Tag Archives: horseradish

Passover Meal for One (or More)

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Tonight is the first night of Passover. I had a busy day of work, school, more work, and more school. I wasn’t raised with any religious education and wouldn’t claim to be observant. A dear friend converted to Judaism several years ago. Early in the process, she would call me with questions. I wasn’t much help. I did gift her a copy of Joan Nathan’s The Jewish Holiday Kitchen, which is an excellent resource. The inscription read, “I’ll always eat pork with you.” I get to be a (red-headed, blue-eyed, freckled) Jew (with a Danish last name) because my mom is Jewish.

I told myself that not having a seder to attend was fine. But I have come to realize that I mark the passage of time primarily through food rituals. Somewhere between Bleecker Street in the West Village and Nevins Street in Downtown Brooklyn, I realized that I needed to do something to observe the holiday. As I transferred from the 4 train to the 2 train, I began to catalog the ingredients at the seder table and sort out how I could make them into a quick meal for one. I figured I’d knocked out the lamb last weekend. And my diet includes plenty of eggs. But I did manage to incorporate charoset, matzo, bitter herbs, karpas and wine into my Passover dinner for one.

The resulting dish can be scaled up to feed a crowd but comes together quickly enough that you can justify making it when you still have a few hours of theoretical approaches to cooking shows to read before bed.

Horseradish, Parsley and Matzo-Crusted Salmon

  • 1 six-ounce wild salmon filet
  • 1 sheet matzo, crushed into a mixture of powder and small pieces
  • 2 tablespoons plain yogurt
  • 1 tablespoon prepared horseradish
  • 1 tablespoon dijon mustard
  • 3 tablespoons finely minced curly parsley
  • 1/2 teaspoon lemon zest
  • salt and pepper
  1. Preheat the oven to 400. Combine all ingredients in a small bowl.
  2. Rinse and pat the fish dry. Pour a bit of oil into a glass baking dish, place the salmon skin side down and sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper. Using a spoon, mound the matzo mixture on top of your fish.
  3. Cook the salmon approximately 9 minutes until opaque on the outside but still a little jiggly. 

While the oven was preheating, I made a quick version of a Sephardic-style charoset by poaching raisins, dried and quartered figs, and diced red onion in some leftover red wine, honey and lemon juice with a bit of cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, clove and black pepper. I ate this spooned into endive, which made for a great bitter herb, and topped with batons of Adelegger, a very funky raw cow’s milk Alpine cheese (good cheese being my chosen religion).

Horseradish, Parsley and Matzo-Crusted Salmon

 

Pretty in Pink Borscht

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Last week’s CSA share included a handful of beets. I knew they would keep until this week, when I had a hunch I’d be getting some more. Sure enough, Tuesday brought another bunch–along with some of the crispest cucumbers I’ve ever tasted.

That very day, NPR reported that this is the hottest summer on record in the U.S. Roasting the beets was out of the question.

But cold borscht was not. I boiled my beets and eggs while preparing my morning coffee and a garlic, beet greens and egg scramble that I ate with a sliced fresh tomato–the first of the season! With the hot work completed early in the day, dinner preparation would really just be a matter of assembly.

Cold Borscht (serves about four)

  • 2 bunches beets (greens reserved for a nice sauté)
  • 2 Tbsp red wine vinegar
  • 4 garlic cloves
  • 1 large onion
  • 3 cloves
  • 2 whole allspice
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 1 tsp coriander seed
  • ½ tsp fennel seeds
  • 1 tsp pink peppercorns
  • 1 tsp green peppercorns
  • 1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes (or more if you like a little heat)
  • 1 Tbsp sugar
  • 2 tsp salt (and more to taste)
  • 2 Tbsp prepared horseradish (or to taste)

Clean the beets by soaking them in water and scraping off any lingering dirt. (I recommend using the edge of a teaspoon; three days and a few showers later, I am still trying to dig dirt our from underneath my thumbnail .) Trim the tops, bottoms and any rogue hairy stuff. Add these along with everything above except the horseradish to a large pot, cover with water and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and cook until your beets give easily when pierced with a fork (somewhere between one and two hours). Remove beets and strain liquid into a bowl using a chinoise or other fine mesh sieve. Once beets have cooled, slip peels off with your hands. Add all but one of the beets, reserved liquid and horseradish to the work bowl of your food processor and purée until smooth. You may need to add more water to get the desired consistency. Pour mixture back into the bowl and refrigerate for at least a few hours. (A full day would be fine.)

  • ¼ cup crème fraiche, sour cream or plain yogurt
  • Black pepper
  • 1 cooked beet, diced
  • 4 hard-boiled eggs
  • 2 Tbsp minced dill plus more for garnish
  • 1 large cucumber, peeled, seeded and diced

Whisk minced dill and crème fraiche, sour cream or plain yogurt into soup and season to taste with fresh-ground black pepper, salt and/or vinegar. Ladle soup into bowls, garnishing with halved eggs, beet and cucumber cubes and sprigs of dill.

It turned out that these were Chioggia beets, which were breathtakingly beautiful, though the dramatic stripes faded a bit during cooking and, ultimately, made for a borscht the color of Molly Ringwald’s prom dress at the end of Pretty in Pink. (Am I alone in having found that dress rather disappointing after all of the buildup?)

Still, it was damn tasty. I served it with a kale, sugar snap pea and pickled red onion salad and toasted pumpernickel bread topped with a crème fraiche spread and some killer smoked salmon that I’d picked up from Josephson’s Smokehouse in Astoria, Oregon. (Astoria is the town where Goonies was filmed, which makes for two ’80s movie references in a single blog post.)

An earthy rosé rounded out our feast, though I suppose that vodka would have been more traditional.