The Book of Jewish Food by Claudia Roden is becoming my kitchen Bible for this holiday. In the post below, I show how I made lamb from it, and now I’ll show you the holiday fish.

It’s worth putting up a batch of pickled lemons - around now in September the lemons are great. Such a convenient way to put mellow lemony flavor into so many dishes.

Trout Baked with Pickled Lemons

Serves 4

Ingredients:

4 Tblsp. olive oil

3/4 cup water

1 tsp. paprika

1/2 tsp. turmeric

1 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. ground black pepper

4 Tblsp. chopped cilantro

1 1/2 kg. – 3 lb. fish – the original recipe says “1 large fish.” I cooked 2 small trouts.

3 pickled lemons

Method:

1. In a bowl, mix up the oil, water, dry spices and coriander.

2. Pour the mixture over the fish and allow it to marinate 1/2 hour, turning it over at the 15-minute point.

3. Rinse the salt and spices off the pickled lemons. Chop them up.

4. Put half the chopped lemons on the bottom of the baking dish; lay the fish on top and scatter the rest of the chopped lemons on top of it.

5. Bake at 220 °C – 425°F for 20  minutes or until done. The fish, that is.

When I saw fresh quarters of lamb of in the supermarket, I decided that for Rosh HaShanah, it was worth the price.  The butcher sliced off the chops and cut the shoulder and breast into thin pieces about 3 inches across. Not the way I would have liked it cut, but try to argue with a determined butcher who’s already pushing the meat through his electric slicer.

I froze the chops for grilling later and looked at the rest of the cut-up meat. Lots of little pieces with bone in them.  C0oked slowly in wine, they would make a fine, light stew. Could be worse.

My usual way with lamb is to surround it with aromatic herbs like rosemary and thyme, garlic, and dried fruit. But I have this bag of peeled chestnuts, bought with some abandoned recipe in mind. I wondered, how would lamb go with chestnuts? And what inspired cooking am I going to do today, one day before Rosh HaShana?

Sighing, I picked up Claudia Roden’s Book of Jewish Food and looked lamb up in the index. Lo and behold – a recipe for lamb with chestnuts. I cheered up. The dish looked interesting and easy. And so is, if you have pre-peeled chestnuts.

Mrs. Roden’s recipe calls for cooking the meat in water, but I substituted dry red wine for it. I also couldn’t resist adding something fruity, so I found my jar of dried citrus peels and dropped a strip of orange peel into the stew. It was all cooked up in my tajine, and  I discovered all over again how delicious lamb  cooked with cinnamon tastes.

Lamb With Chestnuts

Serves 4

Ingredients:

1 kg. – 2 lb. cubed lamb meat – 1 1/2 kg – 3 lb., if there are lots of bones.

1 large red onion

4 Tblsp. oil

salt and pepper to taste

1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 – 1 tsp. ground allspice – I used 4 whole allspice berries.

1 long strip of dried orange peel – or peel a fresh orange, trimming away all the pith and rind, then quarter it.

750 grams – 1 1/2 lb. chestnuts

Juice of 1/2 lemon

3 Tblsp. chopped parsley

Method:

1. If the meat has a lot of fat on it, trim most of it off. Leave some on for flavor and texture, though.

2. Chop the onion and in a large pot (or tajine) sauté it in the oil.

3. When the onion is soft, add the meat and cook it till it’s browned, turning it over occasionally.

4. Add the dry spices; stir.

5. Add the orange peel or prepared fresh orange.

6. Pour the wine in and bring the whole to a simmer.

7. Cook the meat on a low flame for 2 hours or until fork-tender.

About 15 minutes before you’ll want to turn the flame off, add the chestnuts and lemon juice. Stir.

Scatter plenty of chopped parsley over the dish before serving, not only to add a fresh, herbal taste but to make the dish more attractive.

Rice or couscous are classic foils to this stew, as indeed to any.

Something about holidays unleashes a wild craving for sweet and sour meatballs in Jews. That is, I think so. Because come Rosh HaShana or Passover, every caterer advertises them in their newspaper ads and mailbox flyers. Sweet and sour meatballs, just like Bubeh made them! I never see them advertised at other times of the year, just at holidays.

Myself, I don’t recall ever having eaten a sweet and sour meatball. When I think of meatballs, I think of tomato sauce and bay leaf. Basil. Pasta. Italian. But the liking for a subtle blend of sour and sweet is an Ashkenazic taste that displays itself in other traditional recipes: beet borsht, brisket cooked with dried fruit, honey and vinegar, and of course that perennial Jewish favorite, Chinese food.

My oldest Jewish cookbook, Jewish Cookery, has a recipe calling for grated onion, a can of tomato soup, brown sugar and cider vinegar. The Net yielded others that include bottled chili and grape jelly. Then there are the pseudo-Asian recipes adding pineapple, soy sauce, and bell peppers to the meatball sauce.

Nah. I’m in the mood for something more traditional, more…Eastern European. I’d like to try the meatballs as an appetizer. Very small meatballs, just little savory bites to awaken the appetite, not enough to satiate.

So I made them. Of course there is a small amount of soy sauce in there, as well as wine, which isn’t traditional either. What can I do, it’s what I like. And the meatbals turned out very good indeed, firm but tender, savory/sweet. A nice little mouthfull to keep everyone interested. Here they are.

Sweet and Sour Meatballs

6 servings or appetizers for 12

Ingredients for the sauce:

* Optional: Oil for shallow frying

1 medium onion

1 stalk of celery

2 Tblsp. olive oil

250 grams – 1 cup tomato purée

1 cup dry red or white wine (semi-sweet is also OK)

1/4 cup water

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup vinegar

1 Tblsp. soy sauce

1 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. ground black pepper, or more to taste

Ingredients for the meatballs:

1 kg. ground beef or a combination of ground beef and turkey meat

1 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. ground black pepper

1 medium onion

2 cloves garlic, peeled

1 egg

1/4 cup fine matzah meal or fine, dry breadcrumbs

Method:

First, choose between frying the meatballs prior to cooking them in the sauce, or dropping them into it raw.  Pre-frying makes the meatballs firm and somewhat richer; the raw method is quicker and less work.

Then, make the sauce.

1. Chop the onion and celery finely.

2. Sauté them in olive oil until tender.

3. Add the tomato purée. Stir.

4. Add the wine and the water; stir.

5. Add the brown sugar, vinegar, and soy sauce. Stir again.

6. Season with salt and pepper.

Allow the sauce to simmer. Lower the flame now, cover the sauce, and keep it simmering.

Now for the meatballs.

1. Either blend all the ingredients in a food processor

or blend the onion, garlic, egg, salt and pepper separately (like in a blender) and mix them in with the ground meat. The old way was to grate the onion and chop the garlic finely. Stir the matzah meal into the meat and seasonings, blending well. Set aside.

If you choose to fry them, get about a cup of oil hot in your frying pan. I pre-fried and they were very good, less liable to fall apart in the sauce.

Use a teaspoon to measure out tiny meatballs; a tablespoon if you want larger ones. Either way, roll the ground meat mixture between your wet palms to make balls the size you prefer.

This is how I arranged things:

Frying only takes 1-2 minutes on each side. The meatballs don’t need to be cooked through, just browned. They finish cooking in the sauce. Handle them as little as possible: shake them loose from the pan bottom and scoop them out with tongs.

Then drop them gently into the hot sauce and cook for 20 minutes.

If serving as a main dish, accompany the meatballs with rice. If they are to be appetizers, serve 4 per person.

For a party buffet, keep the dish hot in a crockpot and provide small bowls.