There’s a tin of schmaltz in my fridge right now. I got it at Fairway last week, the day before I did my Rosh Hashana cooking. I was attempting my grandmother’s carrot tsimmes recipe (ingredients: carrots, honey, sugar – nothing else), which she gave me, over the phone, the night before. “It’s poison,” she said, “But it’s so good.” The schmaltz goes into the kneidel that sits inside the tsimmes. Not your widely known, fluffy chicken soup-style kneidel, but one large and dense dumpling that sits in the center of all the thinly sliced carrots. And when you take a spoonful of the tsimmes, you take a spoonful of the kneidel too. I think a lot of people make their own schmaltz by trimming excess fat from their raw chickens, but when I saw the tin of Empire schmaltz at Fairway, I felt like I HAD to buy it. Instagram opportunity, supporting Fairway’s stocking of slightly obscure Kosher items, etc. It’s also a fun thing to be holding when you run into an old flame-type person, which I did, seconds later. I shouted their name and then shouted “Schmaltz! I have schmaltz!”
Here she is! Carrot tsimmes with it’s schmaltzy kneidle centerpiece.
My kneidel used a finely diced onion, a mixture of cornmeal and all-purpose flour, salt and pepper (I did not use enough, so you should add more than you think you need), and a few tablespoons of schmaltz. Like pastry dough, I blended it with a fork until I had doughy crumbs, and then I added a small splash of cold water to bind it all. I shaped it into something that looked like a large sweet potato, placed it in the center of my cooked tsimmes. (The raw, sliced carrots had sat in some honey and sugar overnight, and then cooked, slowly, in their own liquid.) I covered the pot, and cooked it on a low flame, for about an hour. Amazingly, I now own really good pots – All-Clad – thank you to whoever bought it for us off our wedding registry – and it was just a delight cooking with them. Nothing catches, and things cook well. To be fair, I did burn my hair. I’m not sure when, but at some point, I smelled something weird. It was my hair! I snipped off the singed chunk afterwards. I don’t think you can tell – in fact, my now-shorter front layer, I feel, has kind of a Jessica Rabbit vibe, but it’s probably time for a trim anyway. Must remember to tie my hair up when cooking, though, and for so many reasons.
Dignified + True: Our Fish Head (mentioned later on)
But now there’s a tin, minus 4 tablespoons, of schmaltz in my fridge. What do I do with it? How long does it keep for? In my dreams, I would fry up some onions and potatoes in it, but like, when? If I was the right amount of Sexy Food Person, I would just have it on some toast! You know? I would just put it on everything. There is no room in my life for a fleishig snack such as that. I’ll keep thinking, though!
Full Trad Chicken: Apricots, Prunes, Oregano, Red Wine Vinegar, Lemons.
Anyway, here’s other stuff I made for Rosh Hashana: a fish head! I cooked a fatty salmon head, collar included, in a stock of water, carrots, leeks, thyme, butternut squash peels, and salt and pepper. Should have used a bay leaf, but I forgot. When it was done, and slightly cooled, I ate the collar, warm and fatty, while standing over the stove. I plated the head over sliced carrots. And weirdly, everyone at the table wanted to eat it. I continued in this full trad (FT) vein with my chicken, which I roasted, for a long time, with prunes, dried apricots, lemons, and red wine vinegar. And served that with a salad of greens, beets, fried leeks, and pomegranate seeds. At the core of all this FT food, there may have been some kind of over-compensating going on. I’d been thinking for weeks about Rosh Hashana – who I’d be spending it with, where I’d be spending it, what it would all look like. I don’t know why I got so neurotic about it. I’m glad I called my grandmother though. I never call enough, and I never make any of her recipes. We ended up talking for a little while and it was just like, the nicest conversation. It’s partly my own nonsense and partly that of my family, but there’s always that feeling of not being enough of this, or that. You know what I’m talking about. But we had a nice talk, and I felt really loved, and then I made her recipe, and I sent her a photo of it, and then I fed it to everyone. Why am I getting so sad writing this? It’s a Tuesday but it feels like 4pm on a Thursday. Happy New Year, everyone!
Challah: my no-knead one on the left, my sister-in-law’s classic white on the right.
Bury The Fork 