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“Buy tuna salad, eggplants in olive oil, and choumous.” A brunette in tight pants and dark glasses was instructing her husband on the sidewalk as I walked past, shlepping my plaid-covered shopping wagon behind me.
That’s interesting, I mused. What do people eat on Shabbat, here in Petach Tikvah, June 2009? It sounded like the couple was expecting to host family or friends, and from what I heard of the menu, the food was going to be traditional. I should have stopped and just shamelessly interviewed them, but they looked to be in a hurry and even I have my limits. Still, I was headed towards the town’s biggest food supplier – the shuk. People who deal with food all week should have some great Shabbat menus, I thought. I’ll ask the vendors.
But first I popped in to ask Meiron, who deals in second-hand objects and clothing from India. His little store has always intrigued me. On the sidewalk, there are racks of thin cotton blouses; in the shop the shelves display a mix of old Judiaca, toys, tea sets, mass-produced paintings, strings of worry beads and fine crystal. Meiron is a thoughtful reader and a gourmet. We’ve sometimes talked about the cooking classes he attends with his wife. I figured he’d have something interesting to tell me about dinner, and he did.
“We made a ragoût of beef,” he said seriously. “Then I diced eggplant, deep-fried the cubes, and scattered them over the dish. A dusting of finely-chopped parsley. That’s dinner tonight – probably with pasta.”
I swallowed my saliva. “Sounds wonderful,” I said, and sallied forth again. What would the vendors in the shuk have waiting at home?
There’s a group of elderly folk who sit at the edge of the shuk and sell garden produce and home-made food. This Yemenite gentleman was selling hilbeh and zhug (fenugreek relish and hot sauce). He allowed me to take his photo but out of modesty, closed his eyes. When I asked him what’s on for dinner, he laughed and said, “Chicken soup.”
Yemenite chicken soup is deep yellow and fragrant with hawaij, a spice blend where turmeric marries black pepper and a few other spices. I could almost taste that soup as I stood talking with him..
Some vendors were cagey and wouldn’t talk about their Friday night menus. I’m sure they thought I was nuts. This lady said,
“When I get home tonight, I won’t want anything except some Nescafé (instant coffee) and some cake.”
Moshe, the fish vendor, didn’t mind my asking.
“What’s my wife cooking for tonight? Fish.”
I laughed and he said, “No, really. Denise (sea bream) baked in sauce. All kinds of fresh salads. And three kinds of rice. Plain white rice, lentils and rice, and red rice. What makes it red? I don’t know. I get home, I sit down, and I eat. My wife cooks. She’s a marvelous cook; makes everything by herself.”
For those who would like an English/Hebrew chart of the names of fish, here is one.
But the man who runs the well-known Maadaniyat HaGissim (The Brothers-in-Law Deli) gave me the most fulsome description of his Friday night meal.
“All my children come, and bring the grandchildren,” he said. “We usually seat about 15 people on a Friday night. We’re Turkish and my wife cooks all the traditional dishes from scratch. Bouri fish (grey mullet) in tomato sauce. Moussaka – but beef, not lamb. All the salads – chopped Israeli salad, choumous, stuffed vine leaves, pickled eggplant, eggplant with techinah, coleslaw, salad of marinated bell peppers, potato salad…Then she makes bourekas filled with ground beef, shnitzels, and rice. And of course the challah. Everything she makes by herself, from scratch. She is a fabulous cook.”
I looked at him with awe. “Can I meet your wife and take some lessons from her?”
As a friend of mine remarked, I think I’d have a nervous wreck if I had to cook like that every week.
By now my shopping wagon was full and heavy. Apricots, plums, string beans, fish, white cheese, choumous, big laffah pittot. Time for me to stop interfering with people’s private lives and go home to finish cooking my own Shabbat meals. So I did.
Oh, and we had chicken soup, roast chicken glazed with mandarin preserves, curried rice, string beans and almonds, beet salad, and for dessert, peach cobbler.
This past Shabbat we had steak, chicken (for my parents, brothers, and grandfather) and salmon (for my husband and I) marinated in an Italian-style glaze, roasted vegetables, new potatoes, a lettuce salad and challah. For dessert we had a cornmeal cake with berry compote.
I’ve tried to convince my mom that we should have a soup, but every time we’ve tried it, she gets very agitated. She isn’t a cook and I think it stresses her out to serve things in distinct courses. She wants to serve everything (on individual plates, we never had family style either) and then sit down and enjoy dinner. She doesn’t want to run back and forth between the kitchen.
Sounds like a good dinner to me. I think *not* having soup would stress my husband. He’s really attached to his chicken soup on Friday nights. It must remind him of his grandmother. My own grandmother never made chicken soup that I know of, but I always have.
But you’re right not to insist on soup if it agitates your Mom.
What a terrific post. I feel like I’ve eaten a full meal!
Beautiful post!
My family concurs with your husband: Soup is an absolute must on Friday nights – even on the hottest Shabbat of the summer…
Really nice post.
My kids also object when there is no soup Friday night, even on the hottest days. But as I told Mimi I am not taking it up a flight of stairs to feed 35 people outside at my son’s bar mitzvah.
Fern, that’s why my mother never ate soup.
Soup is an absolute must, but for some reason it was just too hot for me this past Friday to even think about soup, so I made gazpacho instead. Refreshingly chilled, it served a double purpose.
We always have a soup called “Grießnockerlsuppe”. It’s chicken soup with semolina dumplings. It’s the only constant, though. After that we have whatever strikes our fancy that day. This past Shabbat we had a lamb roast, roasted asparagus and those tiny new potatoes, followed by melon sorbet. However, we have also been known to have a dish called foccacia, which in my friend’s Italian mom’s version is essentially a thick-crust pizza topped with a tomato-based sauce and vegetables – no cheese. Tastes awesome cold the next day.
It’s a great column. Thanks also for the fish list. Not to carp about it (I couldn’t resist), but did you realize that the list changes the fish into a verb? להטיל דופי, לחטט; להתאונן is what is listed for carp…
Grilled veal rib chops rubbed with spices, rice with mushrooms and onions, three types of beet salads, asparagus. Yum. Sadly we weren’t up for guests on Shabbat, but on the plus side that means lots of leftovers… *munching on beet salad*
Hi, Dan, care to tell us how to make beet salad three ways? I’m particularly curious because I had been thinking of a number of ways to make cold beets interesting, and thought I could come up with three versions…but wound up making the usual sweet/sour Moroccan version with cumin and cilantro.
I love a pun – the worse, the better. So lay all your puns on the carp-et (argh) and let us simply swim in them. No, I hadn’t noticed how the names of fish take on the hi’fil form… you have sharp eyes.
Julia, semolina dumplings?! I’d love to find out more about them.
I had a problem getting rid of excess semolina before Pesach, which you can see in my post, A Week Without Shopping, Tuesday.
They are incredibly easy to make. It’s basically semolina, eggs, fat (either oil, butter, margarine or schmalz) and salt. You could add various spices, but we only use a pinch of nutmeg. I don’t know the exact amounts since we never measure, but I’ll do that this Friday and blog about it. I’ll send you the link when I have.
What is a shabbas meal without the wine? Sounds like a reisling or pinot noir would be good with the roast chicken glazed with mandarin preserves, . I will be posting a weekly shabbat wine recommendation at myKerem.com if interested.
what a lovely posting again! Here in Helsinki this past shabath I had salmon and salad for shabath dinner……
The first two ways are just slight modifications of a moroccan salad.
My version:
1 lb beet, boiled and diced
1 lemon, juiced
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp cumin
salt, pepper
4 tbsp olive oil
1/2 cup parsley
My wife’s version:
1 lb beet, boiled and diced
1 tbsp sugar
1 lemon, juiced
1 tbsp olive oil
1 pinch cinamon
1 tbsp parsley
salt
1 lb beet, boiled and diced
2 tbsp lemon juice
1-2 tbsp cider or balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp toasted sesame seeds
2 tbsp scallion
1 tsp sugar
salt, pepper
we have soup on Friday night and shabbos day. Just about every shabbos. The soup is even better on shabbos day than it was at night…
we almost never have cholent though…
I’m already thinking about next shabbat! But last Shabbat we had chicken soup, lemon roasted chicken, silan sweet potatoes and broccolini, asparagus and mushroom saute. I think I had plain rice for the kids also.
I only make my chicken soup in the crock pot now. I put it up at 10 am and by the time we eat, it’s heavenly. I think it’s because it never comes to a hard boil. It tastes like it’s made of a 1000 chickens (that line is stolen from Ruth Reichl, i must admit)
Hi, Rafi,
Cholent is so easy to make, and welcome on a cold Shabbat. It seems impossible to imagine a cold Shabbat, though, it’s so hot now. We’re eating cold curried turkey more often these days.
Abbi, I also start thinking about Shabbat early in the week. You’re right about the flavor of the soup coming from slow cooking without boiling. Do you do anything with the chicken flesh? I always say I’m going to do kreplach again, but it’s so depleted with the long cooking that I wind up giving it to the street cats.
Dan,
Thank you for those recipes. I particularly like the last version, sort of Chinese. I can’t do a beet salad festival at home or the family will rise up in rebellion…but I’ll get some of those beets into our menus over the summer.
Actually, my kids love boiled chicken, so they eat it. Kids, street cats, what’s the difference.
I only use 4 chicken legs in my soup, and one turkey neck bone. I find the soup is tastier with the bones anyway, and it’s less waste of a chicken.
And I actually like the boiled turkey bone meat as leftovers. But kreplach sounds nice too!Actually, the turkey meat would be great in kreplach.
If only i had the time…
So it wasn’t a fluke and I wasn’t floundering with my Hebrew… yes, I did that on porpoise.
Thanks SO much for the fish list! If you don’t mind, I’d like to copy it and spread the word. I’m on several OJW (Orthodox Jewish Women) boards and I KNOW the Israelis would LOVE this.
After being left with tons of leftovers from Friday night meals, wintertime tends towards thick soups like turkey neck or chicken, thick with vegetables and matzah balls, or a meaty cabbage soup.
When I make a less hearty soup like tomato soup or split pea, I make a standard roasted chicken, a spinach noodle or broccoli noodle kugel… Lunch is sometimes a beef with barley or roasted chicken with pickled lemons, lots of garlic and cous cous….
Summertime dinner is eaten outside on the porch and is often anything goes. Chicken burritos, salmon and sushi, chicken stir fry…. And for lunch I’ll often do a simple chef salad or schnitzels with rice or roasted potatoes and a huge garden salad.
My new ‘invention’ is taking a flattened schnitzel, wrapping it around a spicy (defrosted) kebab, dipping it in egg and seasoning, rolling in bread crumbs and then baking it.
I have just started to prepare this Shabbat’s Saturday lunch: daube provençale aux olives vertes.
I have prepared the marinade (white wine, onion, garlic, carrot, olive oil and thyme) and put beek cubes in it to marinade for the night.
I’ll do the rest (cooking and adding more ingredients) tomorrow morning.
I love the idea of walking around and asking people what they’re making for Friday night dinner! I totally would have done that had I thought of it. Very inspiring responses, too.
Hi, Devo,
By all means, copy the fish list for whoever might enjoy it…I’m sure it will always be in plaice.
Liz, it took a certain amount of chutzpah. But it was fun in the end.
i just finished cooking for shabat and behold i have 10 minutes to spare which i could use vacuuming or…. writing here, so:
Split pea soup w/ home-made garlic croutons
Grilled chicken w/ dry spice rub
Cole slaw (cabbage, carrot, apple, vinegar+mayo, sugar, salt)
Potato kugel
Squash cubes (kind of a pie — mashed squash + eggs, baked, crustless)
Mandarin orange marble cake + sliced melon for dessert
For tomorrow: a dairy noodle kugel, cold fish in tomato sauce.
What a wonderful post – thanks!
Our Shabbat dinner this week – salmon with a maple glaze, potato salad with fresh peas, stir-fried green beans with soy and ginger, and blueberry biscotti and rhubarb-strawberry compote for dessert.
kabike and madyh,
Such good cooking! I would like to eat dairy on Shabbat more often, but my husband objects.
I’ve just put up the post about the semolina dumplings. You can find it here:
http://wait-what-me.blogspot.com/2009/07/semolina-dumplings-in-chicken-soup.html
Enjoy!
Julia, I did check it out, and kept the recipe, too. Thanks!
I’m always looking for new ideas for Shabbat so this and any future similar posts are so helpful!!