Naomi Nachman’s Fudgy Chocolate Bundt Cake with Coffee Glaze is gluten-free. (photo by Miriam Pascal)
What? Another cookbook for Pesach? Yes. And a welcome one – Perfect for Pesach: Passover Recipes You’ll Want to Make All Year by Naomi Nachman (Artscroll/Shaar Press, 2017).
“As a chef specializing in Passover, I wanted to provide home cooks with delicious recipes that bring something new to the table,” Nachman explains in the press material. “Some of the recipes in this book reflect my years of catering Pesach dinners and others are brand new to reflect today’s kosher cooking styles. All my recipes use fresh, simple and delicious combinations of ingredients that you can get all year long and create interesting meal choices.”
Nachman, who lives with her family on Long Island, N.Y., grew up in Australia. She served Long Island’s Five Towns through her personal chef business, the Aussie Gourmet. She led a culinary arts program at a Poconos camp for seven summers and, currently, she is director of the Culinary Arts Recreational Program for VIP Ram Destinations’ Pesach holiday in Florida. She also hosts a weekly show on the Nachum Segal Network and writes a monthly column for Mishpacha magazine.
She certainly has the credentials! And what variety in this book.
Perfect for Pesach features more than 125 recipes, with mouth-watering photography by kosher blogger and cookbook author Miriam Pascal.
There are appetizers, such as Hush Puppy Potato Knishes and Southwestern Chicken Egg Rolls; dips and salads, including Chimichurri Coleslaw and Kale and Roasted Butternut Squash Salad; soups such as Kitchen Sink Vegetable Soup and Kale, Apple and Sausage Soup; fish dishes like Red Snapper en Papillote and Sweet and Sour Tilapia; poultry choices like White Wine and Herb Roasted Turkey Roll and Hawaiian Pargiyot; meat recipes such as Coffee Infused Chili and Maple Glazed Rack of Ribs; dairy recipes such as Quinoa Granola Parfait and Oozy Fried Mozzarella; side dishes like Cauliflower Fried “Rice” and Broccoli Kishka Kugel; and desserts including Pomegranate Pistachio Semifreddo and Mini Lemon Curd Trifles.
In her introduction, Nachman writes that her intention is to present “recipes that are easy to make with ingredients that are generally easily accessible from your local supermarket or online.” She highly recommends using fresh lemons and limes, fresh herbs, fresh spices, and a variety of oils.
Each recipe includes cook’s tip, ideas for year-round serving, an author’s comment and, my favourite, method steps that are numbered. The press release says all the recipes are gluten-free.
Don’t bother to look around for a house gift if you are going to a seder at a friend or relative’s home. Perfect for Passover is the perfect gift – all year round.
Here are just two of Nachman’s recipes.
ZUCCHINI KUGEL
pareve, 8-10 servings
6 medium zucchini, grated with peel
1 grated onion
4 beaten eggs
1 1/2 cups matzah meal
1 tbsp baking powder
3/4 cup oil
1 tbsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Prepare a nine-by-13-inch baking pan.
- Add all ingredients to a large bowl; stir well to combine.
- Pour into prepared pan. Bake, uncovered, for 90 minutes, until lightly browned and centre is firm.
FUDGY CHOCOLATE BUNDT CAKE WITH COFFEE GLAZE
pareve, freezer-friendly
2 1/2 cups almond flour
1 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup potato starch
1 tbsp instant coffee granules
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup oil
1 tbsp imitation vanilla extract
6 eggs
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease a Bundt pan well; set aside.
- In a small bowl, whisk together almond flour, cocoa powder, potato starch, coffee, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together sugar, oil, vanilla and eggs. Add dry ingredients; stir to combine.
- Pour batter into Bundt pan; bake 40-45 minutes, until toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean. Set aside to cool completely in the pan. Remove from pan; glaze with coffee glaze, below.
Coffee glaze:
1 cup powdered sugar
1 tbsp brewed coffee
1 tsp oil
- In a small bowl, whisk together all ingredients to form a glaze. If the glaze is too thick to pour, add water, a half teaspoon at a time, until desired texture is reached.
- Pour glaze over cooled cake.
Sybil Kaplan is a journalist, lecturer, book reviewer and food writer in Jerusalem. She created and leads the weekly English-language Shuk Walks in Machaneh Yehudah, she has compiled and edited nine kosher cookbooks, and is the author of Witness to History: Ten Years as a Woman Journalist in Israel.