‘The New Kosher’ passes household tests

The New Kosher: Simple Recipes to Savor and Share by Kim Kushner, WeldonOwen, San Francisco;  ISBN 978-1-61628-7926-3 ©2015, $35.00, p. 193, plus index (Also available in Kindle)

By Fred Reiss, Ed.D.

 

Fred Reiss, Ed.D
Fred Reiss, Ed.D

WINCHESTER, California– Kim Kushner, calling herself an ordinary New York housewife hailing from Montreal, and author of The New Kosher, loves to consume food with family and friends much more than she loves to cook, which shows from the simplicity of her recipes, many of which have six ingredients or less. This is not to say that the ingredients aren’t sensual or the presentations, whose pictures by photographer Kate Sears illustrate the cookbook, aren’t eye catching. Indeed, they are!

Growing up in a kosher, modern Orthodox Jewish home with Moroccan ancestry, Kim learned to cook at an early age with Middle Eastern foods and spices—hummus, tomato salad, variations on eggplants, and so on. Meze-like platters—small plates and bite sized spoonfuls—as one might expect from the Maghreb are not her style; she prefers recipes producing large meals of savory dishes.

Kosher cooking is as much about what not to do as it is about what to do, such as: don’t use the meat of non-kosher animals or fish without fins and scales, and don’t use dairy products and meat at the same meal, as a few examples. There will be no recipes for pork, or shark, or even cheeseburgers here. But there’s no need to fret, The New Kosher offers delectable and flavorsome recipes, including ricotta ravioli with cinnamon, halibut stuffed with kale and feta pesto, grilled steak with caramelized tandoori peppers, and deconstructed s ‘mores.

The opening chapter of The New Kosher cookbook, “Kim’s Essentials,” contains recipes for snacks and appetizers, employing ingredients like pita, za’atar (zahtar), dried tomatoes, tahini, silan (date syrup), pomegranate and other types of seeds. Included in this category is a recipe for a “Perfect Challah,” with optional toppings drawn from her Toppings Recipes Section.

The New Kosher follows traditional menu categories: brunch, dinner, and dessert. Each recipe has four parts: an introductory comment describing the dish’s history, how it might be served to guests and appropriate ingredient substitutions, followed by a list of ingredients, the cooking instructions, and an indication of how many might be served. Kim also makes sure that no time is wasted on conversion of units. Each ingredient requiring a certain amount of cups specifies the equivalent in fluid ounces and milliliters, those requiring pounds show the equivalent in grams and kilograms, inches and millimeters of thickness are placed side-by-side, and temperatures are noted in °F and °C.

To go along with tuna for dinner, we prepared one of Kim’s salads, Savoy Slaw Salad with Lemongrass and Lime Dressing, from the More than Salad Section. I shredded the cabbage, carrots, and beets, putting each shredding into a large bowl, then adding the sugar-snap peas and sunflower seeds. For the dressing, I combined lime juice, lemongrass, scallion, coconut oil, olive oil, sugar, salt and pepper into a blender and pulsed for about thirty seconds. To complete the process, I poured the dressing over the slaw just before dinner, tossed, and let stand for 10 minutes. Not only did the color add beauty to the plate, but the crunch of the salad and the tangy dressing gave extra pizzazz to the monochrome fish. Total prep time about twenty-five minutes.

On another occasion, to go along with left-over barbecued chicken breast, I selected Kushner’s Cucumber, Pomegranate and Corn Salad with Poppy Seeds, also from the More than Salad Section. The entire salad, consisting of pickling cucumbers, corn kernels, and pomegranate seeds took less than thirty minutes to prepare, including the dressing, composed of olive and sesame oils, rice vinegar, and sugar. On tasting the salad, my wife’s first words were, “Tasty, VERY tasty.”

Our selection of the Thai-style Summer Salmon dinner was also a big hit. Kim suggests baking the salmon in the oven, but there is an unwritten law in our house that during the summer, the oven shall not be used. So while I grilled the salmon, my wife prepared the dressing: blending soy and plum sauces, orange juice, fresh ginger, and maple syrup. We used a tablespoon to drizzle the sauce over the piping-hot fish, and as suggested, sprinkled the serving with freshly chopped cilantro and mint together with some roughly chopped peanuts. Another amazing dish prepared in about half an hour. The meal tasted just as good as a left over the next day.

Finally, we made the All-in-One Turkey Rice Bowl, based on her comment that “this is one of my kids’ all-time favorite dinners,” and we’re always looking for something different (and good) to feed the grandkids. The dish combines rice and turkey with sautéed onions, celery, red and green bell pepper, diced tomatoes and spices. This was another delicious meal, definitely fit for picky children. We prepared the dinner in under an hour.

We look forward to trying more of Kim’s offerings, like the chicken potpie, as the weather turns cooler. Yet, the recipes presented in The New Kosher cookbook, whose results are delightful to the eye and pleasing to the palette, will be a big hit whenever they are served.

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Dr. Fred Reiss is a retired public and Hebrew school teacher and administrator. He is the author of The Standard Guide to the Jewish and Civil Calendars; Public Education in Camden, NJ: From Inception to Integration; Ancient Secrets of Creation: Sepher Yetzira, the Book that Started Kabbalah, Revealed; and a fiction book, Reclaiming the Messiah. You may comment to him at fred.reiss@sdjewishworld.com.

 

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