Recipes

Chopped Liver

Makes 2 cups or enough to serve 6 Chopped liver is served during the Passover holiday with matzo. The basic ingredients are chicken livers (or a mixture of chicken and beef liver), onions, and hard-cooked eggs. At one time, the onions were cooked in schmaltz (rendered chicken fat), and mixed with boiled, broiled, or sauteed …

A side dish served with matzo and memories

‘I had hoped to be greeted by the taste of schmaltz,’’ announces one in the group, using the Yiddish word for rendered chicken fat. Her octogenarian husband arrives with his mother’s well-worn wooden bowl and single-blade chopper. When he was a boy, he says, “Every Sunday my job was to chop the liver. My father …

Baked Winter Fruit

This baked winter fruit dish falls somewhere between a crisp and a compote. It uses some dried fruits, which are usually simmered in liquid. But whatever fresh fruits you have on hand can go into the dish, even those starting to show brown spots.

The Wooden Bowls

I wrote this piece just after my nana, Beatrice Bloom, passed away on Valentine’s Day 2000. On this 11th anniversary of her death and the upcoming Passover holiday I wanted to share this personal reminiscence with you.

From left to right:
Beatrice, Lily, Frances, Ruth and Rose

I was on my hands and knees, plucking pot after broken-handled pot from beneath my Nana’s cabinets cluttered with kitchenware accumulated after the death of each of her four sisters. “Who needs to spend money on new pots with all these?” I imagined her saying.

Love at First Bite? Not Exactly.

Whole-wheat spaghetti may be better for you, but will it go over well at home? Maybe with sauce. By Debra Samuels Globe Correspondent / February 9, 2011
Whole-wheat bread entered the mainstream long ago. Now brown rice has displaced white in many bowls, and whole-wheat pasta has become nightly fare in many households — even in Italy.

Fine Cooking

PRESERVING THE SEASON Cabbage This Winter vegetable easily becomes kimchi, a bright, robustly flavored condiment that will last for weeks. BY DEBRA SAMUELS

Stick with ribs for these two tasty meals

Boston Globe, May 5, 2010 Chinese spare ribs are restaurant food, and usually gnaw-the-bone good. You can also make delicious ribs at home, where you don’t have to worry about table manners. There are three cuts of ribs: meaty pork ribs, sometimes called St. Louis-style; baby-back pork ribs that have less meat; and country-style ribs …

Conza – Bean, Cauliflower and Fennel Soup

Boston Globe, March 31, 2010 Conza is a traditional Sicilian sauce/soup made with chickpeas, favas, kidney or cranberry beans, white beans, black-eyed peas, and lentils. You can add a handful of whatever dried legumes you have on hand; think of it as spring cleaning your pantry. Nina Groppo cooks each variety of bean separately the …

Preparation is half the fun for Feast of San Giuseppe

By Debra Samuels, Globe Correspondent March 31, 2010 GLOUCESTER — In the garage-cum-kitchen of Nina and Franco Groppo’s home here, more than 20 friends and extended family are preparing for the Feast of San Giuseppe. That means pasta making — lots of it — along with plenty of fun. Flour sifting through the air around …

Chinese egg drop soup

Chinese egg drop soup Serves 4 This popular restaurant bowl is easy to make at home but the technique is a little tricky. The finished soup should have pale yellow petals of barely set egg floating in a rich chicken broth. To achieve this, you have to wave chopsticks above the surface of the hot …