Pareve, Dairy-Free Irish Soda Bread

Irish Soda Bread is addictive. For me anyway. It’s the kind of thing that when I bake, the perfume of that loaf cooking in the oven sets me yearning for the thing to be done so it can cool down and then I can eat it. And nibble the crust and pick at it in little pieces and pretend I am not consuming a large slice of bread. But by the time I finish picking it’s half gone and then I feel guilty (but satisfied!).

So, Soda Bread is a once-a-year treat for me. And now that St. Patrick’s Day is almost here, this is my excuse to make it. I love Soda Bread’s moist, almost cake-like middle and the soft but crusty crust. Slather with some good sweet butter and, well, it’s quite wonderfully memorably delicious.

Classic Irish Soda Bread is made with buttermilk, which makes baked goods like biscuits and quickbreads (and pancakes) tender and tasty too. But if you need a dairy free version here’s one — and I’ve given instructions for the classic buttermilk version too:

Pareve, Dairy-Free Irish Soda Bread

• 3-1/2 cups all-purpose flour

• 1 tablespoon brown sugar

• 3/4 teaspoon salt

• 1 teaspoon baking soda

• 1-1/2 cups water

• 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

• 1/2 cup raisins

• 1 teaspoon caraway seeds, optional

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a baking sheet. Mix the flour, brown sugar, salt and baking soda in a bowl. Mix the water and cider vinegar and pour into the flour mixture. Mix the ingredients into a soft dough. Work the raisins and seeds into the dough with your hands. Knead the dough about 18-20 times on a lightly floured surface. Use more flour if the dough seems very sticky. Shape the dough into a ball and flatten the ball slightly. Cut a small X on the top with the tip of a sharp knife. Place the dough on a baking sheet. Bake for about 45 minutes or until golden brown.

Makes one loaf

NOTE: for a dairy version: substitute 1-1/2 cups buttermilk for the water plus cider vinegar

Passover Tiramisu

Passover products have been on the supermarket shelves for weeks now. Which makes Passover like any other holiday in this respect — you have to think about the food way ahead of the actual event and the mountains of matzo meal and farfel and potato starch are a reminder to stock up and start planning.

So too in the food business. I’ve been experimenting with Passover recipes for months and have already given several cooking demonstrations of Passover dishes. Last week I blogged about the one for the UJA Federation of Greenwich Annual Education Symposium (you’ll find a really delicious recipe for Quinoa Salad in that post).

The Symposium was a half-day event featuring keynote speaker Linda Scherzer, former Middle East correspondent for CNN and Israeli Television. Then came the breakout sessions, of which mine was one. You can read all about it here.

Well, in addition to that Quinoa Salad recipe,  I also showed the group how to make The Easiest, Fastest Tiramisu in the World.

Made with Macaroons.

Perfect for Passover.

It takes less than 15 minutes to make. And yes, it isn’t the authentic, cooked, egg-yolk enriched custardy tiramisu you may have eaten.

But it is pretty good! And looks good and takes almost no time at all.

The Easiest, Fastest Macaroon Tiramisu in the World:

12 ounces Mascarpone cheese

1 cup ricotta cheese

1/2 cup sugar

2 tablespoon cold brewed espresso coffee

2 tablespoons Sabra coffee liqueur or Orange-flavored brandy*

1 teaspoon cocoa powder

1/2 cup finely chopped bittersweet chocolate

12 macaroons

Beat the mascarpone cheese with an electric mixer set at medium speed for about 2 minutes or until smooth and creamy. Add the ricotta cheese, sugar, coffee and liqueur and beat ingredients for another 2-3 minutes. Crumble 12 macaroons into 6 dessert dishes. Spoon equal amounts of the cheese mixture on top. Sprinkle with the cocoa and chocolate. Makes 6 servings 

*or use more espresso coffee or mix equal amounts of instant coffee and water together.

You can double this and serve it in a large serving bowl, layered with crumbled macaroons.

Chocolate Bread

Where are all the Queen Esthers and Mordecais? For almost my entire life every Jewish little girl wanted to be queen Esther on Purim. Here was the once-a-year chance to be the heroine queen who saved her people from annihilation! And also, of course to wear flowy chiffon scarves and skirts and maybe a tiara and a few bracelets and your mother’s best fake-rhinestone necklace.

And the boys always wanted to be Mordecai, who refused to bow to Haman and thus provoked that man’s rage into a fury.

Today a lot of the kids will dress up as ladybugs or Spiderman. Or princesses — hey, don’t they realize that a QUEEN has a higher rank and more jewelry than a princess??

And a lot of other Hallowe’en leftover stuff.

I guess it doesn’t really matter as long as it’s fun. Still, this year is the 100th anniversary of the founding of Hadassah, the worldwide Jewish women’s volunteer organization. Hadassah is named for Queen Esther. So it seems fitting that there should be more Queen Esthers out there celebrating. 

Anyway, our local Hadassah hosts an Afternoon Tea every other Tuesday for cancer patients and their caretakers at Stamford Hospital. I am one of their bakers. I often make quickbreads because they are moist, sweet and easy to eat. Like this Chocolate Bread, which is rich and dark and luscious. It’s a good choice for a Tea, afternoon snack or dessert. To celebrate Purim, Hadassah, Queen Esther or any time at all!

Chocolate Bread

• 2 ounces unsweetened chocolate

• 1-3/4 cups all purpose flour

• 1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda

• 1 teaspoon salt

• 1-1/4 cups sugar

• 1/3 cup shortening

• 2 large eggs

• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

• 1-1/4 cups buttermilk

• 1/2 cup chopped pecans, macadamia nuts, cashews or walnuts, optional

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9”x5”x3” loaf pan. Melt the chocolate and set it aside to cool. Sift the flour, baking soda and salt into a bowl and set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer set at medium, cream the sugar and shortening until well mixed. Add the eggs and vanilla extract and beat the ingredients until they are well blended and smooth. Add the flour mixture in portions, alternating with the buttermilk. Blend the ingredients thoroughly. Blend in the melted cooled chocolate. Fold in the nuts, if used. Spoon the batter into the loaf pan. Bake for about 45 minutes or until a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean. Let the bread cool in the pan for 10 minutes then invert onto a cake rack to cool completely.

Makes one bread

Tartine au Sucre

If you’ve never tasted Tartine au Sucre you’ve missed out on one of the sweetest, loveliest desserts of all time. It is also one of the simplest, most heart-warming and homey desserts of all time. It’s an old-fashioned, very traditional one too. Nothing modern, nothing fancy, nothing nouveau about. It doesn’t yell out “foodie!”

Tartine au Sucre is simply this: good, bakery or homemade white bread, scattered with maple sugar and doused with real heavy cream.

Honestly, that’s it. I tried it first many years ago when Ed and I took our young daughters to Canada. We visited several places where we could see the whole process of tapping trees and cooking the sap into syrup. And we ate a lot of pancakes with maple butter. 

But the best maple food was Tartine au Sucre.

It’s now maple season. All the new crop, good maple syrup and sugar is around. Do yourself a favor and get yourself some and make this:

Tartine au Sucre

• 4 slices 1-1/2 inch thick sliced bakery or homemade white bread
• 3/4 cup maple sugar
• 3/4 cup heavy whipping cream

Place a slice of bread on each of 4 dessert plates. Scatter each slice of bread with equal amounts of maple sugar. Whip the cream slightly, only until it begins to hold its shape but is still pourable. Pour over the sugar and bread.

Makes 4 servings

Spanakopitas

There’s more to Purim food than Hamantashen. Although I must confess that Hamantashen is among one of my favorite “cookies.”

But consider why we eat them. Hamantashen are triangles, meant to remind us of the hat our enemy Haman wore as he tried to annihilate the Jews.

We eat the “hat” to rid ourselves and the world of this man and his evil ways.

So really, any triangular food will do. Kreplach is also popular.

But I’m going to vote for Spanakopitas. Spinach-filled, phyllo dough pastries that you can make large, for dinner, or small, as hors d’oeuvre. These are absolutely wonderful and freezable — make a bunch and keep them (well wrapped) for months to eat well past Purim.

Spanakopitas

1 10-ounce package frozen chopped spinach, thawed

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 small onion, chopped

1 large egg

4 ounces feta cheese, crumbled

3 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

2 teaspoons minced fresh dill

freshly ground black pepper to taste

1/2 pound phyllo dough, approximately

4-6 tablespoons butter, melted, approximately

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Squeeze as much water out of the spinach as possible and set aside. Heat the olive oil in a saute pan over medium heat. Add the onion and cook for 2-3 minutes. Stir in the spinach and mix well. Remove the pan from the heat. Add the egg, feta cheese, Parmesan cheese, dill and pepper and mix well. Cut the phyllo leaves into strips about 1-3/4 inches wide. Working with one or as many as 4 strips at a time, brush the strips with a film of melted butter. Put a small amount of filling at the bottom of each strip. Fold the strips diagonally so that the short edge meets the long edge and covers the filling. Continue folding into triangle shapes as you would a flag. Place the triangle on a cookie sheet. Brush with more melted butter. Bake for about 18 minutes or until golden brown. Makes 30-36 pieces

Hi Idraygo: you can find Hip Kosher in major bookstores and at Amazon. Thanks for asking. Hope you enjoy it.

Ronnie

Hi Ronnie, love your recipes!  How much curry is needed in the snapper with coconut curry, not listed in the recipe.  I use your hip kosher cookbook all the time.! 

submitted by: stacy moses (stacy_moses@yahoo.com)

Hi Stacy

Thanks for the note. Glad you like and use the book! And many thanks for catching this omission of an ingredient. I just edited the post (that’s one problem with not having an editor).

The amount of curry needed is 1 teaspoon.

Enjoy and thanks agin.

Ronnie

Classic Minestrone

March 4th used to be Inauguration Day in the United States (changed to January 20th by the 20th amendment in 1933).

It was also my in-laws’ wedding anniversary. My mother-in-law, who could always tell a good joke, used to say “we marched forth on March 4th.”

But anyway, the other day, Gail Collins wrote one of her funny and terrific editorials in the NYTimes, mentioning, of all things, that on Inauguration Day, March 4, 1840, William Henry Harrison, the then oldest president ever elected, gave an Inaugural Address that lasted over 2 hours. It was raining. It was cold. And Harrison didn’t wear warm and protective clothing. He got pneumonia and died about a month later.

And so, Gail Collins continued, she has a great idea. Like President’s Day, (when for some reason it has become the custom to shop for cars), maybe on March 4th we could have something like “special Harrison Inauguration Memorial sales” events “in which all the warm winter clothing they are trying to clear off the shelves could be offered at stupendous savings. People could also give their loved ones special William Henry Harrison umbrellas, just to show they care. It would be great for the economy.”

I think that’s a wonderful idea myself and everyone should call his/her Congress-person right now and ask that person to sponsor a Bill to set aside a new holiday day for William Henry Harrison so we could all have time to shop for coats and things. Or at least call their local Chamber of Commerce and get them to get this going in the stores.

I also think we should mark the day as something like “Harrison Memorial National Warm Soup Day” and all eat a nice, hearty, warming and nourishing soup on this day.

Take this soup, for example — Minestrone. Who doesn’t love Minestrone? It’s so thick and full of stuff it’s like a whole meal and you can make it with meat or chicken stock or vegetarian with vegetable stock or water, serve it plain or with cheese. This soup and a good hunk of crusty Italian-style bread and butter or olive oil will make you feel warm, nourished and wonderful, whether it rains on March 4th or not.

Minestrone

3 tablespoons olive oil (or equal parts olive oil and butter)

1 medium onion, chopped

2 large cloves garlic, chopped

3 carrots, sliced 1/2-inch thick

2 all-purpose potatoes, peeled and cut into bite-size pieces

3 stalks celery, sliced 1/2-inch thick

1 zucchini cut into bite-size pieces

1-1/2 cups frozen peas

1 cup frozen corn kernels

28 ounce can Italian tomatoes, drained and coarsely cut

8 cups vegetable, beef or chicken stock or water

2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil

1 tablespoon chopped fresh oregano (or 1/2 teaspoon dried)

salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

15 ounce can white beans, rinsed and drained

1/2 cup white rice or elbow macaroni

grated Parmesan cheese, optional

Heat the olive oil (and butter, if used) in a soup pot over medium heat. Add the onion and cook for 2-3 minutes or until slightly softened. Add the garlic, carrots, potatoes, celery, zucchini, peas and corn and cook for 2-3 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the tomatoes, stock, basil, oregano and salt and pepper to taste. Cover the pan and simmer for 30 minutes. Add the beans and rice and cook for about 15 minutes or until the rice is tender (if you use macaroni, cook for 8-10 minutes). Serve with grated Parmesan cheese. Makes 8 servings

Chocolate Dipped Crystallized Ginger

Purim is very very noisy. Ask any parent. It’s the holiday when the kids are encouraged to yell and laugh and stamp their feet and grog their groggers in the synagogue sanctuary, all in an effort to “stamp out” the sound of the evil name Haman, a man who tried to destroy the Jewish people.

So it’s a lot of family fun. Even if you sometimes want to put on earmuffs or take an aspirin or two.

There’s some pretty good food too. Usually Hamantashen, the triangular cookies (stuffed with prune, apricot or raspberry lekvar or, these days, with chocolate and all sorts of modern fillings). Or kreplach, also triangular, this shape to resemble Haman’s hat.

But after all is said and done and we make merry as we should, one of the best parts of Purim (next Wednesday night, March 7th) is re-connecting with others. Reconnecting with community, friends and family. By offering small gifts of food.

It’s a delightful tradition. Unfortunately, like so much else, over the years it has become sort of commercial and some people feel as if they have to spend a fortune on fancy packages from fancy stores. 

But you can make a little something instead. Banana bread. Lemon scones. Vegetable soup. Guacamole dip or salsa. Homemade jam. Anything small and handy enough to bring over to a neighbor or a friend.

Like these chocolate dipped crystallized chunks of ginger, which would taste really good with coffee or brandy after the kids go to sleep and it’s quiet in the house.

Chocolate Dipped Crystallized Ginger

3 ounces semisweet chocolate

2 tablespoons whipping cream

30-35 pieces crystallized ginger

Melt the chocolate and cream in the top part of a double boiler over barely simmering water. Let the ingredients melt, remove the top part of the pan from the heat and stir to make a smooth, uniform mixture. Dip each piece of crystallized ginger in the chocolate mixture, shake off the excess and place on waxed paper or parchment paper to dry. Makes 30-35 pieces

Quinoa Salad with Asparagus, Tomatoes and Zucchini

Quinoa may be au courant but I predict this is no fleeting trend. It is here to stay, an ingredient that will remain a staple in American kitchens.

First because it is so nutritious — a complete protein, so you can cut down on or cut out meat-eating. In poor countries in South America, where this grain comes from, pregnant mothers who can’t afford meat are encouraged to eat quinoa.

Second, because it is widely available, relatively cheap and easy to cook: you boil some water or stock, add the grain, cover the pan and let it simmer for about 15 minutes and you’re done.

It’s also versatile. You can make it into salad, casseroles, stuffings and so on.

It tastes good too. A must for food!

And, as if all this wasn’t enough, you can use quinoa during Passover. Even though it is a grain.

It is not one of the prohibited grains.

That’s big for all who want to have a little something “starchy” with dinner during Passover and don’t want potatoes every day and don’t like the taste or consistency of Passover pasta products or who like variety in their diet.

Yesterday I gave a cooking demo for the UJA Federation of Greenwich Women’s Philanthropy and JCC Greenwich and prepared two Passover dishes, including Quinoa Salad with Asparagus, Zucchini and Tomatoes. It was a big hit, no leftovers and everyone was amazed that the whole recipe took 17 minutes and it would have been shorter but we had to wait for the grains to cook.

This recipe is wonderfully fresh and Passover friendly. But you can enjoy it any time. Here it is:

Quinoa Salad with Asparagus, Tomatoes and Zucchini

1 cup quinoa

1 cup cut up asparagus (1-inch pieces)

1 cup bite-size pieces of zucchini

1 cup halved cherry tomatoes

2 scallions, chopped

2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill

1 tablespoon chopped fresh mint

3 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoon white wine vinegar or lemon juice

salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Place the quinoa in a strainer and rinse for a few seconds under cold water. Drain. Bring 1-1/2 cups water to boil in a saucepan over high heat. Add the quinoa, lower the heat, cover the pan and simmer for about 15 minutes or until the grains have absorbed the liquid. Spoon the quinoa into a bowl. Bring some more water to a boil in the pan. Add the asparagus and cook for 15 seconds. Add the zucchini and cook for another 15 seconds. Strain the vegetables, rinse under cold water and add to the quinoa. Add the tomatoes, scallions, dill and mint and toss ingredients to distribute them evenly. Pour in the olive oil and vinegar, toss and taste. Add salt and pepper to taste. Let rest for 15 minutes before serving. Makes 6 servings