Seder plate draws on traditions, but gets creative
Food columnist Stephen Fries said when it comes to holiday meals, he’s a traditionalist. His memories of the food prepared for Passover don’t include the creative interpretations seen in many modern cookbooks, but he enjoys them.
“It’s been modernized a lot,” he said.
The holiday is ripe with symbolism and tradition, much of which includes the recipes prepared for the seder —a ritual service and ceremonial dinner for the first night or first two nights of Passover.
The Seder plate is the focal point of the proceedings and bears the ceremonial foods around which the Seder is based — matzo, the shankbone, egg, bitter herbs, charoset and karpas (parsley) vegetable.
“When you ask somebody about Passover, matzo is the first thing that comes to mind,” Fries said. “Over the years they’ve done a lot of different things with it.” His favorite: chocolate-covered matzo.
Matzo is an important element of the Seder plate because when the Jews fled Egypt they didn’t have time for their bread to rise before baking it. But matzo is mainstream now, Fries said, and modern recipes play with using matzo as a main ingredient.
“These aren’t your traditional dishes,” he said.
Some creative twists include chicken soup with matzo balls,
Caesar salad with matzo croutons and matzo nachos, Fries said. For many, matzo is eaten year-round.
One classic item served during Passover is gefilte fish, which Fries remembers being served on piece of lettuce and cooked carrot on top. Last year Fries found a recipe to makeover the dish by bending slices of cucumber over strips of gefilte fish with a skewer holding the cucumber in place
“They’re upscaling it to modern tastes,” Fries said. “Every cookbook on Passover has done that. They’re taking the basics and transforming them.”
Alternatively, cookbooks are simplifying the dishes so they’re not as labor intensive. Fries said while he remembers his grandmother preparing traditional stuffed cabbage, eventually she took to making “unstuffed” cabbage, which retains the flavors of the traditional recipe but forgoes the difficult stuffing and rolling process to create more of a stew.
“The modern Jew is going along with it,” Fries said. Traditional Passover recipes include matzo brei, which is broken pieces of matzo soaked in warm water, then drained and soaked in beaten eggs and milk and then pan fried in butter; brisket or roast chicken; kugel, a baked pudding or casserole, commonly made from potato; horseradish; tsimmes, a stew of root vegetables and dried fruit; gefilte fish, a poached mixture of ground deboned fish, such as carp, whitefish or pike; matzo balls and matzo ball soup; chocolate-dipped coconut macaroons; and charoset, a paste of nuts, apples, pears and wine.
Many of these dishes are enjoyed on other Jewish holidays and year-round, Fries said.
New Passover recipes pop up every year, though, as new generations provide their own take on the foods, as happens in many cultures, Fries said. Some recipes that wouldn’t have been seen on his table growing up include power greens matzo ball soup, coconut crusted chicken, quinoa sweet potato patties, Moroccan lamb shanks with pomegranate sauce, chocolate macaroon cake, chocolatetoffee matzo, matzo granola and LEO (lox, eggs, onion) matzo brei.
Those looking to switch up their seder recipes or find traditional versions can use Passover cookbooks Fries keeps in his collection — “Matzo: 35 Recipes for Passover and All Year Long“from the Streits kosher food company known for making matzo, or “A Taste of Pesach 2: Trusted Favorites, Simple Preparation, Magnificent Results.”
“THEY’RE TAKING THE BASICS AND TRANSFORMING THEM.”