We call them sweet potatoes. That is, I always have. On my recent visit to the States, I found that they’re called yams. Either way, it’s a recipe that fits in well with the upcoming three-day Rosh HaShanah/Shabbat holiday because you can cook it ahead of time. Kept in a tightly-closed container, it keeps well for two days in the fridge. No mayo, eggs, or other fragile ingredients, and the combination of sweet potatoes (or yams) with lentils and onions is tasty, satisfying and colorful.

If you have vegetarians at the table, this is a good way to show you care.

Sweet Potato and Lentil Salad

Ingredients:

3 cups of washed, but not peeled, sweet potatoes sliced in bite-sized circles

1/4 cup black or green lentils

1/2 cup of salted water for cooking the lentils

1 medium onion

Juice of 1/2 lemon, or more if liked

3 tablespoons olive oil

2 teaspoons of maple or silan date syrup

salt and pepper

3 large scallions, green parts only

Method:

1. In a small pot, cook the lentils, covered, in the salted 1/2 cup of water. Cook over a small flame and taste to make sure the lentils are tender. If they look like they’re drying out but still not tender, add a tablespoon or two of water.

2. Meantime, cook the sweet potato slices in plenty of lightly salted water till tender; about 10 minutes. Keep a sharp eye on them because they should not cook till mushy. Once mushy, they won’t serve for salad.

3. Slice the onion thinly.

4. In a small bowl, make a dressing of the lemon juice, olive oil, syrup, and a little salt and pepper.

5. While the vegetables are still hot, put them in a bowl with the sliced onions and pour the dressing over all. Stir gently, with a wooden spoon.

6. Allow the salad to cool, covered. Taste it and add more of the dressing ingredients if wished. Slice up the scallions and scatter them over the salad, mixing gently once more.

7. Chill the salad, covered, and serve cold or at room temperature.

The Little One gave this salad the Teen Food Seal of Approval and is noshing on the leftovers  as I type.  A palpable hit!

Okay, light eaters – here’s another easy dish for the Rosh HaShanah table.This features the juicier dark meat of chicken, covered in a nutty, herby, almond crust to protect it while baking. I fixed it for Shabbat so I could photograph it for you – but never said so to the Little One, who ate two.

It takes 10 minutes to prepare and about half an hour in the oven. Figure on 1-2 pieces per serving, depending on people’s appetites. The adults ate one each and were satisfied, but hungry growing young people in your house may want more.

The first thing is to get deboned chicken thighs (in Israel, Pargiot). The next thing is to prepare one bowl for the beaten eggs and another bowl for the crumb/almond mix.

Then…but I’m giving it away. It’s so fast to make, it’s fun.

Chicken Thighs in an Almond Crust

adapted from Al HaShulchan magazine, July 2009 edition

8 portions

Ingredients:

8 deboned chicken thighs

100 grams – 1/2 cup sliced, blanched almonds

200 grams – 1-1/4 cup dry bread crumbs

2 eggs

1/4 teaspoon soy sauce

2 garlic cloves, crushed

1/4 teaspoon crushed, dried thyme

1/2 teaspoon salt

freshly-ground black pepper

olive oil to drizzle

Method:

Preheat oven to 180° C – 350° F

1. In one bowl, mix the almonds and bread crumbs.

2. In the other bowl, beat the egs with the soy sauce, crushed garlic, salt, and some pepper.

3. Dip both sides of the chicken thighs in the egg, then in the crumb mixture.

4. Roll up and place each piece of chicken on a baking tray lined with baking paper. If lots of the crumb mixture has fallen off the pieces, just pat some back on.

5. Drizzle with olive oil. Cover all loosely with a sheet of foil. Don’t tuck the edges in. You want to keep the almond crust from burning, but to bake, not poach, the chicken.

6. Bake 30 minutes. The crust should be golden and the chicken tender.

Note: This dish reheats nicely on a hotplate or in a dry skillet over a flame-tamer. Keep the chicken tightly covered with foil when reheating, so it doesn’t dry out.

How about Rosh HaShanah Lite this year? The High Holidays are starting off right before Shabbat, so we’re looking at a three days of festive eating. But does it have to be three days of heavy eating? It gets to the point where all you want to do is lie down and digest, instead of putting your mind to the state of your soul.

We all have cherished holiday recipes, foods that the family looks forward to and whose taste is inextricably tangled up with memories of holidays past. Even if they’re infused with fat and sugar, we’ll serve them.  But the meal can remain reasonably light if only one such dish is placed on the table, and if plenty of attractive salads and cooked vegetables are served.

In the spirit of lighter eating, then, here’s an easy carrot salad made tangy with lemon and pungent with cumin. It’s part of every mezze in Israeli restaurants and Sephardic homes.

Moroccan Carrot Salad

adapted from Saffron Shores by Joyce Goldstein

serves 6 as an appetizer, 4 as a side dish

Ingredients:

4 medium or 3 large carrots, peeled

1 clove garlic

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon sweet paprika

1/8 teaspoon cayenne flakes

2 tablespoons olive oil

salt

Method:

1. Cut the carrots into thick slices; peel the garlic clove and crush it with the side of a heavy knife.

2. Have a saucepan with salted boiling water ready; cook the carrots and garlic in it for 10 minutes or until the carrot is tender.

3. Drain the carrots and garlic – save the cooking water for rice or cooking another vegetable, or use it as part of the liquid in stock. Place them in a deep bowl.

4. Immediately, season them with the lemon juice, spices, and olive oil, stirring gently. Add salt little by little, to taste.

Serve at chilled or at room temperature.

In my last post, I promised some festive recipes for Rosh HaShanah that sit easy on the stomach. Turkey breast, stuffed with dried fruit and nuts, and sometimes rice or couscous, fits the ticket. This is how you do it.

Buy, for 6 servings, one-half boneless turkey breast. Either ask the butcher to cut a pouch into it, or do it yourself at home. It’s surprisingly easy. The half-breast resembles a longish triangle. Insert a long, sharp knife into the widest part and carefully, not to poke holes in the flesh along the way, just slide the knife along till you have a pouch. Move it from side to side gently to enlarge the opening. The meat is very tender and will readily tear, so go slowly. That’s all there is to it; the turkey breast is ready to be stuffed.

Something to remember about cooking a turkey breast: unless you get it with the skin on, it will dry out in a blink, so  protect it by using in a roasting bag, or make a bag of foil for it.

And before it goes in the oven, splash some good olive oil all over it to keep it moist, then season it with paprika, salt and pepper, and your favorite herbs. A little white wine or cognac, or soy sauce, or chicken soup, or a tablespoon of each in any combination, adds flavor and keeps the moisture factor up.

Turkey Breast Stuffed With Fruit and Nuts

serves 6

Ingredients:

1 half turkey breast

1/2 cup mixed, chopped dried apricots, cranberries, raisins

1/2 cup mixed chopped nuts: walnuts, pecans, hazelnuts, pine nuts

1 small onion, chopped

1/2 teaspoon dried thyme or 1 teaspoon fresh thyme

1/2 teaspoon salt

freshly ground black pepper to taste

optional: 1/2 cup cooked rice

2 tablespoons white or light red wine, or 2 tablespoons cognac, or chicken soup, or a mixture of 2 teaspoons soy sauce with any of them

paprika

an additional 1/2 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons olive oil

A sprig of rosemary or two small bay leaves

A handful of scallions

1  peeled and slightly mashed garlic clove

Method:

1. Mix the fruit, nuts, optional rice, onion, salt, pepper, and wine. Stuff the mixture into the turkey breast.

2. Sprinkle paprika and additional 1/2 teaspoon salt all over the breast. Pour the olive oil over the breast and spread it on all sides. If any stuffing falls out, just scoop it up and place it under the breast when baking it.

3. Place the stuffed, seasoned breast in the roasting bag or in a tent of foil. Add the wine and the fresh herbs.

Close and puncture the roasting bag as per instructions. Or make the foil tent. Place the breast on a long strip of foil; pick up the edges of the foil at right and left and bring them together, pinching them at the top to make a tent-like package. Pinch one side closed but leave the other side open for ventilation so that you get roasted, not poached meat.

Bake at 350°F, 180°C for 1 hour. Check after one hour for doneness. If the meat still seems too pink, bake it another 15 minutes. Once you’re sure it’s done, remove from the oven at once. Let the meat rest for 10 minutes before serving.

Now: let’s say you were too nervous with the knife and wound up making huge holes all over the meat. Never mind. Slice it all the way open and just stuff the stuffing inside like this:

Fold one half over the other and press it down.

If it’s really flopping open, tie it up with kitchen string. The cooking juices will seal the pieces together again and the cooked dish will look like the photo at the top.

Here are slices of a turkey breast I stuffed with the optional rice:

This is excellent cold, too.

The radio asks us not to run power-guzzling appliances till 5:00 PM.  I open windows and push the thought of air-conditioning out of my mind. Yeuw, it’s hot in here.

All that, then a reader’s plea for hot-weather recipes. It made me want to sit down and drink a large gin and tonic, with plenty of ice in it. Only I’ve banished gin and tonic as a calorie-cutting measure. So I had to sit down and think, instead. And this is what I think:

Jewish cooks worldwide are probably gritting their teeth in anticipation of this year’s 3-day Rosh HaShanah/Shabbat extravaganza in this Year of Climate Change. But even in hot weather, we like hot food. Jewish custom indeed demands at least one hot dish at a festive meal. Some folks drink a cup of tea to be exempt, but most of us enjoy at least a little something hot, no matter what the thermometer reads. The difference to our comfort is keeping it light.

I suggest that over the long, hot holiday, at least two meals be dairy. Lots of salads. Think fish. Chicken or turkey instead of beef or lamb. Cholent? Only for masochists.

You’ll have seen most of these recipes in other roundups, but they’ve been chosen for easy cooking and lightness.  Next posts, some new suggestions and recipes.

Dairy and Fish

Polenta. Filling, but not heavy. To make the meal festive, top the polenta with a fancier-than-usual sauce. Serve steamed broccoli on the side. Drink a chilled rosé with it – lemonade for the kids.

Fish Baked in Coconut Milk

Ground Meat

Mafroum. Okay, it’s a patchkerai. But if you A) use ground turkey instead of beef, it’s not heavy; and B) add a plain steamed vegetable, you have an entire, satisfying, and festive meal.

Poultry

Roast Chicken with Figs. If figs have gone out of season by the holidays, substitute whole, small, sweet pears.

Tajine of Turkey with Dried Fruit. Serve this with rice or couscous.

Curried Turkey Salad. I often serve this on hot Shabbat afternoons. Cold and colorful, sweet/savory, and yum. Easily made, and only needs rice to accompany it.

Vegetables

Eggplant and Tahini Salad. Also known as eggplant carpaccio.

Majadra: lentils and rice. A good side dish, but for a dairy meal, serve it as the main dish, with two or three favorite cheeses and a big salad.

Peperonata. Sautéed bell peppers with fresh herbs. An unusual salad or relish.

Sweet Potatoes Roasted in Date Syrup. What’s good on Passover is good on Rosh HaShanah, too.

Crisp-Skinned Potatoes. Lacking baby potatoes, use 1 medium potato per person, cutting each into 4 pieces. The potatoes, that is.

Zucchini Fritters. Like anything fried, best eaten as soon as done. But if you lay them a shallow platter lined with paper towels, they stay crisp on a hot plate till dinner time.

Cake and Cookies

Honey Cake. What else?…

Tahini Cookies. Easy-peasy to make. Delicious to munch. Make a lot.

Light Desserts

Pears in Wine. There’s always a lot of wine around the house at this time of year. Use some to poach these subtly-spiced pears.

Fruit Soup

Well, have I convinced anyone to forgo beef? Or even break with tradition and serve dairy a few times?

Stay tuned, more recipes with a hot holiday in mind coming up.

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.

Turkey Tajine with Dried Fruit

Serves 4 generously

This recipe could have easily been made with chicken, beef, or lamb. Turkey is simply my preference. The dried fruit may vary also: I just had prunes and figs around but dates, raisins, cranberries, apricots, or any combination of them, would add piquancy and sweetness also.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 kg. red meat of turkey

olive oil

1 large red onion

4 garlic cloves

a large handful of dried fruit

2 Tblsp. Silan date honey or maple syrup

2 Tblsp. soy sauce

1 tsp. cumin

1/2 tsp. ginger

1 small piece of chili pepper

1 large bay leaf

1 medium orange, peeled and quartered

salt and pepper to taste

1 Tblsp. dark honey

1/2 cup chopped parsley

Method:

If you don’t have a tajine, use a deep skillet that has a lid.

1. Peel the onion and slice it into thick rings. Heat a little olive oil in your tajine/skillet and start cooking the onions in it, over a low flame.

2. Peel and chop the garlic coarsely. Set it aside.

3. After the onion has become soft but not caramelized nor fried, add the cumin, ginger, chili pepper, fruit, bay leaf, and orange quarters. Allow this to cook for a few minutes. Add the garlic.

4. Add the turkey pieces and brown them, turning them over a few times during the process. This should take about 15 minutes over a medium flame.

5. Add the silan/maple syrup and  soy sauce, drizzling the liquids over the turkey. Add 1 tsp. salt; grind some pepper over all.

6. Cover the tajine and lower the flame as far as possible. Allow it to cook gently for up to an hour, checking once in a while to make sure the turkey isn’t sticking to the pan or becoming overcooked.

When it seems ready, add the honey. Stir it into the liquids, which should have become a thick sauce. Taste the tajine and add salt and pepper if liked.

The stew will be pungent and slightly sweet, but an uninteresting brown. To please the eye, scatter some chopped parsley over it before serving – or some lightly toasted pine nuts if you have some on hand.