Laura’s Kosher Kitchen Blog

I haven’t updated in many moons as I have been working hard and have been flown around the country for really fun catering jobs.

I love the 4th of July. As a child I adored the holiday. I would drag my parents to the parade route early, stake out my seat on the curb and wave my little flag enthusiastically. At home we feasted on hamburgers, hot dogs, skirt steaks. Our close family friend would make spectacular cakes and pies. My dad, our resident pyrotechnic  maniac would spend hours in preparation for the day organizing his boards and order of fireworks in order to awe us every year. He got so involved that he would try to time the fireworks each year and keep it in a journal so as to improve the “awe” factor the next year.

 We really had a small town stereotypic celebration. I loved it and looked forward to it all year long.

As an adult I still look forward to the 4th. I live in a college town in the  Midwest. We have our parade complete with marching bands and floats. We have our clowns tossing out candy to the kids and key-chains from the local hardware store.  Real home town stuff.

As an American Jew I realize the special importance of this holiday. This great country of ours gives us the ability to live, celebrate and worship as Jews. We are welcome here and  our contributions are part of the fabric of what makes this land great. No, the 4th of July is not a Yom Tov. It is pure American, secular and important. I love the holiday, I love the full swing of summer and I love this country. So, I am going to stake out my space at the parade even though my kids are at camp and summer school. I will wave my flag and be thankful for the freedoms I enjoy.

Chef Laura’s Brownies 

These brownies are rich and very fudgey. They are perfect to pack along and bring to the 4^th of July parade in your town. That is exactly what I will be doing!

½  pound unsalted butter
17 ounces best quality bittersweet chocolate(I love Callebaut 70%)
3 extra-large eggs
2 T. instant espresso powder
1 T. vanilla extract
1 cup + 2 T. sugar
½ cup flour +2 T.
2 t. baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1 cup chopped white chocolate (optional)

1 cup favorite chopped nuts such as walnuts, pecans, pistachios (optional)

 Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour a 13 by 18 by 1 1/2-inch sheet pan. 

 1. Melt together the butter and chocolate on top of a double boiler. Cool slightly. Stir together the eggs, instant coffee, vanilla and sugar. Stir in the warm chocolate mixture and cool to room temperature.

2. Stir together the ½ cup of flour, baking powder and salt. Add to cooled chocolate mixture. Toss the white chocolate and nuts if using with remaining 2 T. of flour to coat. This keeps it all from sinking to the bottom of the pan. Then add to the chocolate batter. Pour into prepared pan. 3. Bake for about 30 minutes or until tester just comes out clean. Do not over-bake! Cool thoroughly, refrigerate well and cut into squares.

Whole grain Challah 

I love the chewiness and nutty flavor of this dough. As a Mom I also like the addition of grains and nutrition that they add. As a chef I sometimes add a little All-Purpose flour for the gluten that it brings as I do like my Challot to look nice. If you go the Whole wheat route I recommend shaping the dough into small balls and baking them as a “pull-apart” challah rather than trying to braid it. Without the gluten the dough is very uncooperative. For the sponge:1 1/2 cups Whole wheat flour1 cup very warm water2 ½ tsp. yeast (I use the Saf brand) 

Mix all the sponge ingredients together in a mixing bowl and cover to proof for 1n hour. For the dough 

4 egg yolks (whites make the dough tough-yolks make it tender)1/3 cup brown sugar or honey2-3 cups Whole Wheat flour or combination of All-Purpose and Whole Wheat¼ cup softened butter or canola oil1 t. salt Add the above ingredients to the sponge either in a mixer or by hand. The dough should “slap” the sides of the bowl. If it gets too soft add a little more flour. 

Allow the dough to rise about 1 hour. Shape the loaves. Allow to rise one more hour. Brush with glaze.  Glaze: 1 whole egg2 T. waterstir together Sometimes I like to add flax seeds, quinoa and millet or just about anything else I can find to give the dough more texture.

My synagogue recently held a series of cooking classes. The classes were given predominately by home cooks though I did give a class as well. A friend of mine was to give a class on challah baking as she is known for her gorgeous challot. She called me several weeks before her class and asked if I knew how to do the more complicated 6 or more strand braids. I did! We then began to talk about challah baking techniques and recipes. Her recipe tends to be the more common one that people use. It includes all-purpose flour, yeast, sugar, salt, eggs and oil. That is the recipe that she has used for decades and it is “traditional” she told me. I told her about my latest recipe (I am always reinventing the wheel) that included egg yolks only (yolks tenderize the dough, whites toughen it), whole wheat flour, brown sugar or honey depending upon my mood, salt and yeast. She adamantly insisted that her recipe was traditional and sort of insinuated (in a friendly way) that mine was invalid. In my early days of “chefing” a small spark like that would send me into a heated discussion and rant. Now, I have learned to just listen and reply with a well-timed “Huh”.  This doesn’t mean that I agree.I am not even going to comment on Sephardic challot that don’t use eggs, or the halachic definition of challah or even a gluten free challah that is sure to become tradition is some households, I am going to go for the basic chef issue. 

The use of mass produced bleached flour was not until the industrial revolution. Grinding stones that originally milled the germ and bran of whole wheat were not fast enough for mass production. High Speed rollers were invented to produce the flour very rapidly. But, these rollers do not grind the germ and bran, they ejected it and it is sold as by-products for animal feed. Ironically that is most nutritious part of the grain. To make flour whiter and to make it what we associate to be “cakier”, flour is treated with chemical bleach. I am a professional chef and really like nice ingredients, but some things are best left alone and natural. I can’t stand the idea of feeding my kids “bleached” anything any day of the week-let alone on Shabbat. Somehow, it seems very unholy to me.   It is slow and expensive to make mass produced bread with stone ground flour. 100% stone ground wheat flour becomes stale and moldy very quickly. Most of us are used to the mushy, lighter than air bread products on the market. We may even think that they are more elegant than their rustic whole wheat cousins.  I know as a chef that I sometimes assume that rustic means lack of technique or skill-almost peasant-like in appearance and flavor, having no complexity.  Well, my bread is the exception. I love the nuttiness of whole wheat. I like the density and chewiness of it. I feel good about serving it to my kids as I know that it is loaded with the nutrition that was stripped out of the processed white flour.

Personally, the tradition for me comes in lighting my candles, looking at their beautiful faces and serving them something that come from my heart.

Shabbat Shalom

I opened Shallots Restaurant in Chicago almost 10 years ago. My goal was to create a restaurant that served modern, fresh food that was kosher. I created and wrote recipes that never used substitute ingredients. I never tried to cover up the fact that they were kosher by mimicking treif or trying to make dairy-esque desserts in a fleishig restaurant (faux creme brulee or margarine laden Bearnaise sauce-YUCK!). I don’t believe in fake or faux ingredients and don’t think that Jews who keep kosher should ever have to put up with second best.

 I love great food and pure, high quality ingredients. That is the food I served. In May of 2000 I opened ShallotsNY in Mid-town Manhattan. I used the same basic formula only with more global ingredients and with the idea of creating a world kosher cuisine. I chose foods that were naturally kosher and recipes that did not require foodstuffs born in chemistry labs!

In 2004 I moved my Chicago restaurant to Skokie (a suburb north of Chicago). There we served Mediterranean style bistro food.

We hand-cut our steaks and frites. We made our own bread daily and our own desserts. We used local and organic ingredients whenever possible. Our fish was always wild, never farmed. The mission was the same.

In August 2006 my first book “Jewish Cooking for All Seasons” (John Wiley and Sons publishers) was published and for sale nationwide.

I wrote a book that is an homage to the regions of America and the farmers who make it possible for all of us to enjoy fresh seasonal foods that are healthy, bursting with flavor and nutrition. I hope eveyone enjoys those recipes.

Please read my blog and comment where you want. I feel strongly about feeding people with healthy seasonal delights. I love to use what is already kosher and create new exciting combinations.

Enjoy! Laura

Last summer in the kitchen in the midst of a heat wave, my favorite  young staffer looked up at me and wondered aloud whether or not other religions had their “foods”? I know exactly where this was going as I had recently finished pondering that same question while writing my book “Jewish Cooking For All Seasons” (John Wiley and Sons publishers).

I first had to decide what was Jewish food? Is it a melt in your mouth onion and garlicky brisket? Or is it a peppery pastrami sandwich piled high on rye bread and slathered with spicy mustard? Could it be homemade gefilte fish, cold and dolloped with horseradish?

After many hours of trying to decide what made a food Jewish, I decide that what made food Jewish was kashruth. While I do prepare and enjoy the afore mentioned foods I also eat many other foods from around the world. I love to explore and eat different ingredients and flavors. I am a chef-that is my job. I also happen to keep kosher and cook only in a kosher kitchen. I concluded that what makes food Jewish is the unique way that it is prepared (and slaughtered in the case of meat).

Many cultures have a fish dish that is similar to gefilte fish. In Texas brisket is slowly barbecued until it is fork tender. The Italians have many cured meats as do other cultures that remind me of pastrami.

So, the food is not what makes something Jewish or not. By adhering to our particular set of laws we are observing something unique to the Jewish people. If I roll sushi for my Shabbat dinner appetizers I am just as Jewish as someone who is eating matzah ball soup.

I think the thing many people struggle with is the idea that you have separate Ashkenazi and Sephardi culture from the Set of Jewish laws.

I know someone who eats the same meal every week consisting of matzah ball soup, gefilte fish, brisket and some sort of sponge cake. In their household that is Shabbat. Any other food would be unacceptable for Shabbat.

I know of someone else who makes kiddush over a concord grape wine that she calls “kiddsuh” wine. Then, after the kiddush she pours another kosher wine.

I guess my point is that what makes a particular food “Jewish” is not the food itself, but the way it was prepared. If a dish is prepared with kosher ingredients and following the laws of kashruth-then it is kosher and yes, Jewish.