Carrot Souffle To Craft our Own Passover Feast

Moving away from family has many unexpected ripple effects, like turning my kids into airport security professionals. They could practically give seminars on speedy shoe collection techniques and toys that weigh the least yet pack the most fun. But as much as we make the effort to go back East for holidays, there's many we've had to miss and had to celebrate on our own. Passover falls on a weekday this year, and for the second year in a row, we're celebrating it without Mimi and GrandDad, forced to grow up and develop our own set of traditions in our new home.

We'll be celebrating the first two nights of Passover with friends, the first night at our house with an elaborate scavenger hunt throughout the house for clues to the history of Passover. Last year in Columbus, I made my own chopped liver but this year, I found both chopped liver and gefilte fish loaves at Fox and Obel, so I spent my time preparing mains and desserts.

My favorite Thanksgiving side gets a makeover for Passover.

I adapt my favorite Thanksgiving side, Carrot Souffle, for Passover. It's so light and sweet and it complements the heavy brisket perfectly along with some creamy mashed potatoes and fresh green beans. The brisket is bubbling along nicely downstairs as I type, sending delicious smells wafting through the house. I'm trying Smitten Kitchen's Brisket for the first time and it looks very promising. We'll miss our family in this snowy new home, but the warm smells spreading through the house are doing an amazing job of making this feel like a very special feast.

Carrot Souffle
Active Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 50 minutes
Ingredients
2 lbs fresh carrots boiled until soft
6 eggs
2/3 cup sugar
6 TBSPs Matzo Meal
2 TSP vanilla extract
2 sticks melted unsalted butter
Dash of Nutmeg
For the topping:
12 TBSPs dark brown sugar
8 TBSPs melted butter
1 cup chopped pecans
1 cup crushed Matzo

1. Put cooked carrots and eggs into large food processor and puree until smooth. 
2. Add the sugar, matzo meal, vanilla, and melted butter. Process until smooth. Be careful, in my food processor, this brings the mixture completely to the top and sometimes a little seeps out.
3. Bake in greased 9”x13” pyrex pan at 350°F for 40 minutes.
4. Mix the topping ingredients together. Put the topping mixture over top of baked soufflé. If you're traveling for your seder, or preparing this dish ahead of time, stop here. Just cover it with some foil and put it in the fridge. 
5. To finish the dish and get it ready to serve, bake it for another 5 to 10 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
6. Serve hot. Leftovers will keep in the fridge for 3-4 days and can be reheated in the microwave.

a Delicious Chocolate Souffle Cake That Just Happens To Be Kosher for Passover

Next Monday is the first night of Passover, the beginning of eight days when most Jews abstain from eating anything containing wheat, spelt, barley, oats, and rye that have come in contact with water for longer than 18 minutes, which means no breads, pastas, cereals, cakes or cookies. Instead, people use special Kosher for Passover products made with unleavened flour matzo cracker meal including cake mixes, cereals, and even pasta which, for the most part, have little to do with the real thing. Passover is a beautiful holiday about passing on the oral history of Judaism, but many of these bland ready-made store bought convenience products just take away from the joy of the holiday.

I'd only been dating my husband a few months when I attended my first Passover seder with his family, but I immediately started to question why the dessert course had to be something he dreaded. Why was it necessary to turn to dry mixes when so many delicious desserts can be made without violating the Passover rules? Ever since, I have been collecting recipes, trying to make his eight days of Passover a flour-less feast no less cravable than the rest of the year, filled with flavorful entrees and memorable desserts that just happen to be Kosher for Passover.

I had a Lunch in Paris pot luck lunch at the house on Friday and made Elizabeth Bard's Quick and Dirty Chocolate Souffle Cake for dessert. It was absolutely delicious, somehow both rich and light, with intense chocolate flavor. It took less than 10 minutes to get in the oven and was the perfect end to our schmorgasbord of delicious dishes. It was only as I was licking the last crumbs from my fork that I realized it would be the perfect dessert to serve for our Passover seder as it contains no flour.

Quick and Easy Chocolate Souffle Cake (adapted from Lunch in Paris)
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 20 minutes
Ingredients:
8 oz of semi-sweet chocolate (I used 2 bars of Ghirardelli)
2 tablespoons of strong coffee
1/4 cup of cream
5 eggs, separated
1/2 cup of sugar
a pinch of salt
2 teaspoons of vanilla

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Lightly butter a large souffle mold.
3. In a double boiler, melt the chocolate with the coffee. Once melted, remove from heat and add the heavy cream and vanilla. Stir til smooth and shiny.
4. Separate the eggs by putting the yolks in a small bowl and the whites in a large bowl. 
5. Beat the egg yolks with the sugar until the mixture is a pale yellow, almost like mayonnaise.
6. Pour the chocolate mixture on the yolks and beat to combine.
7. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites til the peaks are stiff. About a quarter of the way through, add a tablespoon of sugar to hold the eggs.
8. Gently fold a third of the beaten egg whites into the yolk mixture with a spatula. Now add the rest of the chocolate mixture back into the egg whites and blend in gingerly, turning the bowl a quarter after every fold of the spatula. You want the chocolate to be all mixed in, having worked the eggs as little as possible. 
9. Pour the batter into the buttered dish and bake for 20 minutes. It will puff up and fall as soon as you take it out of the oven. This gives it a wonderful homey look and in no way takes away from the texture and lightness of the cake.

How to Make Chopped Liver when You're Missing NYC

My favorite part of the Passover meal every year is the chopped liver. I know that it's not a favorite of many, but I love this savory spread with a passion. It could be that it reminds me of the pates of my native France. It could be because my mother always fried up the chicken livers just for me whenever she roasted a chicken. Or it could just be that chopped liver is good, really, crave-inducing good. I have no shame, happily taking a third or even a fourth helping every year.

When we lived in New Jersey, I always bought my chopped liver from Artie's Deli on the Upper West Side. After much sampling from Zabar's and other Upper West Side institutions, Artie's came out as the clear winner with it's soft texture and lack of bitter aftertaste.

This year, when my Google searches for "Jewish delis in Columbus selling chopped liver" came up empty, I decided to make my own. I was amazed at how easy it was! I took the basic recipe found online and spiced it up to my liking. Some recipes called for sauteing the livers in schmaltz (rendered chicken fat) but I'm a Frenchie so I used duck fat instead. Any fat will do, including vegetable oil or butter. Good Jewish food is not good diet food, and this is no exception.

Call us sacrilegious, but Steve and I officially declared my chopped liver recipe as good as Artie's.


Chopped Liver
Ingredients:
1 pound of chicken livers
1 medium yellow onion, chopped coarsely
3 hard boiled eggs
1/4 cup of balsamic vinegar
1/2 cup of fruity white wine such as Riesling or Sauvignon Blanc
1/4 cup of raisins
3 tablespoons of duck fat
salt
pepper

1. Hard boil the eggs. Peel them. Set aside.
2. Remove the chicken livers from the package. Inspect them and remove any glaring nerves or other yucky bits.
3. Heat a large frying pan on high. Add the duck fat (or other fat including butter or vegetable oil) and melt. Add the chopped onion and saute for 5 minutes until softened and fragrant. Add the balsamic vinegar and saute for another minute to incorporate well.
4. Add the chicken livers. Saute for a good ten minutes, until the livers are no longer pink in the middle. 
5. Pour in the wine, scraping up all the browned bits off the bottom of the pan. Continue sauteing until the wine is mostly evaporated.
6. In a food processor, pulse together the eggs and sauteed chicken livers until they form a rough mousse. Then add the raisins and pulse a few more times. You want the chunks of raisins to still be visible.
7. Add salt and pepper to taste. Mix well together.
8. Pour into a serving bowl and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes and up to 24 hours before serving.

How to Make Matzo Ball Soup and How to Keep Tradition Alive

"Mom! Why are we doing Passover again this year? Do we have to? It's so boring. Can't we skip it? Why do we even do it?"

Her whiny complaints were delivered at staccato speed, like the dangerous bullets of a machine gun. Faced with such a torrent of opposition, I simply had to get on my high horse to deliver a little lecture about the importance of taking the time to celebrate tradition. It seemed especially appropriate considering that Passover is a storytelling holiday, when Jewish families everywhere read the Haggadah, passing on to newer generations the tale of the exodus of the Jewish people from Egypt.

We're an interfaith family with a patchwork of traditions from both sides of the family. We light candles at Hannukah and decorate the Christmas tree. We celebrate Passover, and hunt for Easter eggs a few weeks later. Our Christian traditions are secular, more based my fun memories than religious doctrine. And our Jewish traditions are more rooted in religion, but more home-based rather than temple-affiliated. We're learning as we go, answering questions as they come, forging our family's identity as we grow.

So I answered her many questions.

I told her that we celebrate Passover, even when we're not with family, to take the time to remember our roots and to tell a really interesting story. Twelve months is a lifetime in her 8-year old eyes, but when she sits down to the fancy white tablecloth and she smells the chicken soup with matzo balls wafting from the kitchen, distant memories will become new again. Holiday by holiday, bowl of soup by bowl of soup, her personal identity is being formed.

Matzo Ball Soup
Ingredients:
For the Soup:
1 Small Chicken, rinsed and patted dry
3 Quarts of Water
1 pound of baby carrots, cut into large chunks
1 medium white onion, chopped
2 tablespoons of vegetable oil
salt to taste
1 bouquet garni spice sack (your combination of parsley, thyme, marjoram, sage, peppercorns, and dry bay leaves)
For the Matzo Balls:
2 tablespoons oil
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup Matzo Meal
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons soup stock 

1. In a large stockpot, heat oil. Add the chopped onions and saute for 5 minutes, until softened. 
2. Add the carrots and stir to coat with oil. Saute for 2 minutes, stirring frequently so the onions do not burn.
3. Add the chicken, salt, and spice sack. Pour enough water on top to cover the chicken. Set the heat to high and bring the soup to a boil.
4. Boil on high for a good 10 minutes then lower the heat to medium for a strong simmer.
5. Cook for 1 1/2 hours. Then remove the chicken carefully. 
6. Meanwhile, prepare the Matzo balls. Mix the oil and eggs together. Stir in the Matzo meal, salt, and chicken stock til thoroughly mixed. 
7. Place in fridge for 15 minutes.
8. Remove from fridge and form into 1 inch balls by rolling the mixture into the palm of your hand.
9. Place in 3 quarts of boiling salted water. Cook for 30 minutes, covered tightly.
10. Remove from the boiling water and set in a covered container in the fridge until your soup is ready. 
11. Take the meat off the chicken and return to the pot. Your soup is now ready.
12. Add the cooked matzo balls to the soup when ready to serve.