Polish Jews sweet matzo pancakes

Polish: maca
Slovakian: maces
Arabic: مصة
Hebrew: מצה
Dutch: matse
German: Matze
Russian: маца
Romanian: pască
Portuguese: matzá
Japanese: マッツァー

Many dishes of Polish Jews are today considered regional specialities, and same time Polish regional cuisine left influences in Jewish recipes. Matzo and challah are available in most Polish groceries; Bagels originates in Poland; raw potato fritters, stuffed goose necks, fish in almonds and raisins, red cabbage salad and noodle-curd pies are eaten commonly at Vistula river. Nevertheless, many Polish Jews dishes are today forgotten, but thanks God there still are old cookbooks :) Here is a great recipe for Polish Jews delicacy, sweet matzo pancakes, called chremzel.

100 gr matzo
50 gr almonds
50 gr sugar
4 eggs
200 ml wine
a pinch of salt
a pinch of baking powder
a drop of almond flavouring

1. Grind matzo and peeled almonds in coffee grinder. Heat wine with sugar (leave 3 tablespoons apart). Pour warm wine over ground matzo and almonds.

2. Beat yolks with resting sugar (those 3 tablespoons). Whisk egg whites with a pinch of salt until stiff. Combine yolks with wine matzo, almond flavouring and baking powder. Add stiff egg whites and slightly mix under matzo dough.

3. Fry small pancakes in oil. Sprinkle with icing sugar before serving.

Israeli date pastries

Polish: daktyl
Portuguese: tâmara
Xhosa: umhla
Sicilian: rattula
Romanian: curmală
Azeri: xurma
Arabic: تَمْر
Kurdish: salroj
Malay: buah kurma
Mokshan: fig

Mammouls are delicious stuffed pastries, eaten in the whole Near East. They can be filled with dates, walnuts, pistachios, dates with sesame seeds and so on. they are a festivity cookie, eaten (depends on religion of the eater and on the filling) during Easter, Ramadan, Hanukkah and Purim. I ate once great Lebanese mammouls with pistachio filling in the most important moment of my life and that is why I will never forget its taste. Again, using great Elizabeth Wolf-Cohen's book "Jüdische Küche", I prepared Israeli mammouls (מעמול) with date filling and they were incredibly tasty and similar to the Lebanese ones I ate. However, Jewish and Arab recipes differ and I will show you Arab recipe another day, too.

(to make 12 pastries)
175 gr flour
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons milk
1+1 tablespoon orange blossom essence
90 gr soft butter
100 gr pitted dried dates
icing sugar to sprinkle

1. Combine flour with sugar. Add milk, orange water and butter and knead. Optionally, add few more milk but don't add too much cause the dough can't be sticky! Form walnut-size balls (I made 12).

2. Prepare the filling: chop dates finely and add orange blossom water (or optionally a bit of water to make the consistency better, but I just soaked dried dates in water before chopping them and it made everything easier, I simply strained them and chopped)

3. With your fingers, make a hole in dough balls and stuff each ball with a teaspoon of the filling. Close the balls and form them anyhow you wish. Mammouls can be formed with special wooden molds like these or you can shape them in your hands with a help of tongs (see also here , here and here). To inspire yourself, take a look at these pics: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
And here are my no-mould-no-tongs-hand-made mammouls :)





ps. my mum asked me to make mammouls with our homemade chokeberry jam as a filling. I guess I'd like to experiment, I am sure it would taste great!

Israeli olive oil bread rolls

Polish: oliwka
Romanian: măslină
Ligurian: auriva
Sicilian: aliva
Hausa: zàitùn
Basque: oliba
Kabyle: azemmur
Greek: ελιά
Caló: letaya
Hebrew: זית

To be honest, I hated olives and olive oil. My sister, after her travel to Valencia, brought to us a new habit of sprinkling bread with olive oil and juice squeezed directly with hands from a fresh tomato. I couldn't stand that taste until I went... to Chile. Once my lovely Chilean friends, Susy and Diego, bought a pack of olives for our trip at the sea side. I tried one reluctantly and... I fell in love :) Now I understand my friends who are able to eat the whole jar while going bakc home from the grocery, cause I sometimes do the same. But I don't care, they are healthy and delicious!
My brother bought 1 kg of black olives and I was wondering wether to eat them all, make tapenade or Palestinian ragout with olives and chicken... But yet I decided to try another recipe from Elizabeth Wolf-Cohen's book "Jüdische Küche", which my sister and brother-in-law gave me for Christmas. But I made some small changes in this recipe. If you love olives, try Israeli olive breads, לחם זיתים!

(for 9 buns)
350 gr flour
90 gr buckwheat flour
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon oregano
a pinch of pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon dried yeast
225 ml lukewarm water
300 gr black olives (pitted)

1. If you use bread machine (as I did), just pour the water to the recipient and add salt, sugar, oil, oregano, sieved flour and yeast and set for a kneading program. If you use your hands, put all dry ingredients into a bowl (sieve flours of course) and slowly add warm water and oil and knead. Cover and set in a warm place to let the dough grow (it takes about 1 hour)

2. When you are ready with 1st point, the dough is twice as big as it was while kneading, chop olives and knead the dough again, together with olives. Form buns (I made 9) and leave them for about 30 minutes to grow again.

3. You can eventually lightly cut your buns lenghtwise or make a cross with a knife. Bake about 20 minutes in 180C oven. And that's it!