Comfort Food

Tied up with home, with family & with memory

How do you define “comfort food”? For me I think of the tomato soup my mother served me on a tray when I was sick. (It probably was Campbell’s, but still….) I recall the pistachio gelato we enjoyed in Italy, Aunt Sally’s Hanukkah latkes or the occasional pasta dish I think of as my guilty pleasure. 
   “At first glance, we might think of it as the food we make without thinking too much,” writes the Israeli-born British chef, restaurateur, and food writer, Yotam Ottolenghi, in his latest cookbook “Comfort” (Ten Speed Press, $37.99) co-written with Helen Goh, Verena Lochmuller, and Tara Wigley. “It might also be the recipes we grew up on, which remind us of being a kid and being cared for. Or the food we eat too much of, unable to resist its ability to hit the spot. Nurture, convenience, indulgence: agreeing on the notion of comfort food is fairly straightforward. What’s harder to pin down, though, are the actual dishes that hit these proverbial spots. One person’s idea of comfort food might be the next person’s idea of challenging. It’s personal, tied up with home, with family, with memory, even with the random idiosyncrasies of human taste.”
    The over 100 global and personal recipes in “Comfort” reflect the diverse backgrounds of the authors, their childhood memories and world travels. “It’s very much about the personal journeys we’ve been on, and all the stories these journeys contain,” they write, which they think of as cultural appreciation, not appropriation. From crepes to hummus, lamb meatloaf to quick ramen, savory rugelah to chocolate mousse, all are packed with the flavor punch we’ve come to expect from Ottolenghi, author of ten bestselling and multi-award-winning cookbooks. Caramelized Onion Orecchiette with Hazelnuts & Crispy Sage, Cheesy Bread Soup with Savoy Cabbage & Cavolo Nero, Garlicky Aligot Potato with Leeks & Thyme. “That’s what comfort food means to us. It’s about our journeys and all the stories contained in them. This book is a celebration of movement, of immigration, of family, of home—of people…. It’s the ability of a dish to be nostalgic and novel at once. In this book we offer dishes that are both comfortable and creative, familiar and fresh, reassuring and revelatory.”
   Salmon Fishcakes with Chermoula Remoulade would be a wonderful addition to the Hanukkah table. No, we’ll never forego our familiar latkes, but as kosher cooking star Susie Fishbein says, “The holiday is about the oil, not the potato!” The fishcakes make a satisfying main dish or else served as a canapé with a dot of the remoulade. For these much smaller patties decrease the frying time to 3 to 4 minutes.
   Lorenza Pintar shares her childhood memories of food and tradition in Italy after World War II in “The Jewish Holiday Table” by Naama Shefi and the Jewish Food Society with Devra Ferst (Artisan, $36). The book is filled with treasured holiday recipes of families around the globe, what Shefi calls “the backbone of Jewish cooking,” as well as the stories behind them.
   Pintar grew up in Milan and didn’t learn until she was a young adult that she was Jewish. “Most of our traditions took place at the table,” she wrote. Jewish foods and rituals were related to the seasons, not Jewish holidays. Cinnamon raisin donuts were served at wintertime, when they also ate latkes topped with thick stracchino, creamy Italian cow’s milk cheese. Her grandmother would polish a set of silver candlesticks on Friday but not light them, then remove them on Saturday night. In December they lit eight candles to be placed on a Christmas tree—her father is Christian. She didn’t know where these traditions originated from. “My parents also didn’t tell me that during Mussolini’s regime my grandmother was forced to wash her teacher’s dishes every day after school and that my great-grandfather was hit in the street by the Blackshirts.” They hid their identities for protection. What remained were the rituals and, most of all, the food. Learning she was Jewish, “I immediately felt at ease, with a sense of comfort and belonging. That was the start of us reclaiming our history.”
   Lorenza’s mother researched their family history, “finding names of our relatives on Inquisition documents from Sicily and discovering that we have Ashkenazi roots as well.” She put the family recipes in a cookbook called “Rebelot,” which is the Milanese word for something that is all mixed up. “The process was very healing for her and helped me understand how important it is to be rooted. In Brooklyn, where I live now, I make latkes for Hanukkah and light candles for eight nights on a menorah instead of a Christmas tree. And on Fridays, I do what my great-grandmother couldn’t. I place her candleholders together and light candles for Shabbat.”  

Jewish families around the world celebrate Hanukkah with fried sweets, but these vary widely by community. In Moroccan homes, you might find sfenj; in Egyptian families zalabia; and in Israel, sufganiyot filled with jam. Lorenzo’s family makes these yeasted fritters that are studied with plump raisins and flavored with grappa.

Salmon Fishcakes with Chermoula Remoulade

Chermoula is a North African sauce typically containing olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, and cilantro.

Yield: 4 servings

1 large sweet potato (9 3/4 ounces)

2 russet (or other floury) potatoes (9 3/4 ounces)

1 teaspoon olive oil

1 pound 2 ounces salmon fillets, skinless and boneless, cut into roughly 1 1/2-inch chunks

4 to 5 green onions, thinly sliced

1/2 ounce chives, finely chopped

1 teaspoon finely grated lime zest

3 tablespoons store–bought chermoula

1/4 cup panko breadcrumbs

1 egg

1/2 cup sunflower oil, for frying

1 lime, cut into wedges, to serve

Salt and black pepper

Remoulade

1 1/2 tablespoons store-bought chermoula

1/3 cup mayonnaise

1 tablespoon Greek yogurt

1 ounce sweet dill pickles, finely chopped

1/4 ounce chives, finally chopped

1. Preheat oven to 400°F.

2. Pierce both types of potatoes a few times with fork and rub with olive oil. Place on baking sheet and roast 1 hour and 20 minutes, until soft. Carefully split potatoes in half and set aside to cool.

3. Remoulade: Mix together all ingredients in small bowl. Refrigerate.

4. Place salmon in food processor and pulse 2 to 3 times, until very roughly chopped. Transfer to large bowl and set aside. Scoop out flesh from potatoes and add to salmon bowl, along with green onions, chives, limes, chermoula, breadcrumbs, and egg. Add 3/4 teaspoon salt and good grind of pepper and, using your hands, gently mix together, breaking up potato as you go, then shape into 12 patties, about 3 ounces each and 3/4 inch thick.

5. Heat sunflower oil in large frying pan, about 11 inches wide, and place on medium–high heat. Fry half the fishcakes about 7 minutes, turning halfway through, until golden-brown. Transfer to plate lined with paper towels while you continue with the rest. Serve warm, with remoulade and lime wedges alongside.

Source: “Comfort” by Yotam Ottolenghi, et al.

Frittole Dolci

Yield: About 2 dozen 

1/2 cup raisins

1 1/2 cups warm whole milk

1 1/2 cups lukewarm water

1 tablespoon active dry yeast

1/4 cup +1 teaspoon sugar 

2 tablespoons grappa or cognac

3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

Finely grated zest of 1/2 lemon

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

Sunflower or other neutral oil for deep frying

Cinnamon sugar

3/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup cinnamon 

1. In small bowl, soak raisins in 1/4 cup of the warm milk until plump and tender, about 15 minutes. Drain raisins, reserving milk. 

2. Pour 1/4 cup of the lukewarm water into a small bowl, add yeast, the 1 teaspoon sugar, and the grappa and stir to combine.

3. In large bowl, combine flour, remaining 1/4 cup sugar, lemon zest, and salt and whisk until well mixed. Pour in yeast mixture and stir until well blended. Add raisins and reserved soaking milk along with remaining 1 1/4 cups milk and 1 1/4 cups water and mix until you have a smooth, loose batter. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let batter rise at room temperature about 4 hours, giving it a gentle stir after the first hour and again after 3 hours.

4. Line a tray with paper towels and set it near stove. Put sugar and cinnamon in large bowl, stir mixture, and set it near stove. Add about 4 inches oil to a medium pot (pot should be tall enough that oil won’t overflow when you add batter) and heat over medium-high heat (you can also use a deep fryer) to 350°F. When oil is hot, scoop up 1 heaping tablespoon batter and carefully drop it into oil. Add a few more donuts to the hot oil, but don’t crowd the pot, or the temperature will drop too much. Fry the frittole, turning once, until they puff up and are golden on both sides, 3 to 5 minutes per side. Transfer to the paper towel–lined tray and continue cooking frittole in small batches. (As you work, give batter a stir from time to time to be sure raisins are well distributed so you get a few in each frittole.) Once you have fried several, roll them in cinnamon sugar until well coated, then transfer to a plate and keep warm until serving.

Source: “The Jewish HolidayTable” by Naama Shefi & the Jewish Food Society

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.