Alice Weiss' Matzoh Brie

Matzoh Brei is basically French Toasted Matzoh.  It being Passover and many of you aren't eating anything with yeast, this is a wonderful guilty pleasure and is even great left over and cold!

I made it this year in my new favorite pan (but the link below is what my Mom always used)
https://smile.amazon.com/Rachael-Ray-Hard-Anodized-Nonstick-5-Quart/dp/B005C3XN5E/ref=sr_1_1?crid=38K6X363AGB1O&dchild=1&keywords=rachel+ray+oval+pan&qid=1586483671&sprefix=rachel+ray+oval%2Caps%2C157&sr=8-1

Serves 6 (halve it for smaller quarantine crowd!)

One box plain matzoh (not egg or salted)

6 large eggs 

1-2 sticks salter butter

1/2 cup vegetable or canola oil

Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt (Morton’s is saltier so professional cooks don’t use it)

Maple syrup (optional)

Will need a colander, large mixing bowl , smaller mixing bowl and for nostalgia, a cheap Presto electric frying pan (see link) which is what my mother used or any large bottomed sauté or frying pan with a tight fitting lid.

Note: if you don’t have electric pan you can use a wide deep non-stick fry pan or well seasoned cast iron pan, but make sure you have a cover for it. See below for a great pan that I often use for this and for making fresh tomato sauce and frittatas. 

Presto 12" Electric Skillet https://www.amazon.com/Presto-06620-11-Inch-Electric-Skillet/dp/B0000BYD65/ref=sr_1_9?crid=27YP5NYPX0Z12&keywords=presto+electric+skillet&qid=1559057658&s=home-garden&sprefix=presto+electric+S%2Cgarden%2C1251&sr=1-9

1. Into large bowl break box of matzoh into irregular chunks, not too small.  Run water till hot and add to broken matzoh till just covered by pushing down on the matzoh pieces to get them under the water.  You don’t want too much water, just enough to get it wet when slightly submerged. Let stand. 

2. Meanwhile put one stick butter and oil into pan that is turned on to high heat and let melt. Don’t let it burn. (in non-electric it will melt much faster, so set that on medium flame instead for the melting, you can turn it up after you’ve added the matzoh to it)

3. Working quickly, crack the 6 large eggs into a bowl adding a heavy splash of cold water and teaspoon of kosher salt.  Beat till combined. 

4. Pour wet soaked matzoh into a colander over sink and gently press out most of the moisture. It should still be damp but not wet. Don’t press so hard that you smush or break it further.

5. Dump strained matzoh in big mixing bowl, add beaten eggs and combine evenly. You will have an nice eggy gloppy slop. 

6. In hot buttered and oiled pan dump the contents into pan, spreading out to the corners so even in the pan. 

7. Keeping heat high, cover and let cook for like 5-10 mins. Lifting up a corner after 5 minutes to check on doneness. You want it well browned, a little more than just golden. 

If it’s still sticking to pan you have a long way to go. 

Using a sharp edged metal spatula, cut down into it and flip it over in big chunks to cook the raw side. Doesn’t have to be a perfect flip. Cover and cook another 5 mins. Pan should still be a bit buttery.  

Taste a little piece and see if it needs more salt. It probably will. Sprinkle a few three-finger pinches of kosher salt from up high over it, cover and keep cooking. 

Use a light hand when turning or tossing. 

Check in a few minutes and pan should be a bit dry.  Cut up second stick of butter and drop pieces all over, cover and continue cooking.  Once the butter has melted into the matzoh brei, give it another gentle toss, disbursing the butter throughout.  Cover and cook some more.  

Once it’s cooked through you can toss it around more often, getting the lighter pieces to cook more as well.  Try not cutting into too small pieces is best.  You want it irregular.  Keeping it covered while cooking keeps it tender and hot. It should kind of separate into irregular chunks that will eventually be light brown with crispy edges here and there when done.  The more you leave it to cook the crispier it will become and the better it will taste!

The key to great brei is you want it crispy in parts and cooked well through and irregular shapes. The longer it cooks the better. You don’t want it damp or steamy, which it will be at the beginning. 

Overall 30-40 minutes is needed for great matzoh brei, always checking seasoning for proper saltiness.  It all about checking and knowing when to turn. The more you make it the better you will become. 

Serve from pan to keep it warm and pass the syrup and additional salt if needed. 

 
  🇮🇹Zucchini Pasta🇮🇹

Ingredients:

1lb Spaghetti

4 Zucchinis, sliced into thin rounds or you can use large box grater or 3-4 Containers of Zucchini Noodles (if you can get these they are very convenient) give them a rough chop

Olive Oil, enough to cover bottom of your largest frying or sauté pan

Grated Cheese, to taste.  I like (as you may have guess by now, Locatelli)

1 Lemon, juiced and zested

Reserved Pasta Water

2-3 tbsp of Salted Butter

Salt and Pepper to taste

Pinch of Red Pepper Flakes

1/2 container of Creme Fraiche or  1/3 cup of Sour Cream (Optional, I like it a little creamy, some like it buttery and add even more butter and cheese instead of this ingredient)

Directions:

Put pot of water on and salt well when it comes to a boil.

Meanwhile heat oil on medium high in the pan and when it's hot, throw in the zucchini.

Season with salt and pepper and sauté till zucchini softens, but not mushy and keeps it bright green color.

Throw pasta into salted water and cook for usually 11 minutes.

Add Lemon zest and juice to zucchini and toss combine over medium heat.

Throw in butter and pinch of red pepper flakes and toss to melt, then adding a good helping of cheese evenly sprinkled, to taste (I don't like it super cheesy and call add later)

Pasta should be almost done, so reserve 2 cups of pasta water, you won't use it all, maybe only 3/4 cup 

So take some pasta water and add to pan, enough to make it juicy and glossy.  

Turn off heat and using tongs, pasta grabber or spider strainer, add pasta to the pan, giving it a good toss, checking seasoning.

Add Creme Fraiche and a bit more pasta water to get a nice creamy glossy pasta.  

Serve immediately with more cheese!

For all of you that have never heard of Blurb.com, you simply must go there, download their BookWright program and start making books, right on your computer.

This program is crazy!  It will take some time to figure it out, but hey, most of you have nothing but time!  And it's fun!  Here is your chance to take all those fav photos, recipes, essays, or your thoughts about life, now that it has become so tenuous. I think we all have quite a few words that could fill a book right about now.

I know that they probably won't be printing books right now, but they can make you an e-book, which will suffice till things get back to normal.

Here's the BookWright program link.
https://www.blurb.com/bookwright-install-mac?platform=MacOS&bwversion=1.4.3&download=true

I made my this cookbook for my friend Pam Abdy, prior to the birth of her daughter.  Seven years later, with her daughter Mackensie, they sat down today and went through the cookbook that was made in her honor.  They are going to start cooking together from it!  This was exactly why I created the book in the first place.  Thank you Pami for remembering to show Mackie and sharing that joy today with me.

You can preview the first 30 pages of this e-book and it's free to download.  Some of you have asked me for it.  Thank you again, Amanda Demme, for the stunning cover photo.

https://www.blurb.com/ebooks/reader.html?e=353695#/spread/front

Ann's Cake Lorraine

                  Ann's Cake Lorraine

                                   


Ok, like all these recipes, in the times we are living in right now, you make do with what you have. Let me start out by saying I'm not a sweets baker!  But I made this cake!

If you don't have raspberries but you have strawberries, use them.  If you don't have either, just make the chocolate, or flavor one of them with something else, like banana or maraschino cherries or even better Luxardo Cherries (I know a lot of you have a jar of them in your cupboard!!)

I wanted a small cake. Most recipes are for 8 or 9" pans.  I looked for one that was for a 7" pan (I only had one of these and it was a spring form pan and it worked great!  I just baked one layer at a time!  And by the way, a 7" cake is still huge! It would feed at least 12 people.  So freeze it in quarters for eating pleasure later, when you may not have the ingredients.

If you only have 8" or 9" pans, make two layers. Check cooking time at 15 mins since it might be thinner.  But it's done when crumbs come out on the tester you stick in the cake.

Or half the recipe if you only have a small brownie pan or sheet pan.  Get creative.  The batter will fit into anything!  A bundt pan! The key is that is it a good cake recipe with not too many eggs, vegetable oil and plain yogurt (or buttermilk which is milk with a spoon of vinegar in it)

Halve the recipe for just a little cake if you are low on provisions.  The one thing you will need is cocoa powder.  Order some on Amazon.  Or if you are still going to the store or getting stuff delivered, I'm sure they will have some. 

You might try melting some unsweetened chocolate or semi sweet chocolate and adding it to the batter and compensate by adding a little less sugar and a little more flour. 

If you have a scale, it's easier measuring in grams, especially when measuring batter for each layer.

Ok, here goes: 

Chocolate Cake

Ingredients:

For the Cake:

• 2 1/4 cups 285 grams all-purpose flour
• 2 1/3 cups 470 grams superfine sugar

  to make superfine sugar, take regular sugar, same measurement and put in a cuisinart and pulse, maybe only three times, let the dust settle before taking off the top. Don't have a cuisinart, put in a blender or use a stick blender.  Superfine sugar is just finer version of our regular sugar.

• 3/4 cup 90 grams dark Dutch-process cocoa powder (I use Cacao Barry Extra Brute)
• 2 1/2 teaspoons 12 grams baking soda
• 2 teaspoons 10 grams baking powder
• 1 teaspoon 8 grams salt
• 300g plain yogurt
• 3/4 cup 180 ml brewed coffee or espresso
• 2/3 cup 160 ml vegetable oil
• 3 eggs room temperature
• 1 tablespoon 15 ml pure vanilla
  
  IF YOU HAVE FRESH RASPBERRIES, PRESS THEM INTO THE RASPBERRY BUTTER CREAM LAYER AND ADD THEM TO THE TOP OF YOUR CAKE!
  YOU WILL NEED ABOUT 1.5 CONTAINERS, THE REMAINING HALF USE FOR YOUR RASPBERRY PUREE (SEE BELOW)
  
  

Instructions

For the Cake:

Preheat oven to 350° F. Prepare three 7-inch round cake pans with nonstick spray and parchment rounds. (if you don't have parchment, butter the pan and with either cocoa powder or last resort flour, dust the pans after buttering or spraying and knock out any flour or cocoa that doesn't stick.

In bowl of electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, sift all dry ingredients, including sugar. 

       If you don't have a sifter, put them in a mesh strainer and shake gently into the bowl.

       If you don't have a stand mixer, use a hand mixer

Combine eggs, buttermilk, coffee, oil and vanilla in a measuring cup and beat lightly with a fork.

Add milk mixture to the dry ingredients mix for  a few seconds on low, then slowly move to medium and mix there for 1 minute. Don't over mix.  Cake batter should not be beaten! Divide batter evenly among prepared pans--each pan should contain about 500 grams of batter for each layer.

Bake the first 2 layers for 20 minutes and rotate pans after 10 minutes in oven. 

Continue to bake another 5 mins, until toothpick or skewer comes almost clean (a few crumbs). Cool on wire racks for 20 minutes. Repeat with remaining layer if 7" cake, and then gently invert onto racks until completely cool.

        

Eggless Buttercream(s)

Ingredients:

Chocolate Buttercream

1 Stick Salted Butter softened

256g Powdered Sugar

48g of Cocoa Powder 

1.5 teaspoons of vanilla

1.5 tablespoons of milk 

Raspberry Buttercream

1 Stick Salted Butter softened

1.5 teaspoons of vanilla

256g Powdered Sugar

20g raspberry puree 

Half container of raspberries well mashed and put through a sieve to remove seeds

Instructions:

For the Chocolate:

In a bowl, add the butter and the vanilla.

Cream together with hand mixer, on low speed until they are completely combined.

In a separate bowl, stir with a wire whisk till the Cocoa Powder and the Powdered Sugar are combined.

Add the powdered sugar mixture one cup at a time  to butter mixture and continue to beat on medium speed until the frosting is creamy.

For the Raspberry:

Using a hand mixer, cream butter and vanilla

Add sugar one cup at a time, mix till all sugar is absorbed

Add Raspberry and beat till just combined.  

note: If this frosting separates, add a splash of HOT water to it and beat till it comes together.

Assemble with frosting of choice:

Put a dollop of frosting on a 7-inch round cake board (or cake plate) or 8-inch scalloped cake board.

Put your first layer top-up on the cake board or plate, and spread about 1 cup of frosting evenly across layer. Put the second cake layer on top and repeat with another layer of frosting. Put the final cake layer top-down. Cover the cake with plastic wrap and wiggle the layers into place. (I DIDN'T DO THIS AND MY CAKE LEANED A LITTLE AND I FORGOT TO TURN THE TOP LAYER UPSIDE DOWN, HENCE THE ROUNDED TOP!)

YOU CAN SMOOTH THE FROSTING WITH A LITTLE WARM WATER ON YOUR CLEAN FINGERTIPS AND RUN THEM GENTLY OVER THE ICING.

A

Ann's Meatballs with Sauce

    

What you need to know is that you don't have to have all the ingredients, but the key to getting the meatballs light is bread soaked in hot water.  A rustic bread is best, like a sourdough or a a stale baguette, but if all you have is white bread or whole wheat or packaged hotdog rolls, if it is super soft already, just wet is for a short time and drain, don't let it get too soggy.  More in the directions!

The idea is to get a nice light binder.

As for the sauce, I think a version of my basic tomato sauce is on this blog for the eggplant lasagna, the only difference here is the addition of the meat drippings to the sauce.

Feel free to halve this recipe as you will get 15-18 meatballs with 2lbs of meat and they are large! Many people are only cooking for one two or three people these days....so...

Ann's Meatballs

Ingredients:

2 lbs Ground beef (or a mix using any of the following: ground pork, sausage, turkey, veal with the    beef). If you don't eat beef, you can make a turkey and/or chicken, just use light and dark meat.

1/3 cup fresh whole milk ricotta (or whatever you have laying around, you can use cottage cheese or cream cheese, skim ricotta or none if you can't get it).  Hey you can probably use plain yogurt!  This dairy and the bread give the meatball it's lightness

2 eggs

1/3 cup finely grated cheese. I like Locatelli (sheep) but you can use parmigiana if you prefer (cow)

Fresh chopped parsley (bought a few bunches, chopped up fine, put it in a container in the freezer and grab pinches of it when needed, keeps forever!) Dried is fine too!

3 center slices of sour dough or other crusty bread.  Any bread you are making at home these days will work too!  If using a packaged bread, you can actually soak them a little, just wet the bread let is sit a bit then drain water out before it get waterlogged and mushy.  And you will wring out the rest of the water gently when you add to meatball mixture.

Cut into small cubes and soak in hot water.

You will be grabbing the soaked bread out of the water and giving it a gentle squeeze, getting out as much water as you can, without squeezing out the holes in the crumb of the bread.  Be gentle about it, but don't put it in the mixture soaking wet either or the meatballs will fall apart!

2 tsps of fennel seeds

1 tsp of garlic salt

Fresh ground pepper and salt to taste

Directions:

Pre-Heat oven to 475.

But it all ingredients in a bowl and using your hands, mix together thoroughly.  Don't be afraid to over mix, as you want it to hold together.  Some of the bread will almost disintegrate into the meat and some won't.  It's okay.

Get a roasting pan and shape your meatballs, they should be slightly larger than golf balls.  You can use an ice cream scooper or a rounded up 1/3 cup measure's worth for each one.

Roll and set on the roasting pan, even spaced apart.

Bake for 20 minutes and then check for doneness. See note*

Start your sauce at this point!!

*note: They should be golden brown and there should be brown with a ring of bits around each one on the pan, don't let juices burn, if it does, you will have over cooked the meatballs and not have any bits to scrap up with a spatula to add depth to your sauce.

Remove from oven and allow to cool on a rack in the pan.  Remove them from the pan gently with a metal spatula and put in a serving dish.

With the spatula, gently scrape off the brown bits, you don't need every last bit and shouldn't be scratching your roasting pan, and add to your sauce which should by this time be simmering away.

Later you can serve the meatballs naked or spoon some sauce over them or put a few in the sauce after is cooked a while to add flavor.


Ann's Tomato Sauce 

Ingredients:

2 - 28oz cans whole Italian tomatoes (If you can't get whole, get crushed, if they aren't Italian San Marzano, no big deal, any Roma style tomato in a can, just not puree)

Some fresh basil or dried is fine if you don't have fresh...a tsp of dried is fine or 6-8 leaves rolled up and finely sliced (chiffonaded) or just medium chopped if your knife skills are not up to snuff.

Large pinch red pepper flakes

2 tbsp of Sugar

2 tbsp of Kosher Salt

12 grinds of black fresh cracked black pepper

1 tsp of fish sauce (you can use soy if you don't have but then just 1/2 tsp)

1 tbsp White Vinegar

Grated Locatelli (or parmesan) to taste (use to season toward the end of cooking when it will melt into the sauce and not stick and burn on the bottom of the pan)

Olive Oil, enough to coat the bottom of the pan

Butter to finish sauce at the end or a pat during cooking as the sauce starts to come together


Directions:

Find you biggest deepest sauté pan or dutch oven, that has the biggest cooking surface on it.  The bigger the surface the faster the sauce will cook.

In a bowl, dump out the tomatoes (and their juices) with a stick blender, blend down on each tomato till they are all crushed (if using crushed tomatoes you don't have to do this).  You don't want is smooth, you want to blender it and still keep it slightly chunky.

If you don't have a stick blender, use your hands and squeeze each tomato taking care not to squirt yourself and your clothes!!  You want them pretty well crushed.

Then add all ingredients except the grated cheese, oil and butter (they are for later) to the ingredients to the bowl of tomatoes.  Give a stir to blend a bit.  Let them sit, while you get your pot on the stove.

On medium high heat, generously cover the bottom of your pan or pot with olive oil.  Let it warm up and gently pour in the tomatoes.

Let them come to a simmer.  Keep cooking and stirring with a metal spatula, scraping around the edges and across the bottom of pan, to make sure it isn't sticking and to get all the good tomato bits that collect along the edge.

Once the sauce is bubbling, lower the heat to medium to a nice high simmer without it spattering all over.  Keep scraping it down.

After about 15-20 minutes ad a tablespoon of butter, whatever you have around.  Sprinkle lightly some of the grated cheese and just let both sit on top melting into the sauce.  Then go back to scraping.

By this time the meatballs should be done and cooled, so scrape off the bits in the meatball pan and add to your sauce.  You can even add one of two of them to give a more meaty flavor to the sauce.

Once the sauce has come together and it doesn't have that raw tomato taste but instead a nice buttery pomodoro taste, it's done!  Don't cook it down or your will lose all your sauce.

I don't like a dark sauce and I also prefer it on the sweet side, hence the sugar.

Also, this is a quick sauce and my favorite kind.  Only thing better is a summer fresh tomato sauce!

Check the seasoning of your sauce adding salt if needed or another sprinkle of cheese or another pat of butter never hurts.

Cook your pasta and voila!  I like to spoon the sauce over each plate of pasta and over the meatballs, so I can control how much sauce I like! That's the Italian way!