Chard or Spinach Cutlets and Rosheshone Silka Round-up (Rosh Ha-Shanah)

Five foods are recommended in the Gemore (Talmud Bavli Horayos 12A and Kerises 6A) for the Eve of Rosheshone.  They are silka סילקא ( בוריק־בלעטער beet greens or chard), kra קרא ( קירבעס zucchini or squash),  rubia רוביא (   לוביע, שװאַרץ־אײגעלע black-eyed peas), karsi כּרתי ( פּאָרעס leeks) and tamri תּמרי ( טײַטלען dates).  This recipe is for chard or beet greens, and can be adapted for any leafy greens.  These are lovely on their own, but I imagine they would have no objections to a yellow tomato sauce, or any tomato sauce, a cream sauce, or a horseradish sauce.

Vegan Chard or Spinach Cutlets

For the cutlets:

2 bunches (about 1 pound) spinach, beet greens,  or chard

1 tablespoon olive oil (or other oil)

1 tablespoon Chickpea flour of fava garbanzo flour 

salt, pepper, paprika

oil for frying 

For the batter:

1/2 cup  tablespoons (56 grams) sifted chickpea flour or fava garbanzo flour

1/8 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

optional: 1/4 teaspoon black pepper, paprika, and/or cumin

Remove the stems, wash the greens well and cook them in the water clinging to the leaves.  Allow them to cool and squeeze out as much water as you can. Chop the greens fine or pulse in a processor.  You should have 1 cup (6 ounces, 170 grams) chopped greens.

In a bowl, mix the chopped greens with 1 tablespoon chickpea flour and seasonings.  Form the mixture into pancakes with your hands.

Heat oil in a wide skillet.

Combine the chickpea flour with the salt, baking powder and optional seasonings, if using.  Whisk in enough cold water (about 1/2 cup) to make a thin batter.

Dip the cutlets in the batter and fry on both sides until golden.

 

This recipe is a vegan, gluten-free adaptation of Fania Lewando's Spinach Cutlets.

Other Silka recipes for the New Year:

Dill and Chard Frittata

Fedelini with Walnuts, Chard, and Garlic Scapes

Braised Chard Stems with Oregano and Chile

White Bean Soup with Chard Stems

Pokey Leek Soup (this recipe has 3 simonim)

Spinach with Pumpkin Seeds

Green Rice

Beet Greens Soup and Beet Soup

 

Rosheshone Vocabulary from the League for Yiddish part I

Rosheshone Vocabulary from The League for Yiddish part II

Spinach with Pumpkin seeds Vegan Passover

Yes, yes, I hear you.  You need a vegan peysekh entrée; you need something without matzo, gebrokhts, or wheat in any form, and you also need to make something for your daughter-in-law who can’t eat potatoes, and your other daughter-in-law who can’t have tree nuts.  I know last year you had to make four entrees, and indeed, the four vegan entrees of Passover may well be ready take their place in the Hagaddah, alongside the cups, sons, questions, varieties of redemption, and other paschal tetrads, because what could there possibly be that everyone could eat that is also as amazingly delicious as the feast of freedom deserves to be? 

Aha, you know you have come to the right place.

I tried this first only two years ago, but now I can not imagine peysekh without it  The recipe is adapted from the Ghanian Spinach Stew with Sweet Plantains that appeared in the Times in March of 2015.  It immediately caught my eye for a few reasons.  First, it satisfies all the conditions above (as adapted herewith), and that by itself is worth remarking.  Second, I really like how the pumpkin seed cream makes the dish into a rich sort of vegan creamed spinach or shag panir.  Of course, I love the idea plantains as a side dish for peysekh (that’s three), and fourth (another paschal tetrad!),  I was also excited about the chance to use smoked paprika, which I had never tried.  As it happened, my kosher paprika emporium does not have smoked paprika for Passover, even though they have every other kind of paprika in the universe, so I ended up using sweet and hot paprika.  The recipe in the Times also called for fish sauce.  I am thinking some toasted norimaki might add the desired scent of the sea.

Peysekh Spinach with Pumpkin Seeds

½ cup coconut oil, or mix of coconut and vegetable oil

1 medium onion,

5 - 9 cloves garlic

1 pinky-sized piece of ginger, (based on a medium-sized woman’s pinky, about 2 tablespoons after chopping)

1 habanero chile, or other type of chile (If you are on a totally nightshade-free diet, omit the chile and add ground black pepper).

Kosher salt

2 ½ pounds plum tomatoes, peeled and chopped

¾ cup pumpkin seeds

 2 1/2 teaspoons smoked paprika or a mix of sweet and hot paprika

1 pound spinach*

Dice the onion, mince or crush the garlic, and chop the ginger and the chile.  Clean and chop the spinach.

Cook the onions, garlic, ginger, and chile in the oil. and salt. Stir and fry , until the onions begin to color. Add the tomatoes and some salt. Bring to a boil, lower heat to a simmer and partly cover the pan. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the sauce has thickened, about 25 minutes, add paprika and simmer another two minutes. 

Pulse the pumpkin seeds to a fine powder in a food processor

Stir water into the pumpkin seed powder, a tablespoon at a time, until it is a thin paste. Spoon the pumpkin seed paste onto the tomato sauce, and spread it out. Cover the pan, cook for a few minutes, and stir.

Add water as needed, and increase heat to a boil. Stir in the spinach, and cook until soft. Add salt to taste, and serve with home-fried sweet plantains.

*over-wintered spinach is available briefly right around peysekh.  It is the most sublime spinach in the world.  Look for it at your farmers’ market.

The original recipe suggests serving the spinach with boiled plantains.  I love this idea, both because plantains seem to be an ideal foil for the spicy saucy spinach and because they provide a comforting alternative for folks who can’t eat too many potatoes or nightshades, for whom peysekh presents a formidable challenge.  To my taste, the boiled plantains were delicious when they were piping hot out of the pot, but aggressively bland very shortly thereafter.  When I make this next time, I am going to try home-frying the boiled plantains.

UPDATE:
I cooked the spinach in advance because I had five pounds of raw spinacsh taking over my kitchen, and that works just fine, possibly even better than the original method.

Bukovina Buckwheat Cornbread

 

A few years ago I posted this dialog-poem by Yekhiel Shraibman about language, memory, and an intriguing recipe for  corn and buckwheat shortbread cookies.  I needed some buckwheat quick bread to make the topping for the Yiddish Mormon Funeral Potatoes I hope to be making today, so I adapted the recipe, adding milk, yogurt, whole eggs and leavening to the corn and buckwheat mixture

Bukovina Buckwheat Cornbread
4 ounces butter
6 ounces (1 1/2 cups) buckwheat flour
6 ounces (1 1/2 cups) fine yellow cornmeal
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons honey (more or less, to taste)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 cup yogurt
1 cup milk
2 eggs

Heat the oven to 425F. Melt the butter in a nine-inch cast iron skillet or two smaller skillets.
combine the dry ingredients in a large bowl, and make a hole in the center.  Beat the eggs with the milk, yogurt and honey, and pour into the center of the mix. Fold gently to make a batter. Pour on the hot butter and stir to combine.  Pour immediately into the hot skillets and bake for 15 minutes.  Lower the heat to 375, and bake another 10 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean.

At this point I can tell you this bread is wonderful hot out of the oven with butter.  When I was putting this bread together, I was almost tempted to add some white flour, because I was nervous about working with buckwheat flour, with which I have limited experience.  I am glad I resisted.  This wheat-free, gluten-free bread is soft, light, and pleasantly crumbly, just as I hoped.

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