Rosh Hashanah

Truly one of the great delights of Eastern Mediterranean cooking, always refreshing and comforting. For an easier version, try simplest Egg-Lemon Soup (or the Lithuanian recipe that follows) as a variation. I am tempted to say you must use good homemade stock for this, but I’ll leave it as a recommendation. I had the soup made with tomatoes once—a regional variation—and enjoyed it very much. But the color may not be what you’re expecting.

Lemongrass, the seasoning most closely associated with Southeast Asia, plays a major role here, despite the presence of many other ingredients. Nothing else “cleans” the taste of the fish quite like it. Serve with any rice dish.

A typical dish from the southern French countryside. Lentils are combined with lamb shanks, red wine, and not much else, and they cook for a couple of hours. While becoming beyond tender, the lentils also absorb the flavors of the lamb, the wine, and the aromatics sprinkled among them. The result is a one-pot meal—a salad or a little bread, or both, would round things out nicely—that takes some time but little work or attention. Other cuts of meat you can use here: short ribs.

The ideal herb for seasoning this salad is rau ram, which is not impossible to find if a well-stocked Asian store or supermarket is in your area; you can pick up your Thai fish sauce (page 500) while you’re there. The best alternative is a combination of cilantro and mint, which comes pretty close. If you don’t have precooked chicken, just simmer chicken breasts (bone-in are best) in water to cover for 10 to 15 minutes. When the meat is done, pull it from the bone (continue cooking the bones, perhaps with a few vegetables like carrots and onions, to make stock) and chop or shred.

Haaq is actually the name of a bitter green from Kashmir, not unlike spinach but perhaps a little more strongly flavored. In any case, spinach is used as a substitute throughout India, and this simple preparation is widespread. Neither mustard oil nor the amount of chile (I use only one) is key; but asafetida—also known as hing—the odd yellow powder (it’s made from a resin that is exuded by the roots of the plant) with the off putting aroma, most definitely is. In fact, this is the place to use it and learn to love it, as I believe you will. You can serve this as a side dish (in which case halve the quantities) or as a main course,with rice. It’s also often served with fried fish on top of it.

This salad is a popular item on the Sabbath table of Moroccan Jews. It’s at its best after sitting in the dressing for a couple of hours; in fact, you can store it for up to a week in the refrigerator.

Beets are earthy and sweet; horseradish is earthy and seismic; the combination is fortuitous. Fresh horseradish is best, but you can substitute prepared horseradish if necessary (make sure the jar hasn’t been opened for too long, or the horseradish will have lost its intensity). This salad is best after marinating in the refrigerator for a day or two, so prepare it ahead of time if you think of it.

Here is kasha, simply prepared with butter. It’s good with olive oil, too, but best with rendered chicken fat.

Borscht, like gazpacho, is difficult to define; there are more versions than you can count. But at least we know they all (or almost all, anyway) contain beets (it’s likely that the word borscht comes from the same root as the word for beet). And usually borscht is served cold. But it can be a vegetarian affair or a big meaty stew. The vegetarian version is usually served cold, while the beefy version is usually a hot winter dish. Here’s a fairly simple cold borscht with hot potatoes, a style I have made for thirty years (and first ate, at my grandmother’s table, before that). For a meaty borscht, see page 148.

There are probably as many apple cakes as there are varieties of apples. This one is easy, rich, and delicious, and it keeps fairly well, too. Use an apple that will soften during cooking, like Cortland, Rome, Golden Delicious, or McIntosh.

Rich, dark, and sweet, honey cake was originally a kind of pound cake made by people who could not afford refined sugar or flour (many old honey cake recipes use rye flour, not exactly what we think of as dessert). This is a light, more modern (at least twentieth-century) recipe, quite succulent. Some people stir raisins (about 1/2 cup) and/or chopped almonds or walnuts (also about 1/2 cup) into the batter just before baking. Others cut the loaves in half after baking and add a layer of jam, then reassemble. Personally, I like my honey cake plain.

“Don’t make a big tsimmes out of it” was a favorite expression of my mother’s, as if making a tsimmes was a big deal and therefore making a big tsimmes—well, you get the idea. Making a tsimmes—a stew of fruits and vegetables, often on the sweet side, and sometimes grains—can be a big deal, especially if you begin with a piece of meat. But as a delicious midwinter stew of dried fruits and root vegetables, served as a side dish or even a main course, it’s hardly any work at all. To make one with meat, simply add these ingredients to the Cholent recipe on page 380. Many tsimmes recipes call for cooking the fruit until it falls apart, which is all too easy to do. In this one, which has less water than most, the fruit is cooked until perfectly tender but still intact. Other vegetables you can prepare this way: vary this as you like—not only is meat common, but so are turnips, beets, apples, barley, and the small egg noodles known as farfel. The key ingredients are the dried fruit, sweet potatoes, and carrots.

The hardest part of this dish, these days, is finding fresh herring—which is astonishing, because a large percentage of the world’s supply is caught off our shores and shipped elsewhere. In the countries bordering the North Sea, however, it is celebrated, and if you can find it here—it’s in fish markets from time to time—this is a great treatment, an essential part of any smorgasbord, but also wonderful served with sour cream (“creamed herring”) and boiled potatoes. If the herring is whole, ask your fishmonger to fillet it for you.

Torta al vino is a traditional wine-country cake with white wine in the batter and seedless grapes (or any kind of berry) folded in. The acidity of the wine and the whole juicy fruits—baked grapes are luscious!—give this easy cake a delightful complexity of flavors and textures in each bite.

In Sicily, the most popular fish to cook alla matalotta is whatever was just caught fresh! The aromatics and technique remain the same, and the outcome is always delicious. (Interestingly, it is one of the few Sicilian fish preparations that call for celery.) My top fish recommendation for this recipe is grouper; it has flesh that cooks and stays intact in the sauce. Halibut, striped bass, and black bass are other good choices. A whole black bass cooked alla matalotta is delicious—just mind the bones. Serve with grilled bread, couscous (page 304), or panelle (page 281). You can make this ahead of time and reheat to serve—just take the pot off the heat a bit before the fish and sauce are thoroughly cooked.

Pollo alla cacciatora is served in many regions of Italy, but when you see lots of fresh rosemary and tomatoes it is a dead giveaway—you know it is from Tuscany. And in this case the dish is typical of Maremma, straightforward and elementary, with nothing more than good chicken, good tomatoes, and fresh rosemary to make it delicious. This dish ought to be done in advance, as it gets better as it sits. Though it is delicious served as is with just some crusty bread, I especially love it with polenta. And when it is too hot to cook polenta, some tubular pasta, like rigatoni, will do just fine. If you have some left over, just pluck the meat off the bones and save it for another meal, to dress pasta or make a risotto with it.

When I was a kid, I used to think that beets tasted just like the dirt they were grown in. Happily, I am older, wiser, less fussy, and can appreciate the sweet earthiness of these beautiful vegetables—and I do find that dressings made with a little fruit vinegar bring out the sweet and temper the earthiness. A bright, tangy goat cheese is such a perfect match that it’s become ubiquitous on bistro menus.

For a break from roast chicken, try these smaller hens, which cook in about half the time it takes for a chicken. If you like, substitute four bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts (10 to 12 ounces each) for the Cornish hens.

This party-perfect showpiece recipe is pure simplicity: fresh plums, flour, sugar, butter, salt, and water. Once it cools, free the tart from its springform pan and you’ll have a golden-crusted beauty with a jewel-toned plum center that advertises—in an elegant but low-key way—the wonders of summertime fruit. If you feel your guests need more, serve it with a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream.