Celebrating Shabbat
We Jews love to party. Fortunately, we never have to wait long for a holiday, because we get one every week: Shabbat. The only holiday mentioned in the Torah, Shabbat begins on Friday evening, and as sundown ripples across the time zones, observant Jews put aside the cares of the week, gather with family, and welcome the Sabbath queen. The meals are festive, befitting a holiday, and throughout various cultures treasured family recipes, so different from each other, all celebrate the same sacred occasion.
Gail Simmons, a judge on Bravo’s Emmy-winning series Top Chef and author of “Talking With my Mouth Full” (Hyperion) and “Bringing it Home” (Hachette), grew up in a traditional Jewish home, “celebrating the major holidays and observing rites of passage…with way too much food and a little prayer,” she writes. Shabbat, however, was special. “Friday night was a sacred night for our family,” she told me. “We could be busy all week with soccer and dance, but on Friday night my father came home early. All week we had dinner together in the kitchen, but on Friday night we ate in the dining room. My mother and I lit the candles, and my father did the blessings. There were always guests.”
Gail’s mother ran a cooking school, and the children grew up on leek quiche, Swiss chard and Arctic char. “She’s an ambitious cook ahead of her time, seeking great ingredients,” Gail said, “but stuffed cabbage and matzo ball soup are very much in her repertoire. She made a mean chopped liver and gets mad at me for putting wine in the brisket.”
At 18 Gail worked on a kibbutz in Israel, honing her talent for preparing perfect scrambled eggs, a bit of luck that would help her later. Spoiler alert: “I owe eggs for being on Top Chef,” she noted. (Read “Talking With my Mouth Full” for the full story.)
She married a man with a “passion for old Jewish food”: kasha varnishkes, brisket, short ribs, matzo balls. “His favorites are kasha and knishes, the beiger the better,” she said.
How refreshing that this sophisticated Top Chef judge who weekly debates the merits of a red curry gastrique or yuzu gelée is equally happy to discuss Jewish deli food. “I do high brow and low brow,” she admitted.
What will happen to this cuisine, I wondered. “It’s a dying cuisine with a great oral tradition. These delis are family businesses, and the younger generation just doesn’t have a vested interest in them,” she reflected. But there is hope. “Ironically this kind of nose-to-tail cooking has come back in fashion lately,” she writes. “Chefs love cooking giblets, liver and brains these days.”
We discussed what she calls a “Jewish deli resurgence.” “Talented chefs are resurrecting the classics in a new, modern way that is unfussy, trendy,” she said. “Chopped chicken liver pâté on toast is on every menu in New York City, even at ABC Kitchen from [Chef] Jean Georges Vongerichten. There’s a young Jewish kid who has opened a Montreal style deli in Brooklyn.”
Since Schwartz’s Montreal Hebrew Delicatessen, “the holy grail of cured beef,” is her standard, I couldn’t resist asking her to weigh in on the perennial pastrami debate between LA’s own Langer’s and New York’s Katz’s. “Oh, I prefer Langer’s,” she said, “but I’m a 2nd Avenue deli girl.”
The 2nd Avenue Deli (no longer located on 2nd Avenue these days due to lease challenges) is a New York institution. Opening in 1954, the restaurant was the dream of Abe Lebewohl, who “chose downtown 2nd Avenue as the site for his restaurant because he treasured the neighborhood’s Jewish heritage – especially its connection with the Yiddish Theatre,” writes Sharon Lebewohl in “The Second Avenue Deli Cookbook” (Random House). “As Jews dispersed throughout the world, they not only preserved their rich cultural heritage, but also expanded its parameters to include regional foods and recipes of their newly adopted nations. Ironically, the flight from persecution engendered an exotic and colorful Jewish cuisine.”
Tragically, Abe Lebewohl was murdered in 1996 while on his way to the bank to make a deposit. To this day the case has never been solved. “The Second Avenue Deli Cookbook” (Villard, $24.95) is filled with remembrances of this beloved Jewish restaurateur as well as some of the restaurant’s legendary dishes: chicken soup with matzoh balls, chopped liver, gefilte fish, kasha varnishkas, mushroom barley soup, noodle kugel, potato latkes, blintzes, and more. Hundreds of celebrity patrons flocked to its doors, many of whom contributed to the cookbook with stories as well as recipes.
I’ve chosen two comforting and warming soups, iconic deli fare,for a winter shabbat, or for whenever the mood hits.
Winter Borscht
“Though my version of the soup is fairly traditional,” writes Simmons, “I do include a couple of unconventional moves, using sweet potato, apple, and celery root. The natural sweetness of these ingredients, along with the beets, balances the acidity and spices and eliminates the need for added sugars like honey. Caraway seeds add an earthy, warm anise note and are a key piece of what makes this recipe so complex and alluring.”
Use vegetable broth and sour cream for a dairy meal. For a meat meal, use brisket and beef broth instead.
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling
1 medium yellow onion, thinly sliced
Kosher salt
4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2 dried bay leaves
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon caraway seeds
2 medium beets, scrubbed (not peeled) and trimmed, then shredded using a food processor or quartered and thinly sliced crosswise
1 small celery root, peeled and shredded using a food
cessor or corded and thinly sliced crosswise
1 large carrot (not peeled), thinly sliced into rounds
1 quart low-sodium beef or vegetable broth
1/2 small red cabbage, cored and shredded (about 4 cups)
1 Granny Smith apple, peeled, cored, and cut into 1/4-inch cubes
1 medium sweet potato (not peeled), cut into 1/4-inch cubes
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
Chopped fresh dill, for serving
Coarsely ground black pepper
Sour cream, for serving, optional
2 cups shredded brisket, optional
1. In a 6- to 8-quart Dutch oven or wide, heavy saucepan with lid, heat the oil over medium–high heat. Add the onion and 1 teaspoon salt and reduce the heat to medium. Cook, stirring occasionally, until onions begin to soften, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for 2 minutes more. Stir in the tomato paste, bay leaves, paprika, and caraway seeds to coat, then stir in the beets, celery root, and carrot. Add the broth and 4 cups of water, bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and cook 15 minutes.
2. Stir in the cabbage, apple, and sweet potato, return to a simmer, and continue cooking until the cabbage, apple, and sweet potato are just tender, about 5 minutes more. Stir in the vinegar, and cook just to blend the flavors, 3 minutes. Remove and discard the bay leaves. Adjust the seasoning to taste.
3. Serve hot, topped with dill and pepper, and adding sour cream or brisket if desired.
Source: “Bringing it Home” by Gail Simmons
2nd Avenue Deli Matzo Balls
Yield: 12 to 14
Gail Simmons’ favorite New York deli makes what they call “the lightest, fluffiest, most Jewish motherly matzo balls imaginable.”
“Schmaltz (rendered chicken or goose fat) is the key ingredient of Jewish cooking,” writes Lebewohl.
1 tablespoon plus 1/4 teaspoon salt
4 large eggs
1/3 cup schmaltz
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 1/3 cups matzo meal
1. Fill a large, wide stockpot 3/4 full of water, add 1 tablespoon salt, and bring to a rapid boil.
2. Meanwhile, crack eggs into a large bowl and beat thoroughly. Beat in schmaltz, 1/4 teaspoon salt, pepper, and baking powder. Slowly fold in matzo meal, mixing vigorously until completely blended.
3. Wet your hands and, folding mixture in your palms, shape perfect balls about 1 1/4 inches in diameter (they will double in size when cooked). Gently place matzo balls in boiling water, and reduce heat to a simmer. Cook for 25 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and serve with soup.
Source: “The 2nd Avenue Deli Cookbook” by Sharon Lebewohl and Rena Bulkin
Jlife Food Editor Judy Bart Kancigor is the author of “Cooking Jewish” (Workman) and “The Perfect Passover Cookbook” (an e-book short from Workman), a columnist and feature writer for the Orange County Register and other publications and can be found on the web at www.cookingjewish.com.
