Who’s in the kitchen

Dinner and dessert in one!

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Each year, during the nine days, I always marvel at the amount of people waiting on line at the kosher dairy restaurants around town. Many of these people don’t tend to eat out often during the year and most would never choose a dairy restaurant. Yet during the nine days, even with a reservation, you can count on standing on line...sometimes out the door and down the block. For those who weren’t smart enough to make a reservation, they go from restaurant to restaurant picking the one that has the shortest line. If that fails, the pizza store is the last resort.

And, how many of you normally rush home from work during the week to eat out. It’s a given, during the nine days. Owners of the dairy restaurants wait all year for this onslaught. Not to be outdone, the meat establishments dream up every parve entree they can think of. There is no way they’re going to miss out on the hordes of diners that forgot to make a reservation at the dairy restaurants.

I find it kind of ironic that we are not supposed to wear freshly laundered clothes, take warm showers, listen to music, swim, etc. But there seems to be no issue with gong out in large groups of friends or family and enjoying a dairy dinner out. There are certain loopholes, where, if you follow certain rules you can have meat. Remember those days in sleep away camp? There would be a siyum and then we were able to eat meat. Of course to some younger campers it seemed like a bunch of “Bar Puppa, Bar Puppa , Bar Puppa.” and then meat was miraculously on the menu that night. When Tisha B’Av came around and my husband Jerry realized there was a much better meal awaiting him if he were to fast, he did so even though he was only 12. Another of his favorite memories of camp was the night activity on Tisha B’Av when the entire camp was led down to the lake, by torch light, culminating in a spectacular burning of an edifice made to represent the Bait Hamikdash. The camp assumed that the younger campers understood what the symbolism meant. To my husband, Jerry, it was his favorite night at camp. Having totally missed the point of the meaning of the burning, he simply enjoyed what he thought was the second showing of July 4th, Jewish style.

While working as a pastry chef at the Cedar Club in the Five Towns, years ago, during the nine days, I had just finished filling 12 pans with carrot cake batter and had a decent amount left over. As I was trying to decide if I should try to fill another two pans and squeeze it into the oven, the chef, and a good friend of mine, Lew Levine, was trying to figure out the fish special for the evening. We looked at each other and I said, “Carrot cake batter encrusted salmon?” He dipped a piece into the batter, sautéed it on each side then placed it in the oven to finish cooking. I kid you not--it was excellent. Every person who ordered it loved it. The last person to order it was an owner of a nearby restaurant. I happened to have been walking by his table when his waiter asked him how he enjoyed his dinner. He replied, “It was delicious. I see your chef copied our salmon recipe.” It took every ounce of self-control for me not say, “Really, do you always have extra carrot cake batter sitting around?” We all had a good laugh in the kitchen, almost as good a laugh as the staff got when I made myself an egg white omelet and sprayed the pan with oven cleaner....But that’s a whole different story--and yes I ate half of it before I realized why it tasted so strange. Thank G-d for those poison control centers.

For those of you who plan on dining in for at least one meal, try this one of a kind recipe.

CARROT CAKE BATTER ENCRUSTED SALMON

n 6 fillets of salmon

n Carrot cake batter

n Canola oil to sauté the salmon

n Carrot cake batter recipe

n 1 cup flour

n 1 cup sugar

n 1/3 teaspoon salt

n 1 teaspoon baking soda

n 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

n 1⁄2 cup corn oil

n 1 ½ beaten eggs

n 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

n 1/2 cup shelled walnuts, chopped

n 1/2 cup shredded coconut

n 1/3 cup puréed cooked carrots

n 3/4 cup drained crushed pineapple

Sift the dry ingredients into a bowl. Add the oil, eggs, and vanilla. Beat well. Fold in the walnuts, coconut, carrots, and pineapple.

Add canola oil to a large frying pan and place over a medium flame. Brush the top and bottom of each fillet with the batter. When the oil is hot, add half of the salmon fillets, and cook for three minutes to sear the fish and brown the topping. Carefully flip the fish over and cook on the other side for three minutes. Transfer the fish to a baking sheet, sprayed with Pam. Repeat with the remaining three fillets.

Place the baking sheet in the oven and bake until the salmon is just firm to the touch, about 2 to 4 minutes depending on the thickness of the fish (the fish is done when the thermometer registers 130 degrees F when inserted into the thickest part of a fillet.) Don’t over bake, the interior should be moist, unless you’re Rhea or Joe Grob, they like everything well done....as in leave it in the oven till the smoke detector goes off....and then five minutes more.

In sharp contrast to the way we commemorate the 9ninedays today, my mother-in-law and her sisters, while in Auschwitz in 1944, insisted on fasting while real fires inexorably burned. There was no special meal awaiting them at the end of the fast.

Judy Joszef is a pastry and personal chef as well as a party planner. She spent 18 years as a pastry chef at Abigael’s, The Cedar Club, Centro and T42 in the Five Towns, before launching her current business, Soireé. She can be contacted at Judy.soiree@gmail.com.