Wednesday, February 08, 2006

in the kishkes

At Amona the police hit the Jewish demonstrators "in the kishkes," "guts," to cause internal injuries, but this post is about a different type of "kishkes." It's about my first attempt to cook "kishke."

Kishke is a traditional Jewish food, at least for Ashkenazim, that's the community that spent a few hundred years in Europe. It can be described as a type of starchy sausage. The genuine article was probably stale bread and fats slowly cooked in intestine casing. Yeah, it sounds pretty disgusting, but...

...nowadays it's generally made pretty differently and wrapped in things like aluminum foil, baking (parchment) paper and similar things.

I grated an onion and carrot in the food processor.
Then I combined it in a bowl with about 1/3 cup of oil and
an egg or two
some spices, salt, pepper, paprika
and mixed it all up with matza meal
until it was almost solid
then I rolled it in cylinders in the baking paper
and placed them on top of chulent

OK, what's chulent
It's a slow cooking stew, traditionally served on Shabbat. It's started before Shabbat and then cooks all Friday night until Saturday (Shabbat) lunch.
The chulent I made last week, which got raves from the frequent critics, was simple.

First I browned a few pieces of stew meat with an onion,
then I added beans which were partially cooked, or use canned beans,
then some large chunks of potatoes and water to cover
It was already simmering when I placed the kishkes in.

I added more water before Shabbat, since it seemed to need it.

Then it wasn't touched until I served it late Saturday morning.

The critics loved it!

3 comments:

Batya said...

Old country? My "old country" sings "Take me out to the ballpark." I don't think my mother ever made chulent,

but it hasn't stopped me!

Anonymous said...

What kind of 'beans' did you use?

Batya said...

red beans