Recipes
Clara Wald Schnytzer's Recipes from Rohatyn (contributed by Adi Schnytzer)
Fluden
Making The Dough:
Ingredients:
3 cups of sifted plain flour,
a pinch of salt,
2 eggs,
3 tablespoons of regular oil and a
quarter cup of lukewarm water.
Directions:
Sift the flour and salt into the Kenwood bowl and add the eggs, oil and water and mix until you have a nice dough. Place the dough in a warm place for 20 minutes and then roll out the dough. First ,cut the dough into 4 pieces, keeping a slightly larger ball of dough for the bottom and sides of the dish which has been greased. Now each ball of dough needs to be rolled out as thinly as possible. Pick the dough up occasionally and stretch it on to your hand until the .dough is transparent and then brush this piece with oil. Follow exactly the same procedure for the other 3 pieces of dough. The dough is cut into large squares, and placed in the dish with the filling. So to the filling now.
Making the Filling:
Ingredients
About 560 grams of crushed walnuts,
the juice of 2 lemons,
a teaspoon of cinnamon- but you can omit this if you don?t like cinnamon-
a cup of sugar,
2 or 3 types of jam, depending on your mood, and
about a cup of breadcrumbs,
about a half a cup of regular oil and a
cup to a cup and a half of breadcrumbs, and
last but not least some good sour raspberry or cherry syrup to moisten the bread crumbs.
Directions:
First moisten the crumbs with the oil and syrup, the add the lemon juice, the cinnamon, the walnuts and the sugar. Mix thoroughly and taste. The mixture should be not too sweet and not too sour. Line the bottom of the dish with the largest piece of dough and place a third of the filling over this and on top of this put dollops of jam. Then place the second piece of dough ,more filling and again the jam and so on and so on until there is no more filling . Place the final piece of dough on top, brushed with oil like the others, and then cut the Fluden into squares and bake in the preheated oven for 1 hour at125c. and then raise the temp. to about 140 for another three quarters of an hour. until the top layer is hard. This cake is the Jewish version of Baklava. You can never put too much jam on the individual layers , because the ultimate treat is to bite into a number of layers with the various tasting jams blending together and with the walnuts.
Holopches
This is a truly great side dish with some sort of plain roast chicken or beef. But you must be predisposed to the sumptuous taste of chicken fat and honey all mixed together. Its great.
Ingredients:
A large, very leafy green cabbage,
two sour apples,
3 tablespoons of raw rice,
one onion cut into squares,
salt,
pepper,
sugar,
oil and
whole chunks of chicken fat.,
a tablespoon of vinegar and
about a jar of honey.
Directions
You need to begin by either placing the whole washed cabbage in a bowl in the microwave and covering it with water. It takes about 10 minutes to soften sufficiently so that the leaves can be removed. These are the basis of the dish. Or you can put a pot on the stove and cook the cabbage until it is a little soft. While the cabbage is cooking, peel the apples and cut them up, and to this add the rice ,the sugar, a bit of salt and pepper and a piece of chicken fat. Then roll the leaves, making sure that the filling is completely encased. On completion of rolling, place the leaves tightly packed in a pot, cover with water and bring to the boil. By the way, the pot needs to be ovenproof as well, because basically the holopches are placed in the oven on a very low heat and left to rot, with the emphasis on rot. In another pot, bring some sugar and honey, about a jar, to the boil and add this to the cabbages. After about an hour of cooking on top of the stove, place the pot in the oven and forget about it for about 4 hours or longer.. Basically when the entire house smells of honey and chicken fat, and the holopches look a dark brown, they are ready.. The appearance should be like candied cabbage rolls. Hard to imagine I know but that is the look.
Hamantaschen
Make Sour Cream and Butter biscuit dough.
Now, mince some poppy seeds. Boil water, add suger and honey to taste and the poppy seeds. When this turns into a gooey filling, cool it and place on the rounds of dough.
Make into hamantascen shape, place on tray with baking paper, bake at 250 degrees Farenheit for about an hour and if it rises, until nicely brown.
Variation: Fill with apricot jam.
Sour cream and butter biscuits
Ingredients:
A cup of sour cream,
227 grams of unsalted butter,
an egg yolk,
12 tablespoons of flour, and out of these 6 are plain flour and six are self raising flour.
Directions:
Soften the butter a little and mash it up and to this mix in the sour cream and egg yolk. Now add the flour alternating between the plain and self raising flour and continue to knead either by hand or in the Kenwood bowl or the Magimix until you have a nice smooth dough Wrap the dough up and put it in the fridge overnight. .
Remove the dough a half an hour before baking and roll out the pastry until not too thick and not too thin. Cut the pastry with a glass, brush the top with egg white, then sprinkle sugar on top, and then bake for about an hour until it is nicely browned in an oven preheated to 250f. you need to store the biscuits in an airtight container or they will go soggy very quickly.
Potato perogi:
Making the Pastry:
Ingredients:
half kilo of plain flour,
2 eggs and a
glass of water.
Directions:
Put all the ingredients into a magimix or the Kenwood bowl and dough hook and mix until the dough is just right. Not too firm and not too soft, but the quantities given should ensure a good dough.
Making the Filling:
Take 5 or 6 potatoes, boil them and then mash. To this add 250 grams of cottage cheese, 1 egg, salt, pepper and mix until you have a homogenous mixture. Now roll out the dough until not too thin and not too thick and with a glass , round, cut out the shapes. Into each circle place a teaspoon of the potatoe and cheese filling and take the two sides and fold to meet in the middle. With extra flour seal the perogi. If you want to use them immediately, then bring a pot of water to the boil and add the perogi and when they have cooked for a few minutes, then sieve them and fry in butter and when they are golden brown serve them with lots of sour cream. This is a must for Shavuot or for any other night when you are looking for something vegetarian and very creamy and rich. If the hubbies are cholesterol conscious girls or boys if the wives are watching their figures then forget about it.
Potato and onion perogi
Boil the potatoes as per the previous recipe and fry some onions, finely chopped in I guess chicken fat or margarine, depending on which way the heart is flying, add the two together with a little salt and pepper. Make the pastry as before and proceed accordingly, however if you added chicken fat then fry the perogi in margarine. By the way if you want to make a quantity of perogi and not use them immediately, then simply freeze them by lining a dish with grease proof paper and placing them individually in the dish. Do not put them too close together or they will stick and for this you have to go back to jail, not pass go and lose brownie points. Then remove the amount you want to eat, boil them and then fry. If after boiling there is an interval before serving you need to add a little margarine or the perogi will stick together.
Plum perogi
Make the pastry as before and into each circle place half a plum, raw, add a little sugar, seal the perogi, boil and serve. These perogi are different to the others in that they are not fried.
Chicken Soup and Matzoh Balls
Chicken Soup:
Ingredients:
Take a chook,this is an Australian euphemism for chicken, and
a piece of good beef for soup,
a parsnip,
a few pieces of parsley,
a carrot,
a white onion and
a couple of pieces of celery.
Directions:
Cut up the chook, and if you are diet conscious then skin the chook,[ me, personally,I. prefer to keep the skin on and have all the fat globules roam around in the soup.] Add the beef also and cover the meat with enough water, plus more. The soup at this stage is cooked up for about a half an hour and then it is sieved to remove all the scum that has accumulated on the surface. To sieve the soup thoroughly, you need to place in the sieve a wad of cotton wool as opposed to a handkerchief for obvious reasons. So with a totally clean soup you can now add the veggies, all peeled and washed of course. My, what an obsessively clean lot the Galicianas were and are, because I have one living with me and can testify to this. The soup all in all cooks for about 3-3 and a half hours on a low simmer.
Matzoh Balls:
Ingredients:
4 eggs
1 tablespoon of vegetable oil.
1/4 teaspoon of salt
Coarsely ground matzoh meal
Directions:
Separate 4 eggs and put egg whites in a bowl and beat till stiff. Remove bowl from mixer and fold into it vegetable oil, salt, the 4 egg yolks and then just enough matza meal to form a thick mixture that allows you to form the mixture into small golf ball sized balls in your hand. These balls, which are made with wet hands, should be light and not dry or dense. Throw these into a pot of simmering water and cook for at least 40 minutes. If they are not by then the size of tennis balls, go back and start again! You have added too much matza meal! If you wish you may cook them in chicken soup (if you have enough). Otherwise, when removing from the water and they have cooled a little, squeeze the water gently out of them so that they don't dilute the soup. Sorry we can't tell you how much matza meal but it depends on the size of the eggs and anyway, Judy watched Klara do it, then spent years getting it right. She's not a Galizianer, but Klara taught her to cook like one, so she figures you'll all get it right with no dramas! This is a real test of skill. The final balls are just heavenly and no packet mixes come remotely close!
Egg Noodles:
Take whole eggs, beat with a bit of oil and salt in a mixer. Fry in a pan with oil so that they are as thin as possible. When done, take them out, roll them up and slice the noodles. Wasn't that easy?
Kuba Glotzer's Passover Dessert (contributed by Bea Glotzer)
This recipe was Jack's favorite dessert for Passover. Being he was diabetic, I would substitute the sugar with sugar free applesauce.
Ingredients:
stick unsalted butter
1 cup of sugar or sugar free applesauce
5 eggs separated
8 oz. bittersweet chocolate
finely chopped almonds
1/8 tsp. salt.
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream the butter with sugar. Mix the egg yolks. Melt the chocolate over double boiler or in the microwave. Cool and mix creamed butter, egg yolks and chocolate.
Beat egg whites until stiff and fold into the batter along with almonds.
Pour into 9 inch square greased baking pan. Bake at 350 degrees F for 50 minutes. check doneness by inserting a toothpick.
Let it cool on baking rack before cutting into squares.
Enjoy.