Passover Bonus Edition: (C)Haroset
2 recipes from Joan Nathan, plus our meeting at a special dinner
Below is the “recipe portion” of the post I wrote three days ago about Joan Nathan’s latest book, My Life in Recipes: Food, Family, and Memories, plus an update on a delicious meal we ate at Alice Waters’ new and excellent Los Angeles restaurant Lulu that featured recipes from the book. If you missed the original post, you can find it here.
Joan Nathan calls Passover “my holiday” in My Life in Recipes, and shares a multitude of dishes to make for the eight-day observance, which begins tomorrow, Monday, April 22, at sundown.
As a lover of all things lemon, I’m eager to try Passover Pecan Lemon Torte with Lemon Curd Filling (you can find the recipe here if you have access to The Los Angeles Times website). She includes a savory matzo brei, a relatively simple dish of fried matzo and eggs that she notes (and I have witnessed!) frequently leads to disagreements over whether to eat it sweet or savory, fry it in butter or schmaltz (chicken fat), what’s the best proportion of eggs to matzo, which additions and toppings are best, etc. Honestly, all of them work! I wrote a post two years ago on a few of the wonderful things to do with matzo—not everyone loves it, but I do, especially at Passover when it’s fresh and you can slather it with all manner of delicious things! My piece shares a sweet version of matzo brei from one of Nathan’s earlier books. Here’s a link to that post:
(C)Haroset!
One thing I did make from Nathan’s book was a very unusual recipe for haroset (sometimes spelled charoset because of the guttural “H” in the Hebrew word). Haroset is the symbolic sweet brown or reddish fruit paste that symbolizes the mortar of the bricks that enslaved Israelites were supposed to have used to build the Pharoah’s temples in ancient Egypt. Nathan says she likes to serve several varieties of haroset at her seder meal, representing the many places where Jews have lived. I grew up with a simple Eastern European (Ashkenazi) version made of apples, nuts, wine, sugar (or honey) and cinnamon that I make every year. It is still my favorite haroset.
Nathan has a similar recipe in the book that she calls American Apple and Nut Haroset. Here’s a link to a similar recipe and below to a post I wrote two years ago about our family seders of years gone by that includes my mother’s haroset recipe. You can find a copy of the apple-nut haroset recipe from My Life in Recipes below.
In the headnotes for her recipe for Garosa (Haroset) from Curaçao, Joan Nathan says she always includes “a ball of dates, raisins and nuts representing the journey of the Sephardic Jews fleeing Spain during the time of the Inquisition” and the places to which they fled, including Portugal, Morocco, France, New Amsterdam via Brazil and the Caribbean. The fillings varied depending on the places where they ended up. This version is really delicious and would make a great, healthy (and gluten-free!) snack at any time, not just for Passover! Here’s the recipe:
Garosa (Haroset) from Curaçao with Dates, Prunes, Raisins, Tamarind, and Peanuts
(Just slightly adapted from My Life in Recipes, by Joan Nathan)
Makes about 64 haroset balls but easily halved
4 ounces (113 grams) pitted dates, about 1 cup
4 ounces (113 grams) pitted prunes, about 1 cup
4 ounces (113 grams) golden raisins, about 1 cup
4 ounces (113 grams) dried figs, about 1 cup
2 tablespoons grated lemon or orange zest
8 ounces (226 grams) unsalted roasted peanuts, about 1 cup
4 ounces (113 grams unsalted cashew nuts, about 1 cup (optional, but I did use them)
4 ounces (113 grams) dark brown sugar, or to taste, about 1 cup
2 tablespoons honey, or to taste
1 tablespoon cinnamon, plus 1/4 cup for rolling (optional)
3 tablespoons kosher red wine
2 tablespoons tamarind or orange juice*
Directions:
Put the dates, prunes, raisins, figs, grated zest, peanuts, cashews (if using), dark brown sugar, honey, and 1 tablespoon of cinnamon in a food processor fitted with a metal blade. Process until roughly chopped, then add the wine and tamarind or orange juice* and process until the mixture sticks together when pressed. Taste it, and add more brown sugar or honey if needed.
If you want, put 1/4 cup of cinnamon in the bowl. (I just sprinkled and rolled and added more as needed rather than putting all the cinnamon in at once.) Form balls of mixture into the size of walnuts, about 1 to 1 1/2 inches in diameter, and roll them lightly in the cinnamon. (Joan Nathan says she doesn’t bother as she feels the balls are sweet enough without the extra cinnamon. However, I liked the look and taste of the cinnamon coating.)
The haroset balls can be made a couple of days ahead of time and kept wrapped and refrigerated until the seder. In that case, if you do roll the balls in cinnamon, don’t do it until right before serving.
*I made the balls with orange juice at first as I didn’t have tamarind paste. I did end up ordering the paste and added a little to the mixture, but the haroset was quite good without it too.
Here’s Joan Nathan’s Apple and Nut Haroset recipe that’s very close to the one my mother made. I prefer to make the mixture by hand rather than in a food processor, peeling the apples, then grating them on the large holes of a four-sided grater, than adding chopped nuts (always almonds for us) and other ingredients. This is how my mother did it, so I assume that’s why it’s meaningful to me. Passover is all about passing on traditions from generation to generation—and preparing dishes our mothers (or fathers) made the way they made them is one way to carry that out. But there’s nothing wrong with updating things too—like using a food processor, as Joan does, especially if you’re feeding a crowd!
Our superb four-course meal at Lulu (see menu below) included slices of challah (from storied local baker Jyan Isaac), a plate of appetizers with hummus, baba ghanouj, radishes and olives; Green spring soup with leeks, peas, artichokes, fava beans and ricotta; Moroccan chicken couscous with ginger, saffron, cinnamon, currants and almonds; and rhubarb-strawberry crisp with Meyer lemon ice cream and whipped cream. Many of the recipes are in My Life in Recipes, though unfortunately chef David Tanis won’t be overseeing the prep!
Dinner at Lulu
I didn’t actually have dinner with Joan Nathan, but I did sit adjacent to her long table packed with family and friends, including Alice Waters, owner of the beautiful new restaurant Lulu, located in the courtyard of the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles’ Westwood neighborhood, just adjacent to UCLA. As the event was celebrating the release of My Life in Recipes, the excellent four-course menu was almost entirely from or inspired by the book, prepared by acclaimed chef, writer, and cookbook author David Tanis and the Lulu staff. Waters and Tanis are longtime friends of Nathan.
The event was a combination book-signing and dinner and felt, as food blogger Dana Shrager (of Dana’s Table) said, “more like one giant dinner party as diners table hopped to talk to other people who they knew, and Nathan circulated greeting guests and signing books.”
I was lucky enough to rate this wonderful dinner as an early birthday present from my dear cousins Tina and Hal Feiger. What a way to celebrate!
Happy Passover to those of you who celebrate! If you make haroset, I’d love to know if it’s tied to a family tradition. And, if you make matzo brei, do you like it savory or sweet? Pancake or scrambled egg style?
Thanks as always for liking, commenting, sharing and subscribing.
See you next time.
Ruth
Ruth!!! This is so wonderful! Happy Early Birthday! Love all the photos and love seeing you and Joan together! ❤️
“In response to my persistent questions…” I have to snicker! Your reporter skills are strong as ever!