Family genealogy
The dishes
Family variations include small cigarettes or balls.
1) In bread form: I use 650g of ground beef and 350g of ground veal, which I mix together in a large bowl with 3 beaten eggs. Then I add 80g of matzo meal (matzo flour or potato starch) to this mixture. Next, I chop a whole onion and incorporate it into the meat. I season with salt and pepper and mix everything together.
I shape it into a loaf, coat each side with breadcrumbs, then place it in an oiled baking dish. I turn it over halfway through baking, after about an hour.
2) In the form of balls: it takes longer.
The preparation is the same, but instead of the "bread" shape, I make balls, which I coat with breadcrumbs and fry in a pan.
Once a crust has formed, I add them to a dish prepared beforehand:
- melt 3 to 4 sliced onions in hot oil;
- peel potatoes, either small potatoes or large potatoes cut into quarters.
I place the potatoes on the bed of onions: I cover them with a little water with coarse salt (and a beef bouillon cube).
- I place my meatballs on the potatoes, with the water just covering them.
- I cover and let it cook for an hour and a half over medium heat (3 or 4).
The potatoes are "ayngekokhts", as my mother used to say.
It is difficult to escape, on any good Ashkenazi table, the beetroot-tinted horseradish (the red one) and the "Polish-style" pickles with salt.
When we were little, we used to go shopping with our mother in Belleville.
I can still see the shopkeepers, as if it were yesterday, on Rue de la Présentation and Rue Louis Bonnet.
The bakery where they sold "khalleh" and "yiddishe Broit", this brown bread topped with cumin seeds, and cakes, including Kouglof.
Opposite was the grocer with his barrels of brine filled with large gherkins.
My mother used to buy them in large glass jars, which she would bring home.
My grandmother had taught him to make a potato and pickle soup (which we called "pickle soup") whose recipe I don't really know.
I think the potatoes (cut into small wedges) were cooked in the pickle brine, and she added a few pickles cut into small rounds. This soup was divine!
I haven't forgotten the "sprats", those little smoked fish, wrapped in newspaper, which were our delight!
The Kneidler
These small balls of unleavened bread flour (matze mael) are eaten in the broth of the prepared dish.
Ingredients : 250g of matzo meal, 5 eggs, 3 tablespoons of oil, 1/2 glass of water and salt, pepper.
Recipe: Beat the eggs until frothy, then add flour, oil, water, salt, and pepper. Mix everything well and let it rest for 1 hour in the refrigerator to thicken.
Make balls the size of a walnut (with wet hands).
Boil 2 liters of water or take some broth from the prepared dish and drop the dumplings in. They will rise to the surface; let them cook for another minute.