Something entirely different: a Creole Passover

[Gifted Gourmet]

article and recipes from the Chicago Jewish News

Over the decades, Jewish women in New Orleans have produced a spate of privately published cookbooks, culinary memoirs filled with family stories and favorite recipes. "In these cookbooks, one sees how French cooking styles, African spices and seasonings, native produce and seafood, all of which are basic elements of Creole and Cajun cuisine, transformed even that most traditional of Jewish foods-the matzah ball," Ferris says.  Jewish women in New Orleans still prepare Passover dumplings as they were made during the antebellum period, she explains.  While matzah ball preparation is fairly standard, "the Creole influence appears in the seasoning, which includes green onions and parsley." Some cooks add ginger and garlic as well. In New Orleans, matzah balls are either served in an Alsatian-style beef-vegetable broth, called red soup, or in chicken and sausage gumbo. Surprisingly, they are also sauteed in copious amounts of butter and presented as a side dish. 

A delicious article which explains how Hurricane Katrina affected the Jewish community of New Orleans ...

Recipes for Passover here include:

Creole Matzah Balls

"Dirty Matzah" Dressing

Pesach Fried Green Tomatoes

Red Soup made with beef brisket

[annarborfoodie]

Marcie Cohen Ferris (author of Matzoh Ball Gumbo) visited Ann Arbor and Zingerman's Roadhouse did a dinner that featured recipes from the cookbook along with a discussion of the culture and food. I absolutely loved the signature matzoh ball gumbo, and I'm trying to convince my mother that we should have it for the first night of Passover this year. No luck yet, but I'm still working on it...

[TarteTatin]

I assume the chicken and sausage gumbo is lamb, chicken or beef sausage!

[Miriam Kresh]

I like to grate a little ginger into the matzah ball dough for piquancy. Matzah balls, no matter how light and fluffy, are a bland sort of experience; at least, so I find. Reading about matzah balls swimming in butter reminded me of how my mother's friend Sophy would smother freshly made matzah balls in onions which had been sauteed in chicken shmaltz, pouring plenty of the hot shmaltz over the whole dish, then grill them slightly in the oven. Talk about "heart attack on a plate" - fettuccine Alfredo's got nothin' over that.

But delicious...sigh. Pass the red wine, maybe that'll keep the cholesterol under control for a while.

Miriam

[Gifted Gourmet]

Miriam, I just found a recipe for something which comes from the Jews of Italy and I am dying to try it: TOMATO BROTH WITH CHICKEN MATZA BALLS (MEAT) and it looks simple yet good as a main dish .. from JWR (Jewish World Review):

scroll down to read:a new recipe for Pesach ..

[Miriam Kresh]

Melissa, that looks excellent, I saved that recipe. Hm, that would make a main dish all by itself, or could be the focus of the Yom Tov meal.

The salt cod recipe on the same page reminded me of a Portuguese recipe for cod in parsley sauce which my parents learned to make when we lived in Brazil. Oy was that good. But I haven't seen salt cod here in years. Not a really attractive-looking fish...a stiff, salted plank, none too clean and hard to handle...but once soaked and prepared right, creamy and white and rich. But that Italian chicken matzah ball recipe - thank you, I think you've solved my Yom Tov meal problem.

Miriam

Edited March 23, 2006 by Miriam Kresh (log)

[Gifted Gourmet]

Melissa, that looks excellent, I saved that recipe. Hm, that would make a main dish all by itself, or could be the focus of the Yom Tov meal.

But that Italian chicken matzah ball recipe - thank you, I think you've solved my Yom Tov meal problem.

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Thinking of making it before Passover to see how it comes out (which I will report to you!) but also because I like to "experiment" with variations .. like how I might make the broth of something different .. maybe a spinach broth with some mushrooms, or something sweet & sour ...

I love to try out all sorts of permutations on an original recipe .. no doubt because it relieves the boredom of making the same thing year after year ... my parents were Reform Jews and my mother ..(now 94, which is from not cooking, I'll wager! ).. did not cook ... I taught myself and even did some kosher catering along the way.

Originally, I had planned to do the veal breast again, and, yesterday I get a phone call from my Lubavitch sister-in-law asking me to make her favorite stuffed cabbage dish in a sweet & sour tomato sauce (that I had served for Rosh Hashonah) ... and I will, but for her .. my husband and I simply loved the stuffed veal breast (and,yes, sucked the bones .. the punchline from an old joke about asking a shiloh) .. so that we'll keep just for us!