Food in Focus – Chopped Herring and Kichel

This is going to be a difficult Pesach.
Once again.
It is hard to celebrate freedom if we are not all free, and as long as there are 59 hostages - our brothers and sisters - still held against their will IN HELL in Gaza, we are not free.

We will still do our best to enjoy this time. We need to acknowledge and celebrate that the Jewish community has survived thousands of years of the greatest existential challenges and not only are we still here but we are strong, resilient and THRIVING. As is Israel!

If you just don’t feel like cooking much this year, especially after the Seders, I get it. 

But here’s something that will take you less than 15 minutes to prep, cook and get on the plate.

In Danny’s (husband) family they call it ‘matzo egg’ but it has morphed into ‘matzo brei’ over the decades. It is the one thing Danny can cook well, in fact he is the one who taught me how to make it.

(To pimp it up, sprinkle with feta and chopped chives.)

MATZO ‘egg’ BREI

4 pieces matzo
water
2 eggs
60 ml (1/4 cup) milk
1/2 teaspoon salt 
1 tablespoon butter

to serve
sour cream and salt
or cinnamon sugar

Break the matzo into 2 cm pieces and place in a bowl. Cover with tap water and soak for 5 minutes. Drain and squeeze out the excess water. In a medium bowl, beat the eggs with the milk and salt. Add the matzo and stir to combine. 

Heat a medium frying pan pan over high heat, add the butter. When melted and sizzling, add the matzo mixture to the pan.

Reduce the heat to medium-high and cook for a few minutes. Once the bottom sets, toss the mixture around in the pan. Let it set again for a minute and repeat until it is cooked through.

Serves 2 (in my family) - 4 (in most families)

#pesach2025 #pesachrecipes #passover #jewishcooking not#chocolatecake
#easycooking #easypassoverrecipes ...

Thumbprint Jam Bickies for Pesach

60 g potato starch
60 g fine matzo meal
40 g caster sugar
30 g almond meal
80 g unsalted butter, at room temperature
zest of ½ small lemon
1 egg yolk

tart apricot jam

Whisk the potato starch, matzo meal, sugar, almond meal and lemon zest together in a large bowl. Rub in the butter with your fingertips until you have crumbs, add the egg yolk and mix until a dough is formed. This can be done in the food processor.

You will need a lined baking tray.
Divide the dough into three, and then each piece into eight.
Gently roll each piece into a smooth ball and place them on the prepared tray.
Using the top of your thumb, make an indent in the top of each cookie and flatten slightly.
Spoon in a little jam into each indentation.
Bake for 15 minutes at 180C or until golden on the base.
Makes 24 bickies.

These bickies are the most exciting Passover biscuits we have seen in a long time - because they don’t taste like Passover biscuits! The recipe has an interesting story.

Eve Graf was the wife of the first rabbi of the Cardiff Reform Synagogue in Wales. She was born in Berlin, Germany, in 1918, and was brought up by her widowed mother. Eve met and married Rabbi Graf in Berlin when she was only 19, and as newlyweds they were forced to flee from their home with his parents. Rabbi Graf was outspoken against the Nazi regime and after Kristallnacht it was no longer safe for them. In the spring of 1939, they were sponsored for immigration to Britain. They ended up in the Welsh capital, Cardiff, to set up the newly formed reform community; it is still the only one in Wales.
In the early 1950s, as the first Rebbetzin, Eve Graf encouraged the many refugee members of the newly founded community to enliven the synagogue’s social events with their baking skills - in those days the smell and taste of almonds and vanilla was incredibly luxurious. This is her recipe, originally published in our third book ‘It’s Always About the Food’

💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙

#jewishfood #passover #pesach #passoverrecipes #pesachcookies #bestrecipes ...