Seeking Kosher cookbook

February 20, 2019 7:51 PM

I am interested in revisiting kosher cooking to make food that actually tastes delicious.

My experience of eating kosher has been relatively dismal. My dad’s family kept strictly kosher (my zaydeh was an orthodox rabbi) but nobody on that side seems to have felt that cooking could be fun and pleasurable. I never knew brisket as a tender yummy cut of meat until I lived in Texas in my 20s, I always thought the grey, chewy stuff we ate on Shabbos was just the way it tasted.

My parents kept deeply kosher in a hippy 1970s kind of way (they were vegetarians) but broke up young and my stepdad cooked bacon (and once brought a beer to the seder table,) so growing up mom and I were only nominally kosher. She cared about it but could only do so much during that time.

I don’t keep a kosher kitchen now but am interested in relearning some of my favorite foods in that mode - like, a perfect roast chicken with no butter under the skin.

I want to check in here before starting wider internet searches, so hit me with your favorites, please!

posted by Lawn Beaver to Food & Drink (9 answers total)

Best answer: Claudia Roden's The Book of Jewish Food was a very good and delicious read. Those recipes cover a large geographic region though at the time of publication recipes from Ethiopian Jewish community were scarce. If you want Sephardi recipes then get our hands on Joyce Goldstein's books, if you can, like Saffron Shores or the New Mediterranean Jewish Table. Joan Nathan is considered another reliable author with more emphasis on Ashkenazi recipes in her earlier books but has expanded her reach in later books. These are three authors who I have found reliable recipes and good background reading. There are other specialty Jewish cookbooks for sure like Matzon 101 or In Memory's Kitchen but they are pretty specific topic niche.

There are specific books for Jewish baking, too. Which can be a separate question. The 21st century has seen an absolute explosion in cookery books. This is fantastic.

American cookery sites like Epicurious are a treasure trove of kosher recipes that center around holidays but plenty of delicious kosher recipes can be found at all the usual suspects like Saveur, Fine Cooking, Gourmet/Bon Appetit/Epicurious.
posted by jadepearl at 8:14 PM on February 20, 2019 [5 favorites]

Strong second on Claudia Roden & Joan Nathan.
posted by bcwinters at 8:35 PM on February 20, 2019 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Some books I've enjoyed:

The Gefilte Manifesto by Liz Alpern and Jeffrey Yoskowitz
A Blessing of Bread by Maggie Glazer
The Book of Schmaltz: Love Song to a Forgotten Fat by Michael Ruhlman

I've also found some great recipes on the Joy of Kosher
posted by carrioncomfort at 6:28 AM on February 21, 2019 [1 favorite]

Thirding Joan Nathan. Her Jewish Cooking in America is really good.

I also love Miriam's Kitchen. It's more of a memoir than a cookbook, but her story - and all the recipes - span a wide range of Jewish experience (ashkenazi and sephardi).
posted by Mchelly at 7:06 AM on February 21, 2019 [1 favorite]

A friend was just telling me about the recipe blog of Chanie Apfelbaum. She wrote a book -- Millenial Kosher: Recipes Reinvented for the Modern Palate -- and there are lots of recipes on her site too.
posted by BlahLaLa at 7:13 PM on February 21, 2019 [1 favorite]

Oh, no, they could ruin *brisket*?

How comfortable are you with cooking in general? If you know how to cook fairly fluently and already have favorite recipes as the question implies, it's not so hard to sub out butter for oil, or look up "non-dairy recipe for __" to see if you can find one. I'd find that easier than hoping a cookbook had something specific.

I do a LOT of googling when I want to customize a recipe or find something specific, it helps to see what other people do and what they put together before settling on one to try myself. (How To Cook Everything is good too if you don't mind skipping some chapters. It usually has several variations or alternatives).
posted by Lady Li at 11:42 PM on February 21, 2019

There's also a facebook group called "I don't cook but I give out recipes," which I think started out as a place for anyone to share those Tasty videos and pinterest recipe finds, but now is predominantly Orthodox Jewish people posting (predominantly) kosher recipes and photos of things they made - and they're always recommending cookbooks. Glad to send you a link via MeMail if you can't find it easily on your own.
posted by Mchelly at 6:45 AM on February 22, 2019 [1 favorite]

My old roommate, who subsequently married a bacon addict MAKE OF THAT WHAT YOU WILL, absolutely killed with everything she made out of the Chinese Kosher Cookbook.

The comfort food of one's youth is a broad area.
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 9:09 PM on February 24, 2019 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks everyone! I got The Book of Jewish Food and a Joan Nathan book of holiday recipes to make with your kids.
posted by Lawn Beaver at 9:12 AM on March 4, 2019