Challahsaurus חלהזאַװער

At least one member of my family is much more likely to eat food if it is shaped like a dinosaur, and I understand he is not entirely alone in this position. The key challah discussion made me think of other shapes that might be interesting and appropriate for other shabosim of the year and it seemed that a challahsaurus, or khalezaver, would be particularly well-suited to shabes emor, when we read that the olive oil bread consumed in the temple was to be “lekhem-azkore” or “dinosaur-bread” (or possibly “memorial-bread;” translations differ, or at least they do now).

חלהזאַװער Challahsaurus

¾ cup warm water

3 packets active dry yeast

4 ½ eggs (leave over part of one egg for the glaze)

4 yolks (so that you have about 10 ounces eggs and yolks, combined. You can make it more or less yolky depending on your plans for the whites)

1/4 cup olive oil

¼ cup honey

6 ½ cups flour (30-32 ounces)

4 teaspoons kosher salt

Dissolve the yeast in the water. Add eggs, oil, honey, flour and salt and work into a still dough. Knead the dough for about fifteen minutes and allow it to rise, covered, in a warmish place until doubled. Punch down the dough. At this point you can begin shaping the loaves, or allow the dough to rise overnight in the refrigerator.

Divide the dough into two portions, one twice the size of the other. The larger portion is for the challahsaurus. With the rest you may make your second challah in the shape of your choice.

Heat the oven t0 350F.

Divide the larger dough piece into six balls, two large, two medium, and two small. Roll the the dough balls into six ropes.

Use aluminum foil to make a dinosaur-shaped (sort of L-shaped) armature for your baking pan. Lay the two shorter dough ropes across the lower leg of the “L”. These will be your dinosaur legs.
Now braid together the remaining four ropes so that parts of the longest pieces extend out of either end of the braid. These will be Dino’s head and tail.

Lay the dinosaur-braid over the legs so that the head is resting on the upper leg of the aluminum-foil armature. Make eyes with pumpkin seeds or whatever is handy. Shape your second challah, and brush both challahs with egg glaze, made with the half-egg remaining from the dough and a teaspoon of water.

Bake the challahs to a deep golden brown. This will take about 25 minutes. You may need to remove one of your oven racks to make room for everyone to stand up.

Ooh! I just can’t wait. You can make a dinosaur challah from this pumpkin challah recipe as well.

Jarrahdale pumpkin

Please meet some of the pumpkins and squashes from Maxwell Farm, at Union Square New York on Mondays. The blue lobed pumpkin in the center is the one I took home. According Elizabeth Schneider’s vegetable book, this is a Jarrahdale Pumpkin (Cucurbita maxima, hundert-funtike dinye). This variety has the purest deepest clearest flavor of any of the pumpkins. It seems so mild, but steely strength is wrapped up in its purity and clarity. It is the Lillian Gish of pumpkins.

Almost all recipes will tell you to cut open the pumpkin and scoop out the seeds and fibers before baking. I find that it is easier for me to put the whole pumpkin in the oven in a pyrex pie plate of a suitable diameter and then eviscerate the pumpkin when it is nice and soft. The only thing you need to watch is that the whole pumpkin will exude lots of water while baking, so you need to tip the dish and drain it out once or twice during baking. This is still easier than breaking into a honking great pumpkin.

You can use the baked and drained pulp for pies, pumpkin cheesecake (recipe coming soon), or The Chocolate Lady’s gorgeous pumpkin challah, but this pumpkin is so pretty that I like even more to keep it whole and fill it with my grandmother’s cornflake stuffing and braised wild rice tempeh. Here's the challah recipe for now:

Pumpkin Koyletsh or Khale (Challah)

(yummy, meltingly toothsome, yellow as yellow can be)

½ cup water

3 packages yeast

1 cup Jarrahdale pumpkin pulp (or cheese pumpkin or butternut squash pulp)

1/4 cup olive oil or other oil

1 ½ eggs

4 yolks

1 tablespoon salt

¼ cup honey

6 cups bread flour

½ egg

1 teaspoon water

poppy seeds (or sesame, maybe a few pumpkin seeds)

Sprinkle yeast over warm water in mixing bowl and allow to proof. Add oil, salt, sugar, pumpkin and eggs and mix well. Add the flour and mix and knead until a stiff dough forms. Set aside and allow to raise in an oiled bowl about one hour or until doubled in size. Divide into twelve pieces and roll each piece into a smooth seamless sphere. Roll each dough lump slightly to elongate. Go back to dough lump number one and roll each one a little more. Continue until you have twelve ropes about 12-15 inches long. Braid into two khales of six strands each.. To braid six strands, fasten them at the top, then move the leftmost rope to the center, and the rightmost but one to the left. Then move the rightmost to the center, and the leftmost but one to the right. Continue to the bottom and pinch the ends together.

Allow the khales to rest 40 minutes or so. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Brush with remaining half egg beaten with a teaspoon of water and sprinkle with seeds. Bake for 30 minutes or until brown.

This recipe, along with some wonderful pictures, appears in Yiddish here.

Bonus Lillian Gish trivia: “Lillian Gish” is Cockney rhyming slang for “fish” See the Cockney Bible eg: “They told 'im, ‘We've got five loaves of Uncle Fred and two Lillian Gish’.”

Have a shifty at pictures of some squash varieties.

Schneider, Elizabeth. Vegetables from Amaranth to Zucchini : The Essential Reference : 500 Recipes and 275 Photographs. 1st ed. New York: Morrow, 2001.

Food and Drink, Recipes, Cooking, Food, Vegetarian, vegetables, antioxidant-rich foods, vegetarian Thanksgiving, jarrahdale pumpkin, blue pumpkin, challah, khale, Jewish food, baking, koyletsh