Recipes

Joan Nathan · NYT Cooking

Traditionally this Libyan Jewish dish is made with tomato paste, water and fish steaks, and served on holidays like Rosh Hashana. This twist on the classic uses the last of the summer tomatoes, reducing their purée into a thick, concentrated gravy. A few added spices make for a tangy sauce in which to poach sea bass or other fish fillets. Be careful to cook the fish just until slightly firm and flaky to ensure it stays tender. Serve it as an appetizer, as Libyans do, or as a main course. A simple bulgur pilaf makes a nice accompaniment.

Joan Nathan · NYT Cooking

Squiggly churros are a crispy, crunchy alternative to sufganiyot for one of the nights of Hanukkah. Serve them coated in cinnamon sugar and, instead of injecting them with jam, dip them into strawberry sauce — or raspberry sauce, Mexican chocolate with cinnamon, even guava sauce. For fluted edges on your churros, you’ll need a pastry bag fitted with a large French star pastry tip, but you could also use a resealable plastic bag with a tip cut off. To prepare the churros in advance, try this trick: Pipe the dough into 6-inch lengths on a parchment-lined baking sheet, then freeze. Fry directly from the freezer in oil heated to 375 degrees (mixture will bubble up).

Joan Nathan · NYT Cooking

If you like artichokes as much as I do, this recipe, often made at Passover by Jews from Morocco, is for you. You can use fresh or frozen artichokes, though trimming fresh artichokes is worth the effort for their delicate texture. To save waste, boil the trimmed artichoke leaves about 15 minutes until tender in water with a lemon, then enjoy them for lunch, dipping them into an easy sauce of yogurt spiked with a spoonful of Dijon mustard. Easily made in a frying pan, this tagine goes well with couscous, or a quinoa or bulgur pilaf, though that might depend on your Passover traditions, and Moroccan Jews do not allow rice or couscous. The dish can easily be made a day or two in advance and refrigerated or even frozen.

Joan Nathan · NYT Cooking

The actress Natalie Portman was seeking a good vegan matzo ball soup, and the result is this recipe: soft matzo balls that hold together thanks to a little help from chickpeas. Matzo meal, potato starch, a little olive oil and lots of ginger, dill and cilantro lend plenty of flavor, while chickpea water (known as aquafaba) provides binding that would otherwise come from eggs. You can use the liquid from canned chickpeas, but the liquid from dry chickpeas soaked, then cooked in water works best. Ginger and nutmeg are characteristics of German-Jewish matzo balls, while the Yemenite addition of cilantro and dill adds even more brightness and flavor. Natalie is right: “It’s a very sad world without good matzo balls.”

Joan Nathan · NYT Cooking

Tsimmes is a medieval German Jewish holiday beef stew that spread with the Jews to Eastern Europe. It was originally made with carrots and turnips, then when potatoes came to the Old World, they were added. When the dish came to the New World, sweet potatoes often replaces the white potatoes. Now I’ve tweaked it to my taste: I substitute the yellow yams or sweet potatoes with the white Japanese sweet potatoes that I love. I use flanken, a cut of short ribs found at kosher butchers, but any cut of short ribs will do, as will beef stew meat. I keep the bones in for flavor — and add a bay leaf for the same reason — and, rather than skimming the fat as it cooks, I simply put the stew pot in the refrigerator overnight so I can easily remove the hardened fat the next day. (A generation or two before me, cooks would have saved that fat for cooking and baking.) Instead of adding a little matzo meal to thicken the broth, I find no need for that, especially if I reduce the sauce a little before

Joan Nathan · NYT Cooking

This very flexible recipe is often served by Moroccan Jews and their descendants. Many who moved to France, for example, tend to prepare it with preserved lemons and olives. Others living in Jerusalem, like Danielle Renov, author of “Peas, Love & Carrots” (Mesorah Publications, 2020), might incorporate more spice. (Ms. Renov omits the saffron for Passover.) With the addition of red peppers and tomatoes coming from the Americas, it became the rich Moroccan dish it is today. Traditionally made with white fish, it also works with salmon or shad. Serve this as an appetizer, symbolic of the wish for abundance. Assemble it in the morning and cook it just before serving, or eat the fish at room temperature. For a main course, add quinoa or couscous to soak up the flavorful juices.

Joan Nathan · NYT Cooking

Have fun with this early fall salad, meant for Rosh Hashana but festive throughout the season. Bitter and tart greens, like arugula, crunchy romaine and celery, pair well with shallots or red onion, dates, dried figs, a handful of multicolored olives and crisp, refreshing cucumbers. About a cup of cooked barley adds chew, but you could use lentils or chickpeas instead for more protein. If you can find them, heirloom varieties of barley add wonderful nutty complexity. Beets — used in ancient times more for the leaves than the roots — currants and green grapes lend color and sweetness, as well as a pomegranate, the symbol of fruitfulness by virtue of its many seeds. All these foods are symbolic of fertility, abundance, and prosperity in the New Year.

Joan Nathan · NYT Cooking

Recipes sometimes tell a much larger story about migration and place, as traditional ingredients step aside for what may be more readily available. Such is the case with this dish from Yung Chow, published in The Times in 2003 with an article about the history of Chinese American families who settled in the Mississippi Delta. When Ms. Chow couldn’t find Chinese broccoli or bok choy in her local markets, she turned to collard greens, which she stir-fried with garlic and flavored with oyster sauce. Amanda Hesser, who included this recipe in “The Essential New York Times Cookbook,” said that the wok “really brings out the minerality of collards, and this goes so well with the sweetness of oyster sauce.” Joan Nathan

Joan Nathan · NYT Cooking

Matzo balls spiced with ginger and nutmeg transform this hearty, earthy stew into a nourishing one-pot dinner, reminiscent of chicken and dumplings but much lighter and simpler to make. The process of chilling the broth and skimming the fat is the only part requiring much attention, but it also means that this meal can be made almost entirely ahead of time. You can use the skimmed fat to add more flavor to the matzo balls, but if you don’t have the time, just use olive oil instead, or buy some schmaltz. If you have leftover Thanksgiving turkey, you can also use it here in place of the chicken, and skip Step 1. Just add enough stock so that the stew is the consistency you like.

Joan Nathan · NYT Cooking

This is a more advanced version of the popular chocolate matzo toffee, but it’s still easy to make: A layer of caramel bakes on top of then soaks into the unleavened bread, which next gets slathered with peanut butter and topped with crunchy peanuts. For those with peanut allergies — or those who do not eat peanuts at Passover — you can substitute any creamy nut butter and nuts. You can also use tahini and halvah; add snipped, dried apricots or dried cranberries for color; or keep it simple and stick with chocolate — preferably dark, to counter the caramel’s sweetness — as in the original recipe by baker Marcy Goldman in her book “A Treasury of Jewish Holiday Baking” (Doubleday 1998). Be aware: This dish is addictive. Joan Nathan

Joan Nathan · NYT Cooking

This soup is best made with fresh apricots, available at farmers’ markets and grocery stores for a few precious weeks in the summer. But when fresh are not in season, Marina Sarukhanyan of Silk Apron Catering, who makes it year-round for her customers, suggests using bright-orange unsulfured apricots, not the dark ones. She usually gets hers from Iranian food stores, but you may be able to find them in Middle Eastern, Armenian or Russian shops as well. Make sure to drizzle the soup with tart pomegranate syrup, which contrasts with the apricots in a lovely way. Joan Nathan

Joan Nathan · NYT Cooking

This Hungarian honey cake is deeply flavored with ginger, cardamom, cloves and cinnamon. The dough is more like a gingerbread biscuit than a tender sponge cake; it softens as it sits. It’s best made at least a day in advance, resting until the icebox-like crust absorbs its sweet surrounding layers of filling. The buttery, vanilla-scented filling is so pleasant to the tongue — but so rich you may want to cut small cake slices. Hungarian honey cake was popular before the Holocaust, but sadly this version was largely lost with the cooks in concentration camps. It’s been adapted in the United States by survivors and other family members using Cream of Wheat filling, which resembles the European gruel made with semolina or hard wheat flour, and enriched with lots of butter. This special cake brings back the memory of their former lives.

Joan Nathan · NYT Cooking

This bread pudding is a dream of a dish to use up leftover challah, babka, brioche or a mix of day-old breads. (You can even add dry cake!) Bake this as soon as it’s assembled — useful for last-minute brunch — or dip each piece of the bread in the vanilla cream sauce ahead of time, then prop the pieces vertically in an attractive baking dish and refrigerate, so all you have to do the next day is pop the pudding in the oven before bringing it to the table. Not too sweet, the bittersweet chocolate and poppy seeds add a nice touch and taste without overwhelming the vanilla and cinnamon. Your guests will gobble this dish up. Joan Nathan

Joan Nathan · NYT Cooking

Served to start the Sabbath dinner or as a simple breakfast on weekends, this Ashkenazic dish of mashed hard-boiled eggs and ultracaramelized onions feels indulgent in its rich flavor. Lisa Goldberg, a founder of the Monday Morning Cooking Club in Sydney, Australia, shares her grandmother’s Polish Jewish recipe for this beloved, time-honored dish, also called “eier mit tsibeles” in Yiddish. The key to deep, complex flavor is in the onions, which should be cooked slowly until caramelized, with a slightly burned texture. Save the leftover onion-infused oil to add flavor to vegetables or chicken. Serve this as an appetizer, with good bread or matzo, or as breakfast, with bagels or matzo. Joan Nathan

Joan Nathan · NYT Cooking

Assembled over a bed of caramelized onions, brushed with a tangy pomegranate sauce and baked until flaky, this stunning Iraqi fish recipe comes from the artist Oded Halahmy, who was born in Baghdad and has explored pomegranates in his artwork and at his Pomegranate Gallery, which has locations in New York City and Israel. The dish is fit for company but can be enjoyed any time. Amba, a pickled mango condiment, can be used, or substitute Dijon mustard if you can’t find amba. You can also swap in tart tamarind sauce or sweet date jam for the pomegranate molasses. You can even grill a whole fish rather than buying fillets, brushing the pomegranate sauce on the skin before and after cooking. The dish is then finished with pomegranate seeds, scattered, alongside parsley, over the fish. Serve with rice, bulgur or any cooked grain. Joan Nathan

Joan Nathan · NYT Cooking

These crescent-shaped pocket pastries from Rachel Harary Gindi, a home cook living in Los Angeles are popular in one form or another throughout the Middle East and India. Cooks will find, of course, many variations from all over. This Syrian Jewish version from Aleppo creates the dough using flour and smeed, a fine semolina often also used in Middle Eastern cookies, which is not essential but adds a pleasing texture to the tongue. Some Syrian Jews add several kinds of cheese including feta to the cheese mix. Make this dish your own, as this recipe does with the use of nigella seeds. Topping the sambousek with sesame seeds or (nontraditional) nigella seeds adds a slight complexity to the taste of this mild, homey snack. Though you could certainly brush the tops of the sambousek with water and sprinkle with the seeds, for efficiency you can do as Poopa Dweck, author of “Aromas of Aleppo: The Legendary Cuisine of Syrian Jews” (Ecco, 2007), instructed: “Dip the dough ball or formed sambous

Joan Nathan · NYT Cooking

For Jewish holidays, especially Passover, when there is a big crowd for dinner, I always make brisket. This recipe was carried down in my mother’s family, but updated a bit by me in my new cookbook “My Life in Recipes” (Alfred A. Knopf, 2024). The secrets to a good brisket are simple: Slowly braise it in ample liquid, and add lots of onions for flavor. The brisket can be eaten straight from the oven, as soon as it’s cooked, but is best prepared in advance to let the flavors blend together. Refrigerating overnight makes it easy to skim and discard the fat that accumulates on the surface of the gravy. You can strain the sauce if you like, but do keep the onions and carrots. Serve this with matzo farfel, egg noodles, potato latkes or kasha varnishkes.

Joan Nathan · NYT Cooking

Whitefish salads are most often drenched in mayonnaise, masking the distinctive smoky, salty flavor of the fish and covering up the crispy celery and onion. In this lighter, fresher salad, included in my new cookbook, “My Life in Recipes” (Alfred A. Knopf, 2024), the celery adds a tiny bit of texture while the herbs complement without overpowering. A minimal amount of mayonnaise adds silkiness as freshly squeezed lemon juice brightens, letting the fish dominate. The only tricky part is to make sure you remove all the bones. Serve this whitefish salad as a dip; a spread for matzo, bread or bagels; or as a topping on leafy greens, cucumber rounds or endive spears.

Joan Nathan · NYT Cooking

Ever since I can remember, my mother made a meringue topped with strawberries for Passover dessert, though it always seemed too sweet to me. When visiting my son’s in-laws in Copenhagen, I was so pleased to be served nearly the same meringue as my childhood, but this time studded with roasted hazelnuts and chunks of bittersweet chocolate, cutting its sweetness. Now my family's Passover tradition continues in this updated recipe adapted from my new cookbook, “My Life in Recipes” (Alfred A. Knopf, 2024). It works well throughout the year, especially for gluten-free guests (see Tip if you will be cooking it in a humid environment). You can even make this dish dairy-free by using coconut cream in place of the heavy cream. Excellent for any celebration, this dessert feels quite fancy but involves little effort.

Joan Nathan · NYT Cooking

This delightful Moroccan dish, often served on Rosh Hashana, incorporates an abundance of traditional harvest foods and is warm with spices (cinnamon, cardamom and coriander). This version is served in Marina Pinto Kaufman's family, from Tangiers and Tetouen as well as Martha’s Vineyard, where she now lives. Traditionally served with chicken couscous, it is somewhat like the Moroccan version of tsimmes, an Eastern European dish incorporating both carrots and sweet potatoes. In Ms. Kaufman's recipe, the vegetables are scooped into long piles, giving children — often picky when it comes to such delicacies — the choice of what they like, while adults can stir them all together to enjoy the spices and the caramelized onions. Great for entertaining, this dish can be prepared the day before serving, so all you have to do is heat it, but you can roll straight through the recipe, enjoying it the day you prepare it, with wonderful results.

Joan Nathan · NYT Cooking

In the 1880s, this simple yet beloved dish of buckwheat (kasha), onion and bow tie noodles (varnishkes) came to New York’s Lower East Side with Eastern European Jewish immigrants. At the time, it was made with homemade egg noodles that were rolled out, cut into squares and painstakingly pinched into bow ties. Nowadays, store-bought bow tie egg noodles are traditional, but any hardy pasta, like gemelli or fusilli, will also work well. Lola Landa, chef and owner of Kafe Jerusalem in Lviv, Ukraine, suggests using European-style whole buckwheat groats for this dish. (The more broken-up varieties tend to get mushy unless toasted first with beaten egg.) What really makes this dish, however, are the onions. While Ms. Landa deep-fries thin slices of onion, I prefer to caramelize them in a skillet. To really gild the lily, add mushrooms before tossing everything together.

Joan Nathan · NYT Cooking

This is a delightful, comforting soup to start your Passover Seder (see Tip) or to serve any time of year. The matzo balls add a festive crosscultural touch to miso soup, a dish so beloved in Japan it’s consumed at almost every meal. Vary the vegetables and tofu as you wish, adding potatoes, onion, carrots, cabbage or really any thinly cut vegetable that you fancy. Fresh ginger and a bit of ichimi togarashi give the matzo balls some punch. Finish the soup with a sprinkle of Japanese shiso leaves, a member of the mint family. For a large crowd, you can prepare both the soup and the matzo balls ahead of time and heat them up separately, combining them just before serving.

Joan Nathan · NYT Cooking

Similar in taste to my late mother-in-law’s homey Polish apple cake but a bit chewier and less sweet, this babka can be served as a dessert or breakfast treat. It comes from Sarah Amouyal, co-founder and co-owner of Babka Zana, a bakery in Paris with a nod to North African and Ashkenazi Jewish baking traditions. Unlike many other babkas today, it still has the feeling of old Europe in its simplicity. Make it for breakfast as I did, in a traditional loaf, or twist it into four smaller round buns to be shared when sipping coffee, as Ms. Amouyal does. What I especially like about this babka recipe is that it can be assembled one day and baked off the next. The cold, long rest in the refrigerator helps the dough rise more slowly, giving it time to develop flavor, while also making the babka easier to work with. Add a half teaspoon or so of cinnamon to the apples if you must. Joan Nathan

Joan Nathan · NYT Cooking

My vegan take on the surprisingly delicious Jewish tradition of mock chopped liver feels bright, with fresh sautéed green beans and zucchini, along with caramelized onions and toasted walnuts. Traditionally made with hard-boiled eggs for vegetarians, this dish has endless variations, and welcomes foundational ingredients like chopped mushrooms, diced eggplant or peas. Nuts like walnuts or pecans help evoke the color of real chopped liver and add a lovely crunch; caramelized onions, sautéed in olive oil rather than the peanut oil of yesteryear, are the sine qua non of good chopped liver. Dill delivers healthy brightness. Serve this mock chopped liver with crackers or challah as a first course for Hanukkah or any meal, traditionally with three accompanying dips like hummus, egg salad or genuine chopped liver.