Passover apple rhubarb crisp

April 12, 2009 at 11:07 am (Cook’s Illustrated, My brain, Spring recipes, dessert, unrated)

This recipe is based on a generic crisp recipe from Cook’s Illustrated. I adapted it to make it kosher for passover, and to use the beautiful spring rhubarb.

For the topping:

  • 6 tablespoons matzoh cake meal
  • 1/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
  • 1/4 cup granulated sugar
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • 1/4 teaspoon table salt
  • 5 tablespoons unsalted butter , cut into 1/2-inch pieces and chilled
  • 3/4 cup pecans or whole almonds

For the fruit:

  • 2 1/2 pounds apples, equal parts granny smith and mckintosh, cut into one-inch chunks (about 5 cups)
  • 2-3 stalks rhubarb (about 2 cups sliced)
  • 1/4 cup granulated sugar
  • 1.5 tablespoons lemon juice
  • 1/2 teaspoon grated lemon zest from 1 lemon
  • 1/2 tsp. grated fresh ginger (optional)

Instructions

  1. For the Topping: Place the nuts in a food processor workbowl fitted with steel blade.Pulse the nuts to a medium chop.  Pour the mixture into a small bowl.  Next, place the matzoh meal, brown sugar, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt in the food processor. Add chilled butter and pulse until mixture moves from dry sand-like appearance with large lumps of butter to a coarse cornmeal texture, about three 4-second bursts. Add to the nuts, and distribute evenly.  The mixture should resemble crumbly sand. Do not overmix or the mixture will take on a smooth, cookie-dough-like texture. Refrigerate mixture while preparing fruit, at least 15 minutes.
  2. For the fruit: Toss cut fruit, sugar, lemon juice, and zest in medium bowl.
  3. Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and heat oven to 375 degrees. Scrape fruit mixture with rubber spatula into 8-inch square (2 quart) baking pan or 9-inch round deep dish pie plate. Distribute chilled topping evenly over fruit; bake for 40 minutes. Increase oven temperature to 400 degrees; bake until fruit is bubbling and topping is deep golden brown, about 5 minutes longer. Serve warm with ice cream.

Serves 6-8.

To make a larger crisp that serves 10-16, double all the ingredients, use a 13 x 9-inch baking pan, and bake for 55 minutes at 375 degrees, without increasing the oven temperature. Instead of apples, you can use stone fruit cut into half-inch wedges. If using plums, Cook’s Illustrated recommends adding one tablespoon quick-cooking tapioca to the fruit mixture, to keep it from being too juicy.

Cook’s Illustrated recommends peeling the fruit (including the apples), but I like the peels, so I leave them in.

Update May 24th, 2009:

I tried the rhubarb crisp recipe from Berley’s Fresh Food Fast.  It calls for 1.5 pounds of rhubarb (about 4 long stalks) and 3/4 sugar mixed in with the fruit.  I thought the balance of sour to sweet was pretty good.  There’s also 1/4 cup brown sugar in the crumb topping.  The recipe has you simmer the sugar and rhubarb and zest of one orange in a saucepan for 5 minutes.  I wonder if it’s really necessary.  I hate getting a pot dirty if it’s not essential.  Maybe if you don’t pre-soften the rhubarb then the crisp topping starts to burn before the rhubarb is cooked all the way?  Perhaps another strategy would be to put the rhubarb and sugar in the pan and cook it in the oven while you make the crisp topping.  I wonder if that would work?

In the final crisp I couldn’t taste the orange zest at all.  In fact, I made it once without the orange zest and it tasted exactly the same.  Orange zest is healthy, so add it if you have it, but if you don’t have an orange around don’t worry about it.

Berley’s crisp topping recipe is a bit odd–it always seems kind of dry and sandy to me.  I much prefer the Cook’s Illustrated recipe which includes nuts as well, and has more body.

Permalink 1 Comment

Vegetarian Passover 2009

April 12, 2009 at 10:43 am (Jewish, Menus, Spring recipes, Uncategorized)

I hosted my first seder this year.  We had planned for 15 people total, but in the end one guest was sick so we had only(!) 14 people to feed.  I played around with a number of different recipes in the weeks leading up to the seder, but finally settled on this menu:

  • Appetizers (before the start of the seder):  matzoh, a cheese plate, and green bean pate
  • Appetizers (during the seder): Hillel sandwiches with harosetz and beet horseradish
  • Soup:  matzoh ball soup in vegetable broth, with diced carrots, diced parsnips, and peas
  • Main course:  spinach matzoh pie
  • Side dishes:  beets in a sesame orange dressing and three-seed quinoa salad
  • Dessert: apple rhubarb crisp
  • Mignardise:  toffikomen

I made the toffikomen a few nights before, and just let it sit out on the counter, covered by a bowl.  The quinoa salad and green bean pate I made the day before, along with the matzoh ball batter and the spinach matzoh pie filling.  The day of the seder, I made the haroset, the vegetable broth, the beets, and the crisp.  I also pre-baked the spanokopita and fruit crisps, and boiled the matzoh balls and soup vegetables.

All the food turned out well, but we significantly overestimated how much food we needed.  We bought 4 large chunks of different cheeses, which was about right.  However, I made 2 recipes of green bean pate, which made about 8 cups, but we only ate about half that.  I made 2 matzoh ball soup recipes, which was supposed to make 32 matzoh balls, but they came out small and so I wished I had made a few more.  If they had been bigger it would have been about right. I made 3 recipes of the spinach matzoh pie (24 servings), and probably 2 would have been enough.  We made about 16 beets, but they were barely touched.  I wouldn’t make the beets again, for Passover or otherwise.  The sesame orange dressing simply didn’t complement the beets that well.  We made three quinoa salad recipes (supposedly 12-16 servings), which made about 6 quarts! of salad, and again we barely made a dent.  Probably one recipe would have been fine.  I made 3 crisp recipes (18 servings), and 2 would have been enough.  We made 2 toffikomen recipes, and 1 would have been sufficient.  For next year, I’ve learned my lesson. Given all the courses, I think next year I will make 1.25 servings per person.  Some people will have seconds, but that is counteracted by the guests that only take half a serving.  Probably 1 serving per person is sufficient, but having some leftovers is nice.

To reduce the amount of cooking, I could have cut all the amounts, not made the harosetz or the green bean pate, and only made one dessert.  I think that everyone was pretty stuffed by the time the toffikomen came around.

Permalink 2 Comments

Passover spinach matzoh lasagne

April 12, 2009 at 10:15 am (B plus, Dark leafy greens, Jewish, Necessarily nonvegan, Website / blog)

For Passover this year I wanted to make Peter Berley’s spinach mushroom vegan tart, but I didn’t have enough time to figure out how to make a kosher-for-Passover crust.  I did try making an almond, matzoh meal crust held together with butter, but it just turned to crumbly sand.  Instead, I ended up making this matzoh spanokopita (spanomatzikah? matzokopita?) recipe from Gourmet magazine for the main dish.  Although it’s certainly rich and cheesy, it doesn’t taste overwhelmingly rich.  I call it spanokopita, and although the flavors are similar, it would need significantly more feta and butter to deserve the name.  I simplified the recipe significantly, by using a stick blender instead of a stand blender and skipping the matzoh soaking and spinach squeezing steps.  Here is my modified version of the recipe:

  • 1 medium onion, finely chopped
  • 3 tablespoons olive oil
  • 2 (10-ounce) packages frozen chopped spinach, thawed
  • 1/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons chopped dill, divided
  • 1 (16-ounce) container cottage cheese
  • 2 cups whole milk (1.5 cups may be plenty)
  • 3 large eggs
  • 1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg
  • 1 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon pepper
  • 6 ounces feta, crumbled (1 1/2 cups), divided
  • 6 matzos (about 6 inches square)
  1. Preheat oven to 400°F with rack in middle.  Oil a 13- by 9- by 2-inch (3-quart shallow) baking dish
  2. Chop the onion, then cook with the oil in a large heavy skillet over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until golden, 12 to 15 minutes.
  3. Meanwhile, in a large bowl, add the cottage cheese, milk, eggs,  nutmeg, and 1/2 teaspoon each of salt and pepper. Use a stick blender to  purée until smooth. Add in 4 ounces of the crumbled feta.  Reserve 1.5 cups in a separate bowl.
  4. When the onion is golden, add the spinach to the skillet and cook, stirring occasionally, 5 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in 1/3 cup dill, 3/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper.  Add the spinach mixture to the large bowl with the milk mixture.
  5. Arrange 2  matzos side by side in the baking dish.  Break up matzohs to fill in any cracks.  Pour in half of the pinach filling. Cover with 2 more matzos, then pour in remaining filling. Put remaining 2 matzos on top and pour the reserved cottage-cheese mixture over them. Sprinkle with the remaining 1/2 cup feta.
  6. Bake, uncovered, until golden and set, 30 to 35 minutes. Cool 10 minutes, then serve sprinkled with remaining 2 tablespoons dill.

Serves 8.

This recipe is relatively easy to make–just one skillet and a big bowl are required.  I didn’t time it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I could make it and clean up in under 30 minutes.  The lasagna held together very well when sliced (probably due to the eggs), and looked quite pretty on the plate.  I baked it ahead of time for the Passover seder, and then reheated it.  The topping became slightly hard and dried out, but otherwise it was very good.  The first time I made this, I only had about 1 cup of feta, so I didn’t put any on top.  Even without the melted cheese topping, I quite liked the recipe, and the top looked beautiful.  Both times I forgot to sprinkle dill on top after baking.  There are only a few more things that I might change about this recipe.  I might try reducing the amount of milk slightly, to 1.75 or 1.5 cups, since I’m not soaking the matzoh ahead of time. I might also try it sometime with lowfat milk, as I usually don’t have whole milk around, and had to buy it just for this recipe.  Finally, to simplify the recipe, it would be worth skipping the “reserve the milk mixture” step, and just pouring a bit of the spinach mixture on top of the final matzoh.

Rating: B+

Derek said this recipe is “very good, tasty, B+”.

Permalink 1 Comment

Passover apple nut cake

April 12, 2009 at 9:41 am (B_, From a friend, Jewish, dessert)

A friend made this Passover apple nut cake many years ago, and I remember it being huge and fluffy and delicious.  I asked her for the recipe, but never got around to making it.  Finally, almost ten years later, I came across the recipe scribbled on a piece of paper, and decided to give it a try for Passover.

Beat together in a large bowl:

  • 6 eggs
  • 2 cups sugar

Then beat in:

  • 1 cup peanut oil
  • 1 rind of lemon

Stir together and add to egg mixture, blending well:

  • 2 cups matzoh cake meal
  • 2 tsp. potato starch

Pour half the batter into a greased 9×13 pan. Mix and spread over batter:

  • 5 McIntosh apples, peeled, cored, sliced
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
  • juice of 1 lemon

Pour on the other half of the batter, and sprinkle over the top

  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1/4 tsp. cinnamon
  • 1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour 15 minutes.

Changes:  I can’t get matzoh cake meal in Germany so I put some regular matzoh meal through my mini-processor.  I also can’t find McIntosh apples, so I used a variety of different apples.  Finally, I remember that when my friend made the cake it was tall and fluffy, so rather than making it in a 9×13 pan I used a (greased) 8 cup bundt pan, and poured the extra batter into my cast iron skillet.

The cake broke into two pieces when I tried to get it out of the bundt pan–I guess I should have buttered it and floured it.  But other than that, it tasted pretty good.  I liked the texture a lot–the matzoh meal gives it a different texture than a normal cake, but I quite enjoyed the coarser crumb.  The cake was nice and apple-y, but overly sweet.  It has a *lot* of sugar.  I think all the sugar helps replace the missing flour, but next time I would make a few alterations.  I would use butter instead of peanut oil.  I would try reducing the sugar by a quarter or a third, and I would add more nuts.  The nuts were the best part, but they were few and far between.

Rating: B

Permalink Leave a Comment