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New, Old Rosh Hashanah Recipes

Judy Bart Kancigor is one of the rare Cinderella stories in publishing, beating the odds to earn a contract without contacts in the industry. It all started with a spiral-bound volume of family recipes that would become “Cooking Jewish: 532 Great Recipes from the Rabinowitz Family” (Workman Publishing, 2007).

In 1996, Mrs. Kancigor was a court reporter and about to become a grandmother when some aunts on her maternal grandmother’s side of the family were declining. “As Aunt Estelle’s condition worsened, Aunt Sally was moving into assisted living,” she recalled. “Aunt Hilda was on dialysis and Aunt Irene didn’t know who I was when I called. It hit me — one generation was leaving while another one was coming. How would my grandchild know about the Rabinowitz family?”

It was a history seasoned with tantalizing foods. Cooking and eating were staples of Rabinowitz life. Mrs. Kancigor’s maternal grandparents, Hinda and Harry Rabinowitz, had immigrated to New York City from Belarus, Russia, in 1907. In Belle Harbor, Queens, they raised seven children on shtetl fare, notably kishke and kreplach.

The children carried the torch, cooking Old World favorites in their modern kitchens. They relied on Mama Hinda’s handfuls of a little of this and that to make black bread, potatoes and chicken soup as they simultaneously embraced Jell-O and sliced white bread, clipping trendy recipes from women’s magazines.

Her delicious memories became the motivation for preserving the family’s legacy. Mrs. Kancigor enrolled in a cookbook writing seminar at UCLA. The teacher, cookbook author Norman Kolpas, asked students to describe their projects.

Mrs. Kancigor contacted relatives as she assembled an album of family recipes, stories and photos. Taking a huge gamble, she printed 500 copies of “Melting Pot Memories.” With minimal publicity, word spread about this self-published book. She sold 11,000 copies. Its overwhelming success landed her a book contract from Workman Press to write an expanded version, which became the recently published “Cooking Jewish.”

German Plum Cake (dairy or pareve)

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus extra for greasing the pie plate (Margarine can be substituted for the butter.)
1/2 cup, plus 2 tablespoons, sugar
Yolk of 1 large egg, at room temperature
1 cup all-purpose flour, plus 1 to 3 tablespoons, if needed
2 to 2 1/4 pounds fresh Italian plums, halved and pitted

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9-inch pie plate, or the bottom and 1 inch up the sides of a 9-inch springform pan.

2. Be sure the butter and egg yolk are at room temperature. Combine the butter, the 1/2 cup sugar and the egg yolk in a bowl and mix by hand, until thoroughly combined. Gradually add the 1 cup flour. If it is too sticky, add the extra flour, 1 tablespoon at a time. Press the dough into the bottom and barely up the rim of the prepared pie plate, or over the bottom and 1 inch up the sides of the springform pan.

3. Cut 2 slits in each plum half, slicing it two-thirds of the way down, so it fans out into 3 sections. Stand the plums upright in the pie plate, packed tightly in circles with the skin facing out and the uncut ends pressed into the dough. There should be very little dough exposed. Bake until the dough is lightly browned, about 45 minutes. The tart will seem juicy when it comes from the oven. Let the tart cool on a wire rack.

4. If you will be serving the tart the same day, store it at room temperature. Otherwise store it, covered with plastic wrap, in the refrigerator for up to 2 days. Allow it to come to room temperature before serving.

5. If a springform is used, remove the sides before serving. Immediately before serving, sprinkle the remaining 2 tablespoons sugar over the fruit. Yield: 6-8 servings

ROSH HASHANAH HONEY COOKIES (pareve)

2 large eggs
1/3 cup honey
1 cup sugar
2/3 cup vegetable oil, plus extra for oiling hands
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons seltzer or club soda
4 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
Parchment paper

1. Fit an electric mixer with the dough hook and beat the eggs, honey, sugar, oil, vanilla, baking powder, cinnamon and seltzer on medium-low speed for 15 minutes. Add the flour and mix until incorporated. Cover the bowl and refrigerate for several hours, or as long as overnight.

2. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line several cookie sheets with parchment paper.

3. With oiled hands, form the dough into walnut-size balls. Place them 1 inch apart on the prepared baking sheets. Place 2 oven racks on the bottom third and top third of the oven. Bake 2 cookie sheets at a time, rotating the sheets from top to bottom and front to back, halfway through the baking. Bake until golden brown, 14 to 17 minutes. (Watch that the bottoms don’t burn.)

4. Let cookies cool on the cookie sheets set on wire racks.

5. Repeat with the remaining dough. Cookies freeze well. Yield: About 8 dozen

CANDY “SALAMI” (pareve)

8 ounces walnut halves, half finely chopped and half left whole
1 cup honey
1/2 cup plain dry bread crumbs, plus more for dusting
2 teaspoons unsweetened cocoa powder

1. Combine the walnuts, honey and 1/2 cup bread crumbs in a medium-size (preferably nonstick) saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat. Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook, stirring often with a wooden spoon, for about 7 minutes, until the mixture is quite thick, clings together and leaves the sides of the pan. Stir in the cocoa powder; mixture resembles goo.

2. Spread the additional bread crumbs over a metal baking pan. Dump the honey goo onto the pan and set it aside to cool slightly. As soon as it is cool enough to handle (but still warm), roll it in the bread crumbs and shape it into a log about 11 inches long with tapered ends, in the shape of a salami. Roll it tightly in plastic wrap, cover it with aluminum foil and refrigerate until firm, about 2 hours.

3. To serve, use a serrated knife to cut the “salami” into 3/8-inch thick slices. Yield: About 2 dozen slices.

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