making something from nothing = Pesach recipes

Sunshine

Wed, Feb 09 2005, 3:01 pm

We don't eat packaged foods on Pesach and have to make everything from scratch. I mean everything! This is the first Pesach that I have to make since I am married and have to cook for many ppl. I need A LOT of really good recipes. Try to post easy ones please. I have the Spice and Spirit for Pesach but a lot of their recipes use oil and potaoe starch. Can anyone help me please?! I am going to start cooking 1 week in advance but need ideas what to make.

zuncompany

Wed, Feb 09 2005, 3:09 pm

a lot of them you can sub shmultz for the oil. I do and they are yum.

sara

gryp

Wed, Feb 09 2005, 3:09 pm

this is a great topic.
im not making Pesach this year but I can give you some ideas of what we eat...

gefilte fish made from scratch
chrain made from maror and beets
potato latkes fried in shmaltz
beet salad- beets, potatoes, carrots, onions with lemon juice and salt
chicken, meat
soups- chicken and beet/beef/onion
fruit salads peeled
cut vegetables peeled
fried potatoes in shmaltz

sound familiar anyone???
I love pesach Very Happy

ill think of others...

sarahd

Wed, Feb 09 2005, 3:26 pm

Boy, you have it difficult with no oil. Not even walnut oil? My parents never used oil either till my father was told he has very elevated cholesterol levels and can't eat schmaltz and butter. He did hataras nedarim and decided to use walnut oil. But at least my parents eat gebrokts and use potato starch. I assume you don't eat gebrokts.

Anyhow, here are a couple of recipes from pre-oil days.

Cucumber salad: Peel and slice (with food processor) cucumbers. Sprinkle salt over the cucumbers and allow to stand until the liquid is drawn out of the cucumbers. Remove the cucumbers and squeeze to get rid of all the liquid. Slice an onion in rings. Mix water, salt, sugar, pepper and lemon juice to taste and pour over cucumbers and onions. Oh, wait a minute - are you Lubavitch? Then you probably don't use cucumbers either. Hmm.

Carrot salad: Grate carrots, add lemon juice, salt and sugar. Also orange juice and pineapple tidbits if you use pineapple.

Potato kugel: Peel and grate Idaho potatoes on the kugel blade with a little onion. Add eggs - 1 egg per pound of potatoes, salt and pepper. Fry on the stove in lots of schmaltz. Yummm - nothing like potato kugel fried in schmaltz.

Chicken: Saute lots of onions. Grate carrots and add to onions. Add chicken, salt and pepper and braise over a low flame, tightly covered. It looks like you used paprika and is very good.

Chremslach: Cook potatoes, put through a ricer (lo aleinu Wink

). Add lots and lots of eggs and salt and some schmaltz. Drop into sizzling schmaltz by spoonfuls.

Soup: Saute onions. Cook zucchini, carrots and sweet potatoes along with potatoes in lots of water. Puree all the vegetables.

Vegetable soup. You can thicken it by grating a potato and mixing it with a raw egg. Drop the whole mixture into boiling soup and do not stir. The boiling soup will seperate the mass and it looks a little like (shhh) barley.

Chicken chow mein: Saute lots of onions, celery if you use it, shredded kohlrabi and celery root; add shredded cooked chicken. Serve over mashed potatoes.

Serve your mashed potatoes with lots of fried onions and schmaltz. Or with gribenes

Dessert: Apple compote, orange sherbet, lemon sherbet. Custard, as Sara mentioned elsewhere. Pears in wine: Peel and halve and core Bartlett pears. Cook in wine and dark grape juice. It turns a lovely purple and people love it.

The greatest Pesach chulent you have ever met (also called Yapchik): Grate a lot of potatoes, mix with salt and put in a crock pot with knee bones. Cover with thinly sliced potatoes or aluminum foil. You have to throw away the sliced potatoes because they discolor and become hard and inedible, so we use foil. The bones release all the gooey stuff which mixes with the potatoes and it's out of this world. Once you try it you'll never go back to your old chulent.

I can try and come up with more stuff. Let us know what categories you're looking for.

gryp

Wed, Feb 09 2005, 3:33 pm

sarahd:

Quote:

Oh, wait a minute - are you Lubavitch? Then you probably don't use cucumbers either. Hmm.

what on earth??

gryp

Wed, Feb 09 2005, 3:37 pm

those are interesting recipes- thanx! the carrot salad with pineapple and orange juice sounds like something we can do but I wonder how it would taste with boiled sugar...

zuncompany

Wed, Feb 09 2005, 3:37 pm

the sweet and sour meatballs from S&S pesach over mashed potatoes is very good. Let me look around for more. I don't have them handy right now.

sara

sarahd

Wed, Feb 09 2005, 3:39 pm

RG wrote:

sarahd:

Quote:

Oh, wait a minute - are you Lubavitch? Then you probably don't use cucumbers either. Hmm.

what on earth??

Dunno. A Lubavitcher girl I know told me once that Lubavitchers don't use cucumbers because they didn't use them in Russia.

gryp

Wed, Feb 09 2005, 3:40 pm

I dont know, people do have different minhagim. we use cucumbers but peeled with a seperate knife and washed thoroughly.

sarahd

Wed, Feb 09 2005, 3:42 pm

RG wrote:

those are interesting recipes- thanx! the carrot salad with pineapple and orange juice sounds like something we can do but I wonder how it would taste with boiled sugar...

I don't see why it should be a problem. Mix the sugar with the juices before you add them to the carrots.

gryp

Wed, Feb 09 2005, 3:45 pm

we'll have to try it. thanx again. beet salad gets monotonous after 6 meals...
once I made a cucumber salad with just lemon juice, salt, and water and it tasted pretty good. I didnt think of adding sugar then...

sarahd

Wed, Feb 09 2005, 3:47 pm

Oh, meatloaf or hamburgers: Mixed ground meat with riced cooked potatoes, onions and eggs. Bake for meatloaf or fry for hamburgers. We use a combination of ground chicken, veal and turkey. (We don't use beef because we use the same mixture to make "falsche fish" - we don't eat fish on Pesach - but I imagine it will work just as well with beef.)

gryp

Wed, Feb 09 2005, 3:47 pm

sunshine- the thread title tells me that pesach is our real chance at making a creation-yesh me'ayin- something from nothing Very Happy

gryp

Wed, Feb 09 2005, 3:49 pm

whats riced cooked potatoes?
sarahd- if you dont eat fish on pesach then what do you eat?

sarahd

Wed, Feb 09 2005, 3:53 pm

Riced cooked potatoes: Cooked potatoes that you put (while still hot) through a ricer, which is a contraption that is hard to describe, but your local housewares shop should have one. It's basically something that forces the potatoes through tiny holes so they come out much smoother than mashed potatoes, with no lumps. It's called a ricer because when the potatoes come out they look like long strands of rice. Indispensible on Pesach.

gryp

Wed, Feb 09 2005, 3:54 pm

is that like a grinder that clamps to the table that we do the maror in?

sarahd

Wed, Feb 09 2005, 3:55 pm

Quote:

sarahd- if you dont eat fish on pesach then what do you eat?

We eat "falsche fish", which is a mixture of ground chicken, veal, onions, riced potatoes and potato starch (since we use it) and eggs, which you knead forever along with lots of water to bind and harden it. You form balls and drop into boiling water which is prepared as for gefilte fish (I.e. salt, sugar and pepper, sliced onions and carrots.) Cooked till cooked. It tastes so much like gefilte fish that people who don't know would never guess.

Last edited by sarahd on Wed, Feb 09 2005, 4:00 pm; edited 1 time in total

sarahd

Wed, Feb 09 2005, 3:59 pm

RG wrote:

is that like a grinder that clamps to the table that we do the maror in?

No, it has a container-like part with tiny holes that holds the potatoes and a lid that fits into the container. You squeeze the two together by the long, hinged handles that are attached to the two parts and force the potatoes through.

Last edited by sarahd on Wed, Feb 09 2005, 4:00 pm; edited 1 time in total

zuncompany

Wed, Feb 09 2005, 4:00 pm

RG- a bunch of Lubavitchers don't eat veggies with seeds. I don't know where it comes from, but I know families who don't.

chicken(this is a dish I prepare before pesach so I can use potato starch)- layer the pan with sliced potatoes. Dreg the chicken in egg and than coat with potato starch. Lay chicken over the pot. lemon juice and sweet white wine over the chicken. Bake and tada... so yummy. Zu loved it so much last year. Sometimes I make it for shabbos when he is being picky about his food.

soup- meat bones, dice up tons of veggies and throw them in with water. Let it simmer for like two or so hours. take ground meat and add in an egg, grated onion, and grated tomato. Make meat balls and add them into the soup. YUMMY!

fry an onion thats diced in shmultz. Take mashed egg and mix. some salt and all good. yummy

Israeli salad- cuc, tomato, onion and dice. lemon juice and salt. yum. If you use oil a little oil.

I got a duck last year. salt and freshly ground pepper. take the duck and stick it with a fork all over. make a rack with foil and put the duck on. Take the pepper and salt and put on duck breast side down. Pour some red wine over it. cook 15 mins at 425, prick, more wine and cook another 15 mins. turn it breast side up and prick again more wine. cook at 375 for 45ish mins... until the skin is all brown and it is cooked through. So so so yum.

with the duck carcuss I threw it into a pot, water, diced veggies (sweet pot, zucchini, etc...). Turned into an awesome soup.

brisket or roast- layer of potatos. put meat over. cut two onions in half, than slice and seperate the half slices and put all over meat. chop some carrots in. add in about half a bottle of red wine and bake until cooked through.

let me think more.
I LOVE cooking for Pesach!
sara

gryp

Wed, Feb 09 2005, 4:01 pm

sounds handy. is it electric?