaspoons grated lemon zest, several drops of dissolved saffron, or several drops of orange, red, or yellow food coloring (optional)

  Peanut or safflower oil for deep-frying

  2 cups cooled atar (Middle Eastern Sugar Syrup (Atar/Shira)) or ½ cup confectioners' sugar for dusting

  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 flour and salt. Make a well in the center. Pour the yeast mixture, remaining water, and, if using, zest, into the well and beat with a wooden spoon or electric mixer until smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes. The dough will not be very thick. Cover loosely with plastic wrap or a kitchen towel or and let rise in a warm, draft-free place until nearly doubled in bulk, about 1 hour. Stir the batter down to deflate any bubbles, about 2 minutes. Cover and let rise about 30 minutes.

  2. In a large, heavy skillet, such as a cast-iron skillet, heat about 1½ inches oil over medium heat to 375°F.

  3. Stir the batter down to deflate any bubbles. Place some of the batter in a pastry bag fitted with a ¼- to ½-inch hole or nozzle tip or squeeze bottle with a ¼- to ½-inch nozzle tip. Moving from the center of the pan, continuously swirl the batter in a steady stream in circular motions to produce overlapping circles about 4 inches in diameter; this should take about 20 seconds. The zalabia should be a lacy coil. Fry, turning once, until golden brown on both sides, about 1 minute per side. Drain very briefly on a wire rack.

  4. Dip the warm pastries into the cooled syrup, turning to coat on all sides, or sprinkle with confectioners' sugar. Serve immediately. Repeat with the remaining batter.

  Zemmel

  Zemmel is a bread roll made from fine wheat flour.

  Origin: Germany or Austria

  Other names: Austria: semmel, wecken; Bavaria: semmel; northern Germany: brötchen; southern Germany: wecken; Hungary: zsemle; Poland and Ukraine: bilke, bilkele, bulke, bulkele, shtengl, weck, zemelekh, zeml.

  "Mame hot a kreml, oyfn altn mark, beygl, broyt, un zeml, shlept zi oyf ir kark." ("Mother has a grocery, in the old market, bagel, bread, and zeml, she lugs around her neck." From the Yiddish poem "Mayn Viglid" [My Lullaby] by H. H. Leyvik [pseudonym of Leyvik Halpern], a native of Byelorussia.)

  The bulk of the diet of eastern Ashkenazim was bread, much of it coarse black bread made from rye. For the Sabbath and as an occasional weekday treat, they enjoyed several types of bread made from white flour, frequently in the smaller bagel or roll size. The name of the roll varied depending on what part of eastern Europe they lived, but the two most common terms were bulke (from the Slavic bulka "white bread") and zemmel.

  The Middle High German word semel and the Yiddish equivalent zemmel or zeml, from the Latin simila (finest wheat flour), means "fine wheat flour," in contradistinction to the then-more-common European coarse rye flour. Initially, zemmel came to mean "fine bread roll." A bread roll sprinkled with poppy seeds is a mohnsemmel, with caraway kummelsemmel, and with sesame seeds sesamsemmel. Zemmel was typically a breakfast roll, fresh from the bakery, ser
ved with butter, quark (topfen in Austria), and hot coffee. Among Ashkenazim, Semmel and Zemmel became surnames for bakers and sellers of white rolls.

  In Austria, semmel developed a more specific denotation—a fine roll, three to four inches in diameter and about two inches high, with a crisp crust and a distinctive cleavage down the center. In parts of New England, these are known by the redundant term bulkie rolls, probably from the Yiddish bulke. A famous variation of this is the Kaiser roll, an Austrian hard roll so named because the top is cut to look like the emperor's crown, technically a kaisersemmel(csaszarasemle in Hungary). However, some authorities date the term kaisersemmel to 1487 and the Emperor Friedrich IV. A semmel knoedle is an Austrian dumpling made from semmel rolls.

  In eastern Europe, zeml retained its original sense of a roll made from fine wheat flour. In this vein, a Yiddish proverb from Poland advises, "When one has broyt [black bread], one should not look for zemi" (other versions substitute lekakh, "cake"). To further complicate matters, tzibele zemmel and zemmel pampalik are synonyms for the eastern European tzibele pletzlach (onion flatbread).

  Zimtstern

  Zimtstern is a star-shaped cinnamon cookie.

  Origin: Germany

  German Jews adopted a local Teutonic nut meringue known as zimtsternen (cinnamon stars). The nut meringue is cut into six-pointed stars, which happens to also be a Star of David (Magen David in Hebrew), a symbol that only first became widely used by Jews beginning in the seventeenth century in central Europe. Toward the end of baking, the cookie is covered with a thin layer of plain, slightly creamy meringue that contrasts in color and texture to the chewy brown bottom. The delicate dough is somewhat difficult to work with, so most housewives limited making these cookies to a few special occasions. These flourless cookies are also called erstesternen (first stars), an intimation of the heavenly signs indicating the end of a Jewish fast day. Zimtsternen are traditionally served at the meal following Yom Kippur.

  German Cinnamon Stars (Zimtsternen)

  about fifty 2-inch cookies

  [PAREVE]

  3 cups (12 ounces) finely ground blanched almonds or hazelnuts

  4½ teaspoons ground cinnamon

  1½ teaspoons grated lemon zest or kirsch

  6 tablespoons egg whites (about 3 large)

  Pinch of salt

  2¼ cups (9 ounces) confectioners' sugar, plus about 1 cup additional for rolling

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F. Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper.

  2. Combine the nuts, cinnamon, and zest. In a medium bowl, beat the egg whites until foamy, about 30 seconds. Add the salt and beat until soft peaks form, 1 to 2 minutes. Gradually add the confectioners' sugar and beat until stiff and glossy, 5 to 8 minutes. Reserve one-third of the meringue in a covered container and fold the nut mixture into the remaining meringue. Cover the nut mixture with greased plastic wrap or aluminum foil and refrigerate for 1 hour.

  3. Place a large piece of parchment paper or wax paper on a flat surface and sprinkle with additional confectioners' sugar. Place the nut mixture on the sugar, lightly sprinkle with more confectioners' sugar, top with a second piece of paper, and pat and roll out ¼ inch thick. Remove the top piece of wax paper. Using a cookie cutter dipped in confectioners' sugar, cut into 2-inch star shapes or use a sharp knife to cut into diamonds. Reroll any scraps and cut. Using a thin spatula, place on the prepared baking sheets about ½-inch apart.

  4. Bake until set and lightly browned, about 20 minutes.

  5. Spread the reserved meringue over the tops of the cookies and bake until the tops are lightly colored, about 5 minutes. Transfer the cookies to a wire rack and let cool. The zimtsternen taste best if allowed to stand, covered, for 24 hours. Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 weeks.

  Zvingous

  Zvingous is a deep-fried ball of masa escaldada (boiled dough).

  Origin: Spain

  Other names: France and Maghreb: beignet; Greece: loukoumades, zvingoi; Italy: frittelle di pasta soffiata, zeppole; Ladino: bimuelo, bola de miel, burmuelo; Syria: zengol; Turkey: tulumba tatlisi.

  The practice of frying pastries made from cooked flour (panada) dates back to at least Roman times, but was forgotten in Europe with the collapse of the Roman empire. Beginning in the early medieval period, the Moors and Sephardim deep-fried balls of lean yeast dough and a rudimentary cooked dough, which was the forerunner of the Spanish masa escaldada (boiled dough). This simple mixture of flour, salt, boiling water, and olive oil was used to make fried pastries, such as churros (long, ridged fritters). Sephardic immigrants may have brought the concept of cooked dough to Italy. In turn, in 1533, Catherine de Médicis of Florence arrived in France to marry Prince Henri, accompanied by her Italian chefs, who introduced their culinary advances, including what the French called pâte à chaud (hot paste). Around the same time, chickens were becoming more widespread in Europe, and the increasing supply of eggs led to the transformation of this simple flour paste into a more versatile batter.

  The leavening agent in cooked pastry dough is steam. As the balls of dough are heated, steam forms and pushes the batter upward and outward, producing a puffed, hollow shell, as in a cream puff. According to legend, Catherine's Italian head chef, Panterelli, was the first person to make the leap of adding eggs in 1540 and he named the resulting pastry pâte à Panterelli. French chefs refined the original recipe and the name eventually changed to the current pâte à choux (choux is French for "cabbage," a reference to the appearance of the puffs). Italians refer to it as pasta soffiata (blown batter) and Americans call it "cream puff dough" after the pastry most commonly made from it.

  Since at the time, few homes except those of the upper class possessed an oven, the easiest way for most housewives to cook this dough was by frying and the best way to fry the dough was as small balls. Most Sephardim in Turkey and Greece adopted a term used by Romaniotes (Jews whose ancestors lived in Greece before the arrival of the Sephardim), zvingous, derived from the Arabic isfenj (sponge); the term probably originally referred to a Byzantine fried pastry and is sometimes used to denote deep-fried yeast-raised balls (lokma).

  To make the most popular Turkish variation of this pastry, cooks pipe two- to three-inch-long logs of dough through a ridged tip, forming a shape reminiscent of a tulumba (kettledrum). Today, Turks even manufacture a dessert machine to mass-produce tulumba. Greeks prefer small globes made by dropping the batter from a spoon.

  In the Middle Eastern manner, the fried balls are dipped into a honey or sugar syrup, while the French serve them with warm jam or filled with pastry cream. Cooks add a little more flour to zvingous dough than is typical for cream puff dough, producing a sturdier pastry that will not dissolve in the syrup. The dough is not made with much sugar, as too much sugar results in overbrowning.

  These pastries are a traditional Hanukkah treat, also known in Ladino as zvingous de januca (of Hanukkah), and, in honey syrup, popular for Rosh Hashanah. A Passover version is made by substituting matza cake meal for the flour. After a baked version of zvingous was mentioned in a 1999 New York Times Hanukkah article, the pastry suddenly earned attention among Americans.

  (See also Bimuelo, Doughnut, and Lokma)

  Sephardic Beignets (Zvingous)

  about 24 medium or 36 small fritters

  [PAREVE or DAIRY]

  1 cup water

  3 tablespoons olive oil or unsalted butter

  1 teaspoon sugar

  ½ teaspoon table salt or 1 teaspoon kosher salt

  1½ cups (7.5 ounces) high-gluten flour, sifted; or 1¼ cups unbleached all-purpose flour and ¼ cup fine semolina; or 1½ cups matza cake meal

  1 teaspoon grated orange and/or lemon zest (optional)

  4 large eggs, at room temperature (¾ cup)

  Vegetable, sunflower, or peanut oil for deep-frying

  ½ cup confectioners' sugar, cinnamon-sugar (2/3 cup sugar mixed with 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon), or 1 cup atar (Middle Eastern Sugar Syrup, pa
ge 27)

  1. In a medium saucepan, bring the water, oil, sugar, and salt to a rapid boil over medium heat. Remove from the heat, add the flour all at once, and stir with a wooden spoon until the mixture leaves the sides of the pan and forms a ball, about 1 minute. Return to the heat and cook on low heat, stirring, until the dough dries slightly, about 1 minute. Let cool slightly, about 10 minutes. If using, add the zest.

  2. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. The batter should be soft yet stiff enough to retain its shape. It is ready when it drops with difficulty from a spoon. Let cool completely, at least 30 minutes.

  3. In a large pot, heat at least 1½ inches oil over medium heat to 375°F.

  4. Dip a tablespoon or teaspoon into the hot oil. In batches, drop the batter by spoonfuls from the oiled spoon into the oil, using a second spoon to scrape it off, and fry, turning, until puffed and golden, 2 to 4 minutes. Remove with a wire-mesh skimmer or tongs and drain on a wire rack.

  5. Sprinkle the beignets with confectioners' sugar or dip hot ones into the cooled syrup or cooled puffs into hot syrup. Serve warm.

  Zwetschgenkuchen

  Zwetschgenkuchen is a cross between a cake and a tart made with Italian prune plums.

  Origin: central Europe

  Other names: pflaumenkuchen; Bavaria: zwetschgendatschi; Hungary: szilvaslepeny; Rhineland-Palatinate: Quetschekuche.

  Humphrey Bogart personified cool and there was no question that he was a star; the American Film Institute named him the top male star of the twentieth century. Ironically, the New York—born actor, married to Lauren Bacall (née Betty Perske and first cousin of Israeli president Shimon Peres), owed part of his unforgettable mannerisms to an unusual source, plum kuchen. During his career, Bogie starred in numerous classic movies, most notably The African Queen, To Have and Have Not, The Caine Mutiny, The Maltese Falcon, and Casablanca. During breaks in the filming of the latter, released in 1942, he frequently enjoyed his favorite food, plum cake. There was one problem—tiny pieces of plum got stuck in his teeth. Naturally, this was particularly perturbing to his costar, Ingrid Bergman, during the kissing scenes. The dark dots of plum were also conspicuously showing up on camera. Finally, the exasperated director, Michael Curtiz, yelled out, "Cut! Cut! For Christ's sake Humphrey, you got bits of plum cake stuck in your teeth again. It simply ain't romantic!" Bogart reluctantly reduced his plum cake consumption for the remainder of the shoot, but began to frequently pull his upper lip over his teeth, in the habit of covering up any seeds in his teeth. After a while, the director, running behind schedule, despaired of curing Bogart of his twitches and left them in the film. The audience actually favored the new idiosyncrasy and it became one of the actor's trademarks. And plum cake remained his favorite.