When Jayne Cohen and her sister returned home for their first Passover after their grandmother had passed away, they were determined to recreate the holiday dishes they had grown up with.
But neither had ever attempted these traditional recipes. Those had been Grandma’s province.
“We had never thought to copy down her recipes,” Cohen lamented. “That first Passover without my grandmother we shared a secret suspicion that allowing her foods to vanish from our table meant losing something much greater and more vital. And we could not bear another loss.”
Together the sisters experimented with recipes, using cookbooks for inspiration.
“We decided to make foods familiar enough to taste like Passover, yet still be fresh and inventive,” Cohen said. “Dishes reimagined so that they reflected our changing palates and insatiable culinary curiosity.”
That Passover experiment led Cohen on a decades-long quest to preserve these timeless family recipes before they disappear, while updating them with new flavor profiles. The result is “Jewish Holiday Cooking: A Food Lover’s Classics and Improvisations” (Wiley), with nearly 300 classic and contemporary recipes for all the holidays that unite old and new traditions.
In each chapter Cohen provides a history of the holiday as well as touching personal narratives chronicling her own family’s experiences and celebrations.
“You walk a fine line trying to make foods familiar enough to taste like Passover, yet still be fresh and innovative,” said Cohen, talking to me by phone from her home in New York. “You don’t want to wind up with something very chef-y.
“People say, how could you touch the sacred? But when you look at how Jewish food has evolved throughout the ages, as has its ritual, people are constantly using new ingredients and new techniques, which have kept the cuisine vital and the traditions vital,” she added. “We’re all sophisticated these days in terms of taste — heavy food is not appealing to us — we have to keep it fresh and exciting.”
For many Eastern European Jews, what would the holiday be without brisket? Cohen’s braised brisket with 36 cloves of garlic takes this traditional dish to another level, both gastronomically and philosophically.
“It’s my pun on the classic French chicken with 40 cloves of garlic,” she noted. “All that feisty garlic turns sweet and mellow with gentle braising. When pureed, it forms a seductive gravy, which is finished with a zing of chopped raw garlic and lemon zest.”
Full disclosure: I just moved from Fullerton to Placentia, and half my kitchen is still in boxes, so preparing for Seder is a real challenge. As of this writing, my chicken soup, matzo kugel and desserts are in the freezer, but this year’s brisket will come from Parties by Panache in Brea, a full-service catering company that can do everything from an entire wedding to individual dishes.
“We try to accommodate people’s budgets,” owner Hollis O’Brien told me. “If they want to use their own centerpieces, that’s fine. A lot of people take our menu and just order an entree or sides.”
Fullerton’s Judy Bart Kancigor is the author of “Cooking Jewish” and “The Perfect Passover Cookbook.” Her website is cookingjewish.com.
BRAISED BRISKET WITH 36 CLOVES OF GARLIC
From “Jewish Holiday Cooking” by Jayne Cohen; yields 8 generous servings
Ingredients:
• About 36 fat, unpeeled garlic cloves (1 2/3 to 2 cups) or an equivalent amount of smaller cloves, plus 1 teaspoon minced garlic
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• A first- or second-cut beef brisket (about 5 pounds), trimmed of excess fat, wiped with a damp paper towel, and patted dry
• 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
• 3 cups chicken broth, good-quality low-sodium
• 3 or 4 fresh thyme sprigs, or 2 teaspoons dried leaves
• 2 fresh rosemary sprigs, plus 1 teaspoon chopped leaves
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
Method:
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees
2. Drop garlic cloves into small saucepan of boiling water; leave in water 30 seconds. Drain immediately. Peel as soon as cool enough to handle. Set aside on paper towels to dry.
3. Heat olive oil over medium-high heat in heavy-bottomed roasting pan or flameproof casserole large enough to accommodate meat in one layer. Use two burners, if necessary. Add brisket and brown well on both sides, about 10 minutes. Transfer brisket to platter and set aside.
4. Pour off all but about 1 tablespoon of fat remaining in pan and add the garlic cloves. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the garlic edges are tinged with gold. Add the vinegar and deglaze the pan, scraping up all the browned bits from the bottom with a wooden spoon. Add stock, thyme, and rosemary sprigs, and reduce heat to a simmer. Salt and pepper brisket to taste on all sides, and add it to the pan, fat side up. Spoon garlic cloves over meat.
5. Place brisket in oven, cover (if you have no lid, use heavy-duty foil), and cook, basting every half-hour, until the meat is fork tender, 2 1/2 to 3 hours or longer. (As the meat cooks, periodically check that the liquid is bubbling gently. If it is boiling rapidly, turn the oven down to 300 degrees. The brisket tastes best if it is allowed to rest, reabsorbing the juices lost during braising, and it’s easiest to de-fat the gravy if you prepare the meat ahead and refrigerate it until the fat solidifies.
6. Cool the brisket in the pan sauce, cover well with foil, and refrigerate until the fat congeals. Scrape off all solid fat. Remove the brisket from the pan and slice thinly across the grain.
7. Prepare gravy: Bring braising mixture to room temperature, then strain it, reserving the garlic and discarding the thyme and rosemary sprigs. Skim and discard as much fat as possible from the liquid. Purée about half of the cooked garlic with 1 cup of the defatted braising liquid in a food processor or a blender. (If you want a smooth gravy, purée all of the cooked garlic cloves.) Transfer the puréed mixture, the remaining braising liquid, and the rest of the cooked garlic to a skillet. Add the chopped rosemary, minced garlic, and lemon zest. Boil down the gravy over high heat, uncovered, to desired consistency. Taste and adjust the seasoning. Rewarm the brisket in the gravy until heated through.
8. Arrange sliced brisket on a serving platter. Spoon some of the hot gravy all over the meat and pass the rest in a separate sauceboat.