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magidTonight starts the last two days of Pesach; I'm hosting dinner tonight.
Hm. Rather a lot with the alliums.
About the citrus: I had a lot of them from Boston Organics, and I find that without dedication, I end up with a backlog. OK, plus I'd bought a bag each of organic lemons and limes at Trader Joe's. I used some oranges in salad and the previous cranberry compote, but there were still far too many. And I'd gotten Sabra liqueur for Pesach, which is chocolate-orange flavored.
So this morning I cut the peel off most of my citrus (I still have two oranges and about half a bag each of lemons and limes), pith and all, sliced it thin, and cooked it in a sugar syrup (some water with the rest of the powdered sugar (which, being for Passover, merely means it's sugar ground fine, but no added cornstarch)). It took a while to process them all, so some of the peel is very soft, while some is more toothsome. I gave it 20 minutes from the time the last of the peel went in the pot.
Once it was done, I packed a pint jar with drained peel (those new salad tongs are very useful), and put the rest of the peel to dry on a baking sheet. I reheated the syrup, adding a bag of cranberries and the diced citrus insides for a new batch of compote. Then I added Sabra liqueur to the peel in the jar, packing it as well as I could.
Once the extra peel was dry and the compote done, I put a bowl over a pot of boiling water, jury-rigging a double boiler. I melted a couple of bars of bittersweet chocolate, then added the peel, knowing I didn't have the patience to dip each piece separately; easier to spread them out while drying and have clusters of them. They're not pretty, but they taste good.
I saw a post in a food community that referred to the Pesach food restrictions as a 'fast.' It took me a little while to figure out what the writer meant, because in Judaism, a fast is no food nor water for X hours (ranging from daylight hours to 25 hours). I've heard of other kinds of fasting (for Xtianity with the meatless Fridays or the $something-less Lent, and so on, or health-based minimal-food days or weeks, etc), but none of them are definitions I'd use for Jewishly-significant days. And definitely not for Pesach, with so many mandated feasts. The seder is the most obvious, of course, but there are many seudot through the eight days, and fasting (in the Jewish sense) is prohibited. I wonder about the background of the writer.
- matza, grape liquid
- eggplant caponata, pickles, olives
- baked Camembert with date-nut spread and slivered almonds, to smear on matza
- three-onion matza brie (caramelized onions, caramelized leeks, fresh scallions)
- green salad with hearts of palm, mandarin oranges, feta, and possibly caramelized alliums
- steamed broccoli
- roasted carrots and beets
- cranberry-citrus compote (innards and a bit of peel from grapefruit, lemons, limes, oranges, and tangelos)
- chocolate-dipped peel (see above for kinds)
- dried fruit
- spiced walnuts
Hm. Rather a lot with the alliums.
About the citrus: I had a lot of them from Boston Organics, and I find that without dedication, I end up with a backlog. OK, plus I'd bought a bag each of organic lemons and limes at Trader Joe's. I used some oranges in salad and the previous cranberry compote, but there were still far too many. And I'd gotten Sabra liqueur for Pesach, which is chocolate-orange flavored.
So this morning I cut the peel off most of my citrus (I still have two oranges and about half a bag each of lemons and limes), pith and all, sliced it thin, and cooked it in a sugar syrup (some water with the rest of the powdered sugar (which, being for Passover, merely means it's sugar ground fine, but no added cornstarch)). It took a while to process them all, so some of the peel is very soft, while some is more toothsome. I gave it 20 minutes from the time the last of the peel went in the pot.
Once it was done, I packed a pint jar with drained peel (those new salad tongs are very useful), and put the rest of the peel to dry on a baking sheet. I reheated the syrup, adding a bag of cranberries and the diced citrus insides for a new batch of compote. Then I added Sabra liqueur to the peel in the jar, packing it as well as I could.
Once the extra peel was dry and the compote done, I put a bowl over a pot of boiling water, jury-rigging a double boiler. I melted a couple of bars of bittersweet chocolate, then added the peel, knowing I didn't have the patience to dip each piece separately; easier to spread them out while drying and have clusters of them. They're not pretty, but they taste good.
I saw a post in a food community that referred to the Pesach food restrictions as a 'fast.' It took me a little while to figure out what the writer meant, because in Judaism, a fast is no food nor water for X hours (ranging from daylight hours to 25 hours). I've heard of other kinds of fasting (for Xtianity with the meatless Fridays or the $something-less Lent, and so on, or health-based minimal-food days or weeks, etc), but none of them are definitions I'd use for Jewishly-significant days. And definitely not for Pesach, with so many mandated feasts. The seder is the most obvious, of course, but there are many seudot through the eight days, and fasting (in the Jewish sense) is prohibited. I wonder about the background of the writer.
no subject
Date: 2007-04-11 11:09 am (UTC)What is your caramelization procedure?
Do the people who do not eat meat on Fridays or a certain type of food for Lent call those fasts?
no subject
Date: 2007-04-11 04:01 pm (UTC)Caramelization: put lots of onions or leeks in a frying pan with some oil. Once the pan is hot, turn the heat down. Push the alliums around every so often. Add oil if they start to stick. Two or three hours later, or when you need to go to bed, turn the heat off. Use in whatever recipes come to hand.
I think that refraining from eating certain foods for religious reasons are called fasts by at least some Xtians (Catholics only? I don't know.).
no subject
Date: 2007-04-11 08:30 pm (UTC)Thank you so much for sharing your caramelization technique. Turning the heat down quite low must be the trick! I like that your directions instruct "or when you need to go to bed."
I guess if the Catholics don't have any full-fledged fasts, those are the only fasts they know. If the author was Catholic, perhaps the label of "fast" seemed appropriate. It is, however, uninformed, as you indicated; after all, Pesach is the Feast of Matza, not the Fast from Chametz.
But people in general seem to know that fasting, unqualified, indicates something different from fasting from -- or on only -- a specific thing (e.g. meat, bread, juice, shopping). And most people seem to have general knowledge of religious (and other types) of fasting (full-fledged), even if not in their own practices. So, it does seem odd that the author would choose to call Pesach a fast.
Then again, at least "fast" indicates something with a set or conditional endpoint, undertaken for only a limited duration, whereas "restriction" or "refraining" brings to mind ongoing adherence to certain standards (e.g. kashrut, vegetarianism, allergen-free diet). When using these latter words, we have to qualify with a time period (e.g. during Pesach) to indicate the non-permanence of the abstinence.
no subject
Date: 2007-04-12 02:05 pm (UTC)I usually make a big batch when I do them, because they take so long and cook down so much. Then there's lots of onions for everything :-).
If the author was Catholic, perhaps the label of "fast" seemed appropriate.
Perhaps. However, the original post was about making Passover food for people (and whether to mention that the matza-product wasn't actually kosher for Passover certified...), which implies to me that it's someone with some Jewish background, however recent.
It's a good point about the time duration of a fast of some sort v. an ongoing dietary restriction. Maybe the writer is someone transitioning from Catholicism to Judaism (or exploring in that direction), and doesn't yet know the cultural assumptions about the idea of fasting vary between faith communities.