What is the traditional Passover meal?
What is the traditional Passover meal?
Passover is a week-long celebration commemorating the escape of Jews from Egypt. It’s a holiday filled with very specific food traditions and restrictions.
During Passover, nothing leavened can be eaten -- so no bread, pastry, or even cereals. Some also avoid all grains that could be fermented, a list that includes barley, oats, rye, spelt or wheat.
Many Jews keep kosher during Passover even if they don’t the rest of the year. That means purchasing specially prepared meat products, avoiding the mixing of meat and milk, and forgoing pork and shellfish.
The seder meal is the center of the Passover celebration. It occurs the first night of the week-long celebration. It’s a service and a meal combined, with readings and prayers to go along with symbolic foods.
The traditional seder plate consists of six items, each with a particular meaning:
Maror and chazeret – both bitter herbs, usually horseradish and romaine lettuce, meant to represent the bitterness of slavery.
Charoset – a mixture of apples, honey, nuts and wine, which represents the mortar between the bricks of the temples the Jews built.
Karpas – a plain vegetable dipped in salt water. The vegetable represents the plain food eaten by Jewish slaves. The salt water symbolizes their tears.
Z'roa – a lamb shank bone, representing the sacrifice made immediately before leaving Egypt.
Beitzah – a roasted egg, for the offerings left at the Temple of Jerusalem.
The seder also involves a large meal. This can really be anything, but often it includes a braised meat like brisket, matzo ball soup and vegetable dishes.
Matzo (also spelled matzoh or matza) is crisp dried bread with no leavening agent.
A traditional Jewish food, it can be eaten all year round. It's particularly important to the Passover holiday. Matzo supposedly originated because the Jewish slaves didn’t have time to allow their bread to rise before fleeing Egypt; they baked it flat to take with them.
Matzo usually comes in large sheets, but is also made into smaller crackers and ground up into meal, to use as breading or make into matzo balls for soup.
A latke is a potato pancake. Most people think of the potato pancake as a Jewish dish, but potato pancakes of some sort exist in potato-eating cultures around the world.
Your basic latke is made by frying grated potatoes in oil until nicely browned on both sides, and seasoning them with salt and pepper. Some latke recipes add egg, chopped or grated onion, minced garlic, milk, melted butter or herbs and spices to the preparation.
Latkes can be eaten plain as a snack, with a side salad, topped with applesauce or sour cream, as an accompaniment to roasted meats, or with a fried egg on top. The French sometimes serve potato galettes with coq au vin. The Poles stuff them with goulash. Jews eat them during Hannukah, but only because they are fried, not because they play a special role in the religious holiday. The Swedes add grated potatoes to a pancake batter, while Germans and Austrians eat them with garlic, salt and butter.
Potato pancakes can also be made by simply dropping a pile of grated potatoes into hot oil and frying until browned and cooked through, then seasoning them with salt and pepper while they're still hot.
Related: Brys' Latkes With Fried Eggs And Caviar (Cookthink blog)
Video: How to make potato latkes (Handmade TV)
What does it mean to keep kosher?
What does it mean to keep kosher?
To keep kosher means to follow strict Jewish biblically dictated dietary laws. Kosher is derived from the Hebrew kasher, for "proper" or "pure," and kosher food is prepared with the blessing of a hovering rabbi, grown organically and killed humanely (in the case of animals), making it appealing to health-conscious non-Jews as well.
Pigs and rabbits are not kosher, along with all shellfish. Kosher rules also dictate which foods can be eaten together, particularly that meat and milk cannot be mixed in any one dish, and in conservative households, even cooked with the same pans and utensils. A fully kosher kitchen has two of everything, down to the dishwasher, to prevent any contamination between meat and milk.
The horseradish plant originated in southeastern Europe and western Asia, but is now grown in other parts of Europe and the U.S. Although its green leaves are sometimes used in salads, it is grown mainly for the sinus-clearing properties of its pungent root, which resembles a long, white, oversized carrot.
Fresh horseradish has little smell, but once peeled and grated, it releases powerful enzymes. Freshly grated horseradish will turn dark and bitter if not immediately immersed in vinegar; prepared bottled horseradish is a popular condiment preserved in vinegar or beet juice that gives the Bloody Mary its kick and cuts the sweetness of cocktail sauce. Horseradish sauce made with cream is a popular accompaniment to roast beef in Britain.
Horseradish is one of the five bitter herbs of the Jewish Passover festival, as a bitter herb it represents the bitterness of slavery.
Japanese wasabi, which is also called Japanese horseradish, is used to make a green-colored condiment paste with a sharp bite and mucous membrane-irritating vapors. Available fresh or in powder (to be mixed with water) or pre-made paste form, it is an indispensable accompaniment to sushi and sashimi, alongside pickled ginger and soy sauce.
Recipe: Cabbage Slaw With Horseradish (Cookthink)
Recipe: Bee Cheese (Cook & Eat)
Potato latkes are considered a traditional Hannukah dish, but they are enjoyed by many cultures year round. This instructional video by Handmade TV shows how to make these crispy potato pancakes in no time at all.
