by Nick Zukin
8 ounces pastrami (mostly fatty parts, if available), sliced
5 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 small red onion, finely diced
1 large clove garlic, minced
1 medium Yukon Gold potato, finely grated
1 medium carrot, peeled and finely grated
½ cup all-purpose flour
½ cup matzo meal
2 tablespoons instant oatmeal
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon sweet paprika
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon ancho chile powder
Place the pastrami in the freezer for about 1 hour before use. It should be semi-frozen so the fat does not melt.
Heat 1 tablespoon of the oil in a small skillet set over medium heat. Add about two-thirds of the onion and cook, stirring often, until it begins to brown, then decrease the heat to medium-low and stir more frequently to avoid burning until the onion is evenly browned and very sweet, about 25 minutes total. Add the garlic and continue cooking until the garlic is aromatic but has not begun to color, about 2 minutes. Transfer the caramelized onion and garlic mixture to a large bowl and stir in the remaining raw onion, the potato, and carrot. Set aside.
In a medium bowl, mix together the flour, matzo meal, instant oatmeal, coriander, cumin, ginger, paprika, black pepper, salt, and chile powder.
Place the semi-frozen pastrami in the bowl of a food processor and pulse until it is chopped into pea-size pieces, 10 to 20 seconds. Add the pastrami to the onion and garlic mixture and stir to combine. Next, add the flour-matzo mixture in three batches, stirring to combine after each addition. Shape the raw kishke into 8 round patties, each about 3½ inches in diameter.
Line a platter with paper towels. Heat the remaining 4 tablespoons oil in a large skillet over medium heat. When the oil is hot, add 4 of the patties and cook, turning once, until they are browned on both sides and cooked through in the center, 5 to 7 minutes per side. Transfer the cooked kishke to the platter and cover to keep warm. Fry the remaining 4 patties in the same manner. Serve 2 of the fried kishke per person on warmed plates.
Cabbage Rolls in Tomato Sauce
Serves 6
Cabbage rolls, also known as stuffed cabbage or in Yiddish as prakes, are an old-time Jewish deli favorite that, sadly, are seldom seen except on the most traditionalist menus. Variations of moist-heat-softened cabbage leaves rolled around meat and grain have roots going back millennia. The dish lends itself superbly to home cooking; day-old leftovers taste even better than the freshly made rolls. As with so many traditional dishes enjoyed by the Ashkenazis and other impecunious populations, this one begins with cheap and abundant cabbage and makes a little ground beef go a long way with the addition of rice, onion, eggs, and raisins. The paprika adds a piquant Hungarian accent to the ensemble.
Cabbage rolls
Kosher salt
1 extra-large head savoy cabbage (about 3 pounds)
½ cup long-grain white rice
1¼ pounds ground beef
1 medium yellow onion, grated on the coarse side of a box grater
½ cup raisins
2 large eggs, beaten
¼ cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1 clove garlic, minced
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Tomato sauce
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 large yellow onion, thinly sliced
¼ cup firmly packed light brown sugar
½ cup dry red wine
1 (28-ounce) can crushed tomatoes, including the liquid
1½ teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon Hungarian sweet paprika
Juice of ½ lemon
To make the cabbage rolls, preheat the oven to 325°F. Fill a large pot two-thirds full of water, season it generously with salt, and bring it to a boil over high heat. Line a rimmed baking sheet with a clean kitchen towel.
Core the cabbage and carefully lower it into the boiling water. Boil the cabbage, covered, until the outer leaves are tender, about 5 minutes. Using tongs, begin peeling away the outermost leaves from the cabbage as they are cooked, and transfer them to the baking sheet. Continue cooking the cabbage until all of the leaves that are large enough to fill have been removed. You should have about 12 leaves. Remove the center of the cabbage from the water and thinly slice it, discarding any remnants of the core. Scatter the sliced cabbage in the bottom of a large, shallow baking dish (a 10 by 15-inch glass dish is ideal). Remove the large, white center ribs from the whole cabbage leaves. Set the cabbage aside to cool while you prepare the filling.
Cook the rice in a small pan of salted boiling water for 3 minutes; drain well. In a large bowl, mix together the beef, onion, raisins, eggs, parsley, garlic, pepper, and 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon of salt. Stir in the rice.
Working with one cabbage leaf at a time, fill each leaf with about ⅓ cup (¼ cup for smaller leaves) of the meat mixture. Place the meat toward the tip of the leaf, opposite the core end. Fold the sides over the filling and roll it up to completely encase the filling. Arrange the cabbage rolls in the baking dish, seam side down.
To make the sauce, heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until golden brown, 8 to 10 minutes. Stir in the brown sugar until it is dissolved. Pour in the wine and cook, stirring occasionally, until it is almost completely evaporated, 3 to 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes, salt, paprika, and lemon juice and bring the mixture to a boil. Lower the heat to medium, and simmer for 5 minutes.
Pour the sauce over the cabbage rolls. Cover the baking dish tightly with aluminum foil (or a lid if it has one), and bake the cabbage rolls for 1 hour. Portion the cabbage rolls onto warmed plates and top with the sauce. Serve immediately.
Grandma’s Goulash
Serves 6
Everyone in Nick’s family makes a version of their ancestral goulash. “Grandma’s Quick & Easy Goulash,” as it is titled in Grandma Zukin’s own hand, was passed down from Nick’s great-grandmother. As recorded in the 1950s, it is made with bell pepper flakes and chili powder. No one can remember the more “difficult” recipe that preceded World War II. Our version is a throwback capturing the spirit of old-world Hungary, using fresh ingredients and traditional spices. Substitute jarred roasted red peppers to save time if you wish, though Grandma Zukin (and Nick) would tell you that the flavor won’t be quite the same.
6 medium to large Roasted Red Peppers
3 pounds boneless beef chuck
Kosher salt
Vegetable oil, as needed
2 medium white onions, finely diced (about 3 cups)
6 cloves garlic, halved
1 teaspoon caraway seeds
1 bay leaf
¼ cup Hungarian sweet paprika
½ teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional)
½ cup red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
Cooked potatoes or egg noodles, for serving
Puree the peppers in a blender or food processor until smooth. Set aside.
Trim the fat from the beef and cut it into ¾-inch cubes. Put the meat into a bowl and toss it with 1 tablespoon salt.
Set a large Dutch oven or wide saucepan over medium-high heat and add 1 tablespoon oil. When the oil begins to shimmer and smoke, add as much of the beef as will fit in one uncrowded layer. Sauté until the meat is well browned on all sides, about 8 minutes. Transfer the beef to a bowl, add another 1 tablespoon oil to the pan, and repeat the cooking process until all the beef has been browned.
Lower the heat to medium and add 2 tablespoons oil to the pan. Add the onions, garlic, and 1 teaspoon salt and saut
é until the onions are translucent and soft, about 10 minutes, scraping up the browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Add the caraway seeds and bay leaf, stirring until fragrant.
Return the beef to the pan. Add the paprika and cayenne, if using, stirring to coat the beef. Add ¼ cup of the red wine vinegar and the sugar. Cook over medium heat to reduce the liquid until the harsh vinegar smell dissipates, about 5 minutes. Add 4 cups of the red pepper puree (reserve any remaining for another use), thoroughly mixing to combine everything in the pan. Bring the goulash to a simmer, decrease the heat to low, cover, and simmer, stirring every 20 to 30 minutes, for 2½ to 3 hours or until the beef is fork-tender. Stir in the remaining ¼ cup vinegar and add salt to taste.
Serve hot over potatoes or egg noodles.
Nick’s great-grandmother Helen Zukin, surrounded by family and friends, in the late ’60s.
Chapter 6
Michael has always lived in Portland, Oregon, the third generation of his family born and raised there. When Michael was little, Harry Mosler, the baker—venerated with the nickname “Old Man Mosler”—was still alive and baking. If you wanted a bagel or bialy, a loaf of fragrant Jewish rye, or a challah for Shabbat, you went to his shop, the last of its kind in Portland.
After Harry Mosler died around the High Holidays in 1969, somebody bought the shop, but they couldn’t pry loose Mosler’s recipes. Without them, the quality of the breads went straight downhill. Like so many heritage Jewish foods, the once wonderful breads that Michael’s parents and their parents took for granted soon vanished from view, replaced by whatever pale imitations could conveniently be found at one of the big new supermarkets that sprouted in the suburbs.
While the old ways are long gone, they are not forgotten. To the contrary, they are being revived or reinvented. With few exceptions, the recipes included in this chapter rely on Jewish bread formulations from old texts, exploration of artisan techniques common to many traditional breads, much trial and error, and Michael’s own taste memories going back to the days when Harry Mosler was alive.
Michael’s recipes became the foundation for Kenny & Zuke’s bread selection. His pride and joy are the bagels (see here), which he is confident are the best anywhere. But be sure and try the other recipes in this chapter, too: the honey-sweet challah (see here) is especially nice, whether for Shabbat or as the foundation for French toast (see here) or a simple sandwich.
Making bread can be intimidating for the novice, but have no fear. All you need is some decent equipment and good basic ingredients (see Sources and Resources), plus enough patience to let the magic of bread yeast happen. To make the task even easier, the recipes in this chapter are expressed in both weight and volume. Using a small kitchen scale to measure your baking ingredients adds an extra level of assurance that your breads will come out right every time.
Kitchen Equipment for the Jewish Baker
Too many good cooks are afraid to make bread. They shouldn’t be. Though the process is a little different from other types of cooking, making great bread is neither highly technical nor difficult. And just to squelch any spurious rumors, successful bread baking does not involve magic or benevolent fairies. All it takes is the right equipment and ingredients, plus a bare amount of skill. Where to find particular ingredients is addressed in Sources and Resources. For the bread baker’s specialized equipment needs, read on.
Kitchen Scale: One of the most vital components in a bread baker’s kitchen (beyond the bare essentials, such as an oven and baking sheets) is a kitchen scale. The most useful ones can measure either in grams or ounces (for flexibility) and have a tare function, so you can reset the weight to zero even after you place a bowl or one or more ingredients on the scale.
Your first impulse might be to resist purchasing a scale. Don’t. When it comes to bread baking, weight has it all over volume. A fundamental reason to use a scale is to standardize flour measurements. The amount of flour in a bread recipe determines how much of every other ingredient goes into the dough. This is technically known as “bakers’ percentage,” referring to the fact that every ingredient in a bread recipe is measured in proportion to the weight of flour in the recipe. If the basic flour measurement is screwed up, then the entire recipe will be out of whack. The problem arises from the fact that volume measurements of flour can vary widely depending on how it’s measured. By weighing the flour, and other ingredients, you are far less likely to end up with either inexplicably dry dough or a mixing bowl full of goo.
A second reason to buy a scale is to help you standardize the size of your bagels, bialys, and other breads. Even if you have been making bread for a long time, it is still no sure thing to eyeball with precision two pieces of dough or, in the case of bagels and bialys, several small pieces. Equal weight will result in a standard-size piece of dough, and a standard size will result in a uniform baking time. Using a scale takes the guesswork out of the process.
Finally, by using weight as your guideline, any bread recipe becomes infinitely and easily scalable.
Stand Mixer: Unless you have the strength of Superman, you should have a heavy-duty stand mixer with which to combine your bread dough ingredients. Especially with bagel or bialy dough, you will not be able to do as good a job combining the ingredients and developing the dough as a good mixer can in 10 minutes. Plus, hand mixing is incredibly messy with the ingredients some of these breads require: sourdough starter, barley malt syrup, honey, and rye flour, to name a few. Do you really want to end up with sticky bits all over your body and clothing? That is not the fun part of bread baking, unless you happen to be ten years old.
A good mixer has the superior ability to develop the gluten in dough. Gluten is what gives dough its stretchy quality. In finished bagels, for example, gluten development also has a lot to do with the dense chewiness that sets them apart from most breads. Mixing by hand cannot compete with a mixer for developing gluten.
A heavy-duty stand mixer is best, with the emphasis on heavy-duty. Even though the bread recipes in this chapter come in mixer-friendly quantities, your mixer will still work hard. It will heat up and it may even struggle as the gluten develops and the dough becomes stiffer. A heavy-duty mixer, preferably a 6-quart or larger size, should be up to the challenge. Whatever mixer you use, if it starts to strain or buck, stop it and scrape the dough down the sides of the bowl or divide the dough into two pieces and mix one at a time.
Oven (or Pizza) Stone: The benefit of using a stone is that a large piece of ceramic will absorb a lot of heat as the oven warms up. Once that happens, it tends to hold and radiate the heat when the bread is baking. This helps maintain a uniform oven temperature, minimizing hot and cold spots that detract from even coloring. To maximize the benefit of using a stone, buy one as big as your oven can accommodate and position it on the floor of the oven, beneath the lowest rack setting.
Smallwares: A selection of small pieces of equipment will also make your bread-baking adventures easier. One helpful item is a metal bench scraper. Bench scrapers are flat rectangular pieces of stainless steel, roughly 4 by 6 inches, with either a wooden or rolled stainless-steel handle at one of the long ends. A good bench scraper has multiple uses, from the eponymous task of scraping bits of dough or other crud from the work surface to cutting the dough into pieces for weighing, shaping, and rolling out.
Plastic scrapers in various sizes and shapes are also useful tools, and they are inexpensive. My favorite has one long end that is straight and a second that gently curves. They can substitute for a metal bench scraper in a pinch. Because they are flexible, they are also useful for scraping dough from the sides of the mixer partway through mixing.
Another must-have is a cooling rack or two. Usually made of a wire grid on stubby legs, the cooling rack allows freshly baked breads to rest until they are cool enough to eat. The raised wire grid ensures good air circulation to speed cooling and to prevent moisture from becoming trapped underneath the bottom, whic
h can ruin the crust texture.
Silicone baking mats are a tremendous innovation for making bread-baking projects easier and reducing waste. They are mostly made in France and are not cheap, but their positive qualities justify what you have to pay for them. Nothing sticks to them, their ability to conduct heat rivals that of metal, and they can be used over and over again, indefinitely. Michael has several that have endured more than 10 years of regular use, making parchment paper nearly obsolete. Breads baked on silicone sheets brown beautifully on the bottom, and there is no need to sprinkle the sheets with anything to prevent sticking. And finished loaves readily separate from them.
Michael is also a big fan of silicone pot holders, but you could probably guess that. They may look like rubber, but they do not melt like it. You can hardly tell that you are holding a red-hot baking sheet even as you are doing so. Silicone is amazing stuff.
One last item: a baker’s lame is the perfect tool for slashing the top of bread loaves just before they go in the oven. Though a sharp knife may suffice, the lame works better. A lame looks like a stick with a razor blade on the end. The blades can readily be replaced once they become dull with use.
Now start baking.
Sourdough Starter
Sourdough starter is a fundamental building block for making all manner of artisan-style breads. At its simplest, starter is a pasty combination of flour and water that has sat around for a while. But as it sits, an amazing thing happens. It begins to ferment with the help of useful strains of bacteria in the lactobacillus family and wild yeasts in the air and on the surface of grains. Together the chorus line of microbes create flavor. There is the obvious tartness that comes from acidification, but more subtle tastes also develop from exotic compounds such as esters, flavonoids, and enzymes. World Bread Baking Olympics silver medalist and baking instructor Tim Healea was the first head baker at Kenny & Zuke’s and now runs Little T American Baker, a bakery in Portland. Tim says, “Treat your starter like a pet. It’s happiest when it’s fed before going to sleep and right after it wakes up.” He shared his method to make and maintain a vigorous starter. Follow the steps and don’t be discouraged if nothing much happens until a few days into the process.
