I’m back to jot down some notes on a new-to-me ice cream experiment chilling in the freezer. Monday is the first night of Passover and we are hosting 11 members of his extended family and my mother. This all would be overwhelming were his family not bringing the fish, the matzo ball soup, and even the lamb bone for the Seder plate. Nevertheless, there is still much to prep1 and there are currently five boxes of matzo (Yehuda x2, Streit’s x1, Yehuda spelt x1, and Holyland Shmura x1) in the apartment and I’ve even been pre-gaming a bit on matzo-a holdover box of Yehuda (the superior) matzo from last Passover has been a convenient vehicle for High Lawn Farm butter2. How does everyone eat their matzo? I know we will be matzo-brei’ing at some point, but am not sure what else to do.
I love the classic design of the Streit’s box, even if Yehuda is my favorite. This Martha Stewart video of the original Streit’s New York factory is fascinating to watch.
I am starting to wade into observance (taking Judaism classes and starting to attend some services hardly an expert makes, but the following is my understanding by embracing all of these boxes of matzo and by avoiding chametz, or foods derived from wheat, barley, oats, spelt, and rye (but not doing any apartment cleanse). The synagogue David and I have joined is Conservative, and technically the Conservative movement allows kitniyot (i.e., rice and legumes and other foods that were deemed to be too similar to the forbidden grains), but we are avoiding kitniyot for the first Seder in keeping with his family’s Ashkenazic traditions. Anyway it was at this point I had a bit of a crisis when deciding what sides to serve. I like to contribute Japanese foods for any occasion (for Thanksgiving last year I prepared simmered kabocha in soy sauce and green bean shira-ae (i.e., with miso and tofu), but how to make anything Japanese when rice, soy sauce, miso, and sesame are verboten?
A very long way of saying that I turned my Seder-menu focus to dessert, to pavlovas and to charoset (charoset being of course the fruit and nut mixture symbolic of mortar that is an essential part of the Seder plate).
The charoset ice cream is based off of the description of Sephardic charoset in Jayne Cohen’s Jewish Holiday Cooking and riffs off of the honey-lavender ice cream in David Lebovitz’s Perfect Scoop. It tasted so promising coming out of the machine. I debated stirring in matzo too, but thought maybe less is more? Fingers crossed it holds up on Monday3. As an aside, when prepping the fridge and the freezer for the gefilte fish we’ll be buying tomorrow, I discovered two containers full of little bites of other ice cream experiments that I had forgotten over time: poppy-seed, kinako, oatmeal raisin, and maple. I now have a most deluxe ice cream sampler for the next visitor.
Charoset Ice Cream
FOR THE ICE CREAM BASE:
1.5 cups whole milk
1.5 cups heavy cream
5 egg yolks
.25 cups (50g) sugar
1/2 cup (120g) honey
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
heavy pinch of salt
Heat milk until simmering with cinnamon. Whisk egg yolks with honey and sugar and salt.
Temper egg yolks with milk. Return to pot and cook until slightly thickened.
Add cream and chill in ice cream maker.
When almost done churning, stir in raisins and walnuts (described below). When layering into your container for freezing, layer in date caramel (described below).
ADD-INS:
Date Caramel
6-7 medjool dates
1/4 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons honey
heavy pinch of salt
Microwave medjool dates with heavy cream until softened. Puree with honey and salt.
Raisins soaked in hot water and lemon zest
Handful of untoasted walnuts
Other Random Notes:
Some other notes, but the Library Bar in Toronto’s Fairmont is beautiful. I’m sure they exist, but I don’t know of many non-Japanese bars that use glasses from places like Kimura. I swooned over the glasses on the website and remembered I live in a 1br with no more space.
I got to fly down to Austin thanks to people who are much better at planning trips to me and got to see the perfect eclipse. Even better, we stopped by Buc-Ee’s an absolute Disney-land of a gas station with rows of candy, merch, and fresh tortillas.
I am also planning a 20-day trip to Japan in October. I have never taken so much consecutive time off since I’ve started, and am almost overwhelmed with possibilities! As our wedding will be in Nara, much of our time will be in the Kansai region, but I am also planning to shinkansen it up to Tohoku, where I have spent woefully little time. If anyone has recommendations for Tohoku please let me know!
Struck out twice before finally finding dill. None at the Grand Army Plaza farmer’s market. None at the Astor Place Whole Foods. Triumphantly claimed two of the last four bunches after driving to the Gowanus Whole Foods.
A dairy farm in Lee, Massachusetts. You can visit their fawns while sampling their cheeses and other dairy products. We ran into a vet there during our most recent visit in February and he swooned over the cows, telling us that he would want to be reborn as a High Lawn Farm cow in his next life given how much they are pampered. Of course, I felt a twinge of guilt in that they also raise some Angus and to see baby-bull Zazu convalescing with baby-cow Paris… So sorry Zazu.
In addition to the charoset, I have just finished vita-mixing the knobbiest horseradish into a maror that made my eyes sting. I referred to Jayne Cohen again, but ended up freewheeling two versions: one with just horseradish, salt, and apple cider vinegar and another with enough baked beets so I could take a bite without crying.
Two places I enjoyed in Tohoku were Aizu Wakamatsu and Morioka. You may have seen Craig Mod’s NY Times article about Morioka. See his Ridgeline blog for pieces about Morioka and Jazz Kisa.