The Foods of Jerusalem

October 30, 2013 by 5 Comments

Before we left on our trip to Israel in October, I got my hands on a gorgeous cookbook, called, appropriately enough, Jerusalem: A Cookbook by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi (published by Ten Speed Press).

The authors have an intriguing story. They were born in Jerusalem in the same year. Yotam, the son of Italian Jewish immigrants, lived on the west side of the city and Sami on the Muslim east side. More than 30 years later, both chefs in London, they met, became friends and then business partners in the Ottolenghi chain of restaurants.

“The flavors and smells of this city are our mother tongue,” says Yotam in the introduction. He goes on to describe the rich tapestry of Jerusalem food, which incorporates the cuisines of many countries of Europe and the Middle East.

As Yotam and Sami discovered in their discussions about food, it’s futile to talk about which culture invented a particular delicacy and which one brought a dish to Jerusalem with them. In many ways, the Jerusalem food scene gives credence to those medieval maps that showed the world with Jerusalem at its center.

Complex recipes

The photos in Jerusalem: A Cookbook  are absolutely gorgeous and will make you want to break out your pots and chopping knives. The problem comes when you start to read the recipes. Not only are they complex, but many include obscure ingredients that could be difficult to procure.

In order to make shakshuka, this week’s recipe, I needed to order harissa (hot pepper paste) online because I couldn’t find it in my local market, even though it has a large section for Middle Eastern goods. Several other recipes look interesting, but so far I’ve been unable to find pomegranate molasses anywhere, even in Israel (I’ll probably make some myself, eventually, by boiling down pomegranate juice). And preserved lemons? Dried barberries? To their credit, the authors give instructions on how to make some of the spice mixtures and condiments.

Shakshuka originated in Tunisia but is very popular in Jerusalem. Sometimes you’ll see several varieties on a menu. I confess the photo with this week’s recipe is from the cookbook. My version wasn’t as pretty, but it was very tasty – and spicy! If you don’t like heat, use less harissa or leave it out altogether. I also used just the whole eggs, without the additional egg yolks.

Street food can’t be beat

My favorite Jerusalem food is actually street food, especially falafel and shawarma. Falafel, for the uninitiated, are deep-fried balls of ground chickpeas and spices. When I was first introduced to falafel more than 40 years ago, the balls were stuffed into a pita with chopped tomatoes and cucumbers and tahini (sesame) sauce. These days the balls are topped with a variety of salads, pickles and spreads and then with a handful of French fries, making it a complete meal.

A shawarma is similar, but instead of the falafel balls, the pita’s main filling is shreds of lamb or turkey sliced from a huge hunk of meat turning on a vertical rotisserie. With a falafal or shawarma, you can enjoy a satisfying lunch for less than $6.

Instead of a pita, and for a few shekels more, you can get the sandwich in a “laffa”  – a larger, flatter, more rubbery bread that’s folded around the filling. If you’re really brave, you can go for a “mixed grill,” a combo of shredded chicken and meat with grilled onions and mushrooms. It’s extremely yummy but it can be really messy.

There’s a real skill to eating a pita or laffa that’s fairly bursting with its fillings. I think the main trick is to lean out, so wayward bits and drops will land on the table or ground and not on you. By our second week in Jerusalem, we were able to finish one without having to change our shirts because of the sauce or grease we dripped all over ourselves.

Jerusalem: A Cookbook has a recipe for lamb shawarma, but with 16 different herbs and spices, it’s not for the faint of heart. There’s also a recipe for falafal, but by far the easiest way to make it at home is to buy a box of falafel mix!

From Israel to your table: Salad, salad day and night

October 28, 2013 by Leave a Comment

My husband and I recently returned from three weeks in Israel. This was not our first trip. I first went for a junior year abroad program at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and Joe went for a “gap year” living on a kibbutz near Nazareth before college. Years later, our children went on long-term programs in Israel during high school and college and so we had a good excuse to visit. Our eldest even planned to make Israel her home, but during her second year as an Israeli immigrant she met her future husband–who grew up around the corner from us in Michigan, but that’s another story. Though they lived in Washington, D.C. at the time they married, they wanted their wedding seven years ago to be in Israel, so that was our last trip before this one. We felt this year it was time to go back.

One thing I always appreciate about Israel is the plethora of fresh fruits and vegetables, many grown locally on kibbutzim  and moshavim. But it wasn’t love at first sight.

On my first visit to Israel, in 1969, I was in a group of about 100 students, from colleges all over the U.S., who would be part of a much larger group studying at Hebrew University’s School for Overseas Students (now the Rothberg International School) for the year. Because our knowledge of Hebrew was minimal at best, our group would spend seven weeks in the summer doing an ulpan–an immersive language course–at a teachers’ college  in the Negev desert.

Salad for breakfast?

Talk about culture shock! The program organizers had prepared us for lots of things: Don’t do drugs or you’ll be deported, know that you’ll have your bags searched at building entrances, remember that you need to buy special tokens to use a pay phone. But they didn’t tell us that Israelis eat salad for breakfast.

If you’ve ever been to an Israeli hotel, you know that breakfast is a sumptuous buffet of gorgeous salads, fruits, cheeses, fish and pastries. That’s not what we got at the teachers’ college. I kept a journal that year. Here is my description of breakfast at the ulpan:

The dining hall is one huge rectangular room filled with long tables. I am with Joan and another roommate. A fat Israeli woman in a grease-stained white apron motions us to a table. There are only two places. Joan and I sit there and our friend goes to the next table. To do otherwise would be to bring a stream of angry Hebrew down on our heads from the chick in the greasy apron.

The table is piled high with tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, hard-boiled eggs, bread and muddy coffee. Midway through the meal, the fat Israeli comes around with a big bowl filled with an Israeli concoction similar to yogurt. “Leben please?” she asks, and slops out a ladle-full to all who so desire. Every morning it is the same.

Our tablemates unfortunately include several of the sorority types [I was a pseudo-hippie snob in those days], still wearing gobs of makeup even out here in the middle of the desert.

“God,” one of them whines. “Salad again! I think I’m going to turn into a tomato!” She giggles at her joke. Another fingers the bread. “Stale!” she says in disgust, replacing the slice. “That’s not all,” answers the first. “Yesterday I found an ant in the bread basket!”

We eventually got used to it. At the end of our stay in the desert, we had a goodbye party where every ulpan class did a skit. My class set our skit in the dining hall. We sang a song, to the tune of, “Put another nickel in, in the nickelodeon…” More than 40 years later, I still remember it:

“Salad, salad, day and night, vegetables from green to white, make your stomach die of fright, that salad, salad, salad.”

At the end, the class clown came in dressed like the leben lady, in a greasy apron and black wig. One of the other students took the bowl of yogurt and dumped the contents on his head. It brought the house down.

Salad anytime!

Now I have a much healthier opinion of fresh vegetables for breakfast, or any time of day for that matter.

We often make “Israeli salad,” a very simple mixture of chopped tomatoes, cucumbers and onions. Here’s how you make it:

Take a couple of small, firm, ripe tomatoes and a small, edible-skinned cucumber (e.g., Persian or Armenian), and dice them all into small pieces; you want an equal amount of tomato and cuke. Dice half a small onion and mix all the vegetables together. Season with salt and pepper and drizzle with olive oil. Optional: add chopped red or green pepper, chopped hard-boiled egg, kalamata olives, chopped white cheese (e.g. white cheddar or Muenster) or crumbled feta cheese.

Because that one is so simple–more a method than a recipe–I thought I’d give you another Israeli recipe as well, the kind of dish you might find at an Israeli hotel buffet. Once you peel the carrots, separate the parsley leaves from the stems and separate the pomegranate seeds from the pith, making this salad is a snap!

(Helpful hint: quarter the pomegranate—carefully, because the juice will stain everything it touches—and then put the pieces into a large bowl of water before breaking them apart. The seeds will sink to the bottom of the bowl and the pith will float to the top. Skim off the pith, and then drain the seeds in a strainer or colander.) 

What’s kosher? (Part 2, with beef and eggplant ragout)

October 21, 2013 by Leave a Comment

The basics of kashrut, the Jewish dietary laws, were in my column last week (along with a delicious easy recipe for blintz souffle). This is the second part of my introduction to keeping kosher.

Some people “keep kosher” because they truly believe it was commanded by God. Others do it so that members of their family–usually more religious parents or, increasingly, newly religious children–will eat in their homes. Some like the reminder, every time they eat, that they are part of a people with a history going back more than five millennia. Some feel the practice helps elevate the act of eating into something meaningful, even holy.

The vast majority of Jews do not “keep kosher” but some avoid certain inherently unkosher foods such as pork. If you invite someone Jewish to a meal, it’s a good idea to ask if there’s anything they do not eat. (Actually, considering how common food allergies have become, that’s a good question to ask when inviting anyone!)

Hosting kosher- or halal-keeping guests

Strictly orthodox Jews will not eat any food that is not certified kosher and prepared in a kosher kitchen, even if all the ingredients are kosher. Many who are less strict (like me) will eat in restaurants or in non-kosher homes, as long as the food itself is kosher.

If you want to invite a kosher-keeping Jew or a halal-keeping Muslim to eat with you, you’ll probably want to prepare a meal that revolves around fish and vegetables, or find a restaurant where there are vegetarian options or a lot of fish (but not shellfish, a category of food that’s not allowed).

If your recipe calls for chicken or beef stock and you want to use it for a meatless meal, substitute vegetable stock.

For Muslim guests, be sure to avoid using wine or liqueur in cooking and also make sure that there’s no alcohol in any of your ingredients, such as red wine or balsamic vinegar.

Kosher certification

Be careful about using prepared foods in cans, jars or boxes.

Kashrut-observant Jews rely on a complicated system in which religious authorities supervise the production of food products and certify that they are kosher. The manufacturers indicate this status with a “hechsher.” But it’s not that hard to find food with a hechsher.

Sue Fishkoff, in her book Kosher Nation http://www.suefishkoff.com/main/kosher-nation/ says about one-third to one-half of the food for sale in the typical American supermarket is kosher. That means more than $200 billion of the country’s estimated $500 billion in annual food sales is of items that are certified kosher. Not bad for a religious group that makes up less than 2 percent of the U.S. population!

The most common hechsher is the one provided by the Union of Orthodox Rabbis: a “U” inside a circle,” commonly called the “O-U.” You probably have many cans and boxes in your cupboard with this symbol without realizing what it means.

Other common symbols include the “O-K” (a K inside a circle), and the “triangle K” (a K inside a triangle).

If there’s a “D” next to the symbol, it indicates the product contains dairy ingredients. A “DE” indicates it was made on equipment that is also used to make dairy foods. A “P” indicates it’s kosher for Passover, a holiday that provides an additional set of dietary demands.

A simple “K” on a product means the manufacturer believes it contains nothing unkosher–but the production has not been supervised by any Jewish organization. This is acceptable to some but not to others.

There are nearly 1,000 known kosher certification symbols from all over the world. You can find an illustrated list here. 

In areas with large Muslim populations, you may see some packaged foods with a “halal” certification.

For an interesting perspective on kosher certification, read this Huffington Post blog by Conservative Rabbi Jason Miller, founder of the Kosher Michigan certification organization.

Last week I shared a kosher dairy recipe, so this week I’m sharing a recipe for meat. This came from my friend Ruth Marcus. She called it “moussaka” but it doesn’t have the traditional béchamel sauce you find in Greek moussaka (because that is made with milk and it wouldn’t be kosher). So I’ve renamed it Beef and Eggplant Ragout. The eggplant disappears in the cooking so it’s a good dish for families with kids who hate veggies. And it freezes very well.

What’s kosher? (Part 1, with an easy recipe for blintzes)

October 13, 2013 by Leave a Comment

I maintain a kosher kitchen, and I eat only kosher foods outside my own home. The restrictions of a kosher diet can be baffling to non-Jews, so I thought I’d explain something about them.

We’ll start with a joke that you might have to be Jewish to understand. If so, I apologize. God is giving Moses the Torah – the Way by which the Israelites should live their lives – and he tells him, “Don’t boil a kid in its mother’s milk.”

Moses ponders a bit and then says, “Oh, you mean we should cook meat dishes and milk dishes in separate pots and eat them from separate dishes with separate utensils.”

God says, “What I said was ‘Don’t boil a kid in its mother’s milk.’”

Moses scratches his head for a few minutes, then says, “Aha, you mean we have to wait six hours after eating meat before we eat milk!”

God says (a little testily), “What I said was ‘Don’t boil a kid in its mother’s milk.’”

Moses thinks some more and then says, “I’ve got it! You mean we have to set up elaborate inspection systems to make sure our prepared foods don’t include anything we shouldn’t eat.”

At which point God throws up his hands and says, “Moses, do whatever the heck you want!”

A complex system from simple rules

This just illustrates the complexities of a system that grew from relatively simple beginnings.

“Kosher” (pronounced KO-sher in Yiddish and English ka-SHARE in Hebrew) means “proper” or “fit” to eat, and the laws of kashrut (kash-ROOT) – keeping kosher –  as presented in the Torah (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) are fairly simple. They fall into three broad categories:

Only certain creatures are permitted as food. Animals that chew their cud and have cloven hoofs are kosher. So cows, lambs, goats, deer are OK; pigs, horses and rabbits are not. Birds of prey are not kosher. Sea creatures are kosher if they have fins and scales; shellfish, eel, catfish and shark are not kosher.

Do not eat blood. There are numerous Biblical injunctions against eating blood, an animal’s life force, starting with Genesis 9:4. From these prohibitions the Jews developed a system of kosher butchering that involves severing an animal’s jugular vein with one cut and draining the blood immediately. Halal slaughter for Muslims is similar. Both kosher and halal butchers say a prayer for the animal before killing it. Animals killed any other way are not kosher – so no hunting, no roadkill.

To be kosher, meat must also be soaked in water and then salted to further draw out the blood. In the past, this was done at home, and many housewives had a grooved wooden “koshering board” where they would lay the salted meat to drain. Today, these steps are usually handled by the butcher.

Do not boil a kid in its mother’s milk. No one knows why this prohibition was so important that it appears in the Torah three times (Exodus 23:19 and 34:26 and Deuteronomy 14:21). Some speculate that cooking a baby goat in its mother’s milk was a common pagan practice at the time. Others think the prohibition was against cooking a kid in its mother’s fat, which is a similar Hebrew word. But “milk” is the accepted wording, and from this seemingly simple prohibition have evolved the regulations for strict separation of milk and meat and a waiting period (that varies from one hour to six hours) after eating meat before eating dairy.

Jews who keep kosher have separate pots, dishes and utensils for cooking and consuming milk dishes and meat dishes.

Chicken and other poultry are considered meat, even though a chicken does not give milk and eating one would not result in boiling it in its mother’s milk.

Lots of foods are “parve”

Foods other than milk or dairy foods – fish, fruit, vegetables, eggs, flour, sugar, oil – are “parve” (neutral) and can be eaten with either milk or with meat.

Muslim halal regulations regarding permissible animals, proper slaughter and the prohibition to eat blood are so similar to those of kashrut that Muslims will usually permit the use of kosher meat. Some Muslims also avoid shellfish, but they have no prohibition against mixing meat and dairy.

Here is an easy dairy recipe that’s a favorite at Jewish brunches. Paired with a tossed salad, it also makes a nice simple dinner. You can find frozen blintzes in most supermarkets in Jewish areas. I found these at Costco!

What food rules does your faith or ethnic culture impose? Do you have any questions about kashrut or kosher food?

The Risotto Lesson: A shortcut may not be so wonderful

October 7, 2013 by 1 Comment

“Think you’re escaping and run into yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home.”
― James Joyce, Ulysses

When I was in third or fourth grade, more years ago than I care to admit, our reading book included a story called “The Shortest Way Round is the Longest Way Home.” I might be misremembering the title, because most of the references I found have the expression switched: the longest way round is the shortest way home.

But the meaning of the story stuck with me: Some children wanted to go somewhere—maybe the ol’ swimmin’ hole—and instead of walking on the road that led around a big hill from their house, they took a shortcut path down the hill. They had a great time swimming or whatever it was they set out to do, but when they came home, they discovered that the shortcut wasn’t so easy on the way back. They had to climb the big hill, and they arrived home tired and sweaty.

Risotto in the microwave?

I thought of this story recently when I tried a “shortcut” for making risotto in the microwave.

I had always been a little afraid of risotto, because I had read how long it takes to make and how you have to watch it every minute. When you see it on restaurant menus, it’s usually with a warning that it will take 20 minutes to prepare.

So when Cooking Light magazine ran this recipe for microwave risotto a few months ago, I thought I’d give it a try.

Well, first it took me about 10 minutes to find a microwave conversion program online and figure out how long each of those steps would take for my 825-watt microwave instead of their 1000-watt machine.

Making the risotto was easy enough, but whenever the timer dinged, I had to get my potholders, take out the dish, stir the risotto, put it back in the microwave, then reset the timer. It was a real nuisance.

Trying it the “real” way

In order to see if “real” risotto was so much more difficult, I found another recipe from Cooking Light (printed in March, 2002). The ingredients are almost identical, but the method is different.

The verdict? Both versions tasted good, but I preferred the traditional method, even though it took a little longer. I felt more in control stirring it on top of the stove, compared to waiting for the microwave to ding. And I could read a magazine while stirring, just as I could while waiting for the microwave.

Both recipes are printed below.

This experience reminded me that in cooking, patience is often a virtue. We’re all busy these days, with many competing demands on our time. We’re all looking for shortcuts that will make life a little easier. But sometimes what looks like a shortcut really isn’t.

If there’s a spiritual message here, I think it may be that there’s no shortcut to spiritual fulfillment. Many people complain about church and synagogue services because they don’t find them “spiritually fulfilling.” Others flit from one religion to another, seeking enlightenment, and then they are disappointed because they don’t find it.

Perhaps spiritual fulfillment comes only at the end of a long journey that one has to put some effort into. I’m sure there are some people who have heard a particular guru speak or attended a service somewhere and had a spiritual awakening. But those who expect this to happen are more likely to be disappointed.

(The photo in the first recipe is my microwaved risotto. The photo in the second recipe is by Ewan Munro, taken at Telegraph at the Earl of Derby in London, courtesy of Wikimedia.)

 

 

 

Shirley Showalter’s famous family cookies: an unbroken chain

September 28, 2013 by 5 Comments

Hospitality is inextricably tied to food. We often measure the worth of a host’s welcome by the bounty of the table at which we are fed. I wrote these words, last week, in a column about the Jewish harvest festival of Sukkot—and a yummy recipe for Trailside Oatmeal Cookies.

Today, we welcome Mennonite author Shirley Showalter with a column about another kind of cookie that may seem simple—but is also a tasty tradition that connects generations of women in her family. Shirley’s story also points out how these cookies were connection points with a larger world.

AN UNBROKEN CHAIN OF COOKIES

By SHIRLEY SHOWALTER

In my new memoir, Blush: A Mennonite Girl Meets a Glittering World, one of the photos from the 1950s shows my sister Sue, my brother Henry and me at the roadside stand where we tried to sell our produce. When I look at that photo now, I smile because Henry is holding a bag of the family cookies over his shoulder. As children, we couldn’t travel all the way to a farmer’s market to sell our wares, so we tried it along the roadside.

I share about a dozen recipes at the end of my book, but the most important to me is the first one: my great-grandmother’s sugar cookie recipe that we still make from a 100-year-old notebook of family recipes. We always called them “Sugar Cakes.” If you get my book and look at the family chart in the opening pages, this recipe comes from the Barbara Hess (1866-1941) branch of my family tree.

Every week, through the generations, the women in my family would bake dozens and dozens of these cookies. They were simple, but were not found in most other cookbooks.

This has brought the women in my family together over a long, long period of time. My family always was part of the Lancaster Central Market, which is now the oldest continuously operated farmer’s market in the United States. Every Tuesday and Friday, they had a stand at the market and would bring in whatever produce and poultry they had prepared the day before—and, of course, baked goods, too. These cookies always were the featured item among the baked goods.

Many times as a girl, I helped to bake the cookies. My mother didn’t continue selling things at the market, but my grandmother did until her death in 1951.

This has brought the women in my family together over a long, long period of time. Recently, my daughter and I got together at my sister’s farm in Lancaster County and we made these cookies to serve guests at some of the book-launch events for Blush. I’ve now passed the recipe to my children, forming an unbroken chain of people who’ve made these cookies over more than a century.

Now, I’m passing this tradition along to readers, too.

Care to read more about Shirley Showalter?

You’re sure to enjoy our in-depth interview with Shirley about her life, her work as an author and her new book, Blush.

AND SPECIAL THANKS TODAY: Our Holidays and Festivals columnist Stephanie Fenton also is an accomplished food photographer. She carried out our Read The Spirit recipe testing, this week, and provided the photo that accompanies today’s recipe.

Welcoming strangers warmly, kindly and with cookies

September 23, 2013 by Leave a Comment

This week Jews are in the middle of the eight-day festival of Sukkot. One of the customs of the holidays is to recite a prayer welcoming seven imaginary “ushpizin” (exalted guests, prounounced “oosh PEA zinn”) into the sukkah: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, Joseph and David.  Sukkot, when we eat our meals in little huts in our yards or on our patios – or at least try to, weather permitting – is also a great opportunity to invite real guests for a meal. So it’s a busy week, with much hosting and much visiting.

(For a very funny take on Sukkot customs among the Orthodox in Israel, you’ll enjoy a 2005 award-winning Israeli movie called Ushpizin. Here is a good review of it. The movie is available currently via Amazon video streaming and through Netflix.)

Thinking about the ushpizin started me thinking about hospitality as a religious value. It’s quite a popular topic right now. In fact, our intrepid publisher, David Crumm, did his Read the Spirit  column on exactly this topic last week, with an interview with the Rev. Nanette Sawyer author of Hospitality—The Sacred Art. I also came across warm words about another book on the topic of religious hospitality, The Welcoming Congregation: Roots and Fruits of Christian Hospitality by Henry Brinton, a Presbyterian pastor.

A religious value

I know that welcoming the stranger is intrinsic to Judaism. It starts with Chapter 18 of Genesis, where Abraham, still recovering from circumcising himself (can you imagine?) sees three strangers approaching his tent. He immediately jumps up to prepare food and drink for them.

Throughout the Bible, there are stories of people who were shown favor by God because they were hospitable to strangers. The Israelites are repeatedly told to welcome the stranger, because they were once living in a foreign land.

Welcoming guests—especially strangers—is important in just about all religions.

The Qu’ran tells a similar story about Abraham as a way of showing Muslims that they should make the guest feel comfortable by meeting all of his needs before the guest even mentions them.

The law of karma in at least one Hindu tradition holds that  one who treats others with hospitality will be offered hospitality in turn. We can make the world a better place through our acts. The thinking is, “God himself may come to test my character, therefore let me treat every guest as God”—again echoing Abraham’s experience with the angels.

In the Detroit area, 30 interfaith leaders have joined together in a program called the Hospitality Initiative, looking to find ways that religious groups can be hospitable to one another. It’s coordinated by Charles Mabee, director of Christianity studies at Oakland University. Read more about it here.

Being hospitable means making people comfortable, which often means putting yourself in your guest’s shoes. Here is a delightful story by political consultant Frank Luntz, about the hospitality shown to him by Tricia Lott, wife of former U.S. Senator Trent Lott.

Hospitality is tied to food

Hospitality is also inextricably tied to food. How often do we measure the worth of a host’s welcome by the bounty of the table at which we are fed?

The expression “cold shoulder” comes from the opposite of hospitality. In times of old, a cold roast of mutton would be to served unwelcome guests instead of a nice, hot meal.

Such a custom could come in handy. Even when you are warmly hospitable, sometimes you have to give your guests a little nudge that they are coming perilously close to wearing out their welcome.

“Time to go” without the cold shoulder

My husband’s Aunt Hannah taught us a brilliant way to let guests know it’s time to go. We had been visiting with her for an hour or two, enjoying tea and cakes and wondering how to extricate ourselves gracefully. Finally Aunt Hannah asked, “Would you like another cup of tea before you go?”

“Oh no, no, no,” we said, “we really must be going.” Problem solved without the cold shoulder.

I like to keep cookies on hand to welcome drop-in visitors. This recipe is called Trailside Oatmeal Cookies because they’re good to take along on a picnic or hike. You can convince yourself that they’re good for you because they contain lots of healthy stuff like oats, peanut butter and dried fruit. And they freeze really well, so you might want to stash some away in the freezer so you don’t eat them all up yourself before you get a chance to serve them to guests.

One more thing before I leave you: I recently received this question on my other blog, Bobbie’s Best Recipes. I have no clue about the answer, so I’m asking all of you! If anyone can help this reader, please let me know.

This is not a comment but a question. Years ago at a friend’s house for dinner his mother cooked a meal of Egg Noodles, shredded cabbage, Polish sausage. There was also fennel seeds in it. I am sure there was other things like butter, and spices, but I do not have the recipe and sadly that dear lady is passed away now. Can you possible help me to figure out what might have been in this recipe, it was so good. I know she baked it in the oven before serving it, as she brought it right out of the oven to the table. I hope you have some suggestions as to how I could recreate this recipe.
Thank you
Joan Abbott