Seeking a Kosher-Keeping Main Dish That Will Keep

October 25, 2022 8:48 AM

What are your super-delicious kosher potluck recipes? Please suggest good kosher main dish recipes that I can finish an hour or so ahead of everyone's arrival that will retain good flavor, texture, and appearance, and need minimal attention for serving.

Gentile cook here. We're hosting and providing the main dish for 8 adults, two of whom keep their diet kosher. Others will bring sides and so on. I'd like to be out of the kitchen and with our guests as people arrive for pre-dinner drinks and conversation. We have a gas grill, an Instant Pot, and a countertop convection oven/air fryer in addition to conventional stove, oven, etc.

No salmon; our kosher-keeping friends served (super-delish) air-fryer-roasted salmon filets when it was their turn.

I know pot roast is a likely possibility. Substantive soups or stews welcome.

Thanks!

posted by conscious matter to Food & Drink (12 answers total)

Best answer: Are you open to solving this by making a vegetarian dinner (and do your kosher keeping friends not care about the intricacies of kosher cheese)? I’d so I’d make a vegetarian lasagna - it takes about an hour to cook so you can stick it in the oven a bit before people start to arrive.
posted by A Blue Moon at 9:06 AM on October 25, 2022 [3 favorites]

Best answer: It's just turned cold here, and I made us an enormous batch of groundnut stew (original Moosewood vegetarian), alternate chicken-y recipe.

I riff the hell out of this recipe based on what I've got. I've used any kind of greens or skipped them, I've used sunbutter instead of peanut, I've added coconut milk to make it creamier. I add all kinds of beans - right now black-eyed peas and lentils - and I've added okra when I could get it, but sometimes green beans too. Anyway, it's very flexible and very warm and cozy. It could be served with rolls, flatbread, breadsticks, or over rice.
posted by Lyn Never at 9:57 AM on October 25, 2022

Best answer: My grandparents did not keep kosher, but they did have some kosher dinners they rotated when cooking for friends, and they were all made ahead so gran could look glamorous while entertaining.

One was the salmon, which is out. One was a Middle-Eastern style vegetarian spread of many dishes, like a warm bean-based stew, some hummus, some salads etc. (my personal favorite), but maybe that doesn't fit the potluck concept, unless you tell everyone exactly what to bring.
Then there was a roast chicken, which was actually grilled on a spit with hasselback potatoes under to cook in the juices dripping from the chicken. There were caraway seeds on the hasselbacks, you should try them. The chicken itself was just rubbed with salt, pepper and a bit of olive oil.
Osso buco is also a dish that can work well, though obviously not served with risotto. I was adult before I learn there was supposed to be risotto with osso buco. It is actually very easy and perfect for an instant pot: cook it at pressure, keep it warm at slow cooker temperature, it almost cannot be overcooked.
The final option may be the easiest and the best suited for your needs: brisket. this is a pressure cooker version. It needs to rest before eating anyway. It was one of the first big things I learnt to cook, because my gran felt it was extremely important that I could cook a kosher meal to make Jewish students feel welcome at our dormitory, at least when I cooked. (The cafeteria had been shut down during the -70's, because hippies, so we took turns at cooking together).
I did not cut up the vegs, so my jus was more of a tasty liquid and the vegetables were either discarded or eaten by people who loved overcooked vegetables. In season I made a ratatouille as the side, also a low effort meal.
posted by mumimor at 10:05 AM on October 25, 2022 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Roast chicken is classic for a reason, but minimal attention is not really something I attribute to carving one, but roast breast/thigh could work.

The beef kefta with edamame and peas from Modern Table: Kosher Recipes for Everyday Gatherings by Kim Kushner was really tasty and low-attention. You might want to stir the edamame and peas in just before serving to keep them bright. Serves 6, so depending on how your potlucks usually go (heavy on food or light?) you might want to 1.5x the recipe.
posted by carrioncomfort at 11:25 AM on October 25, 2022

Best answer: by far the best way to take care of guests like this is to make the dish vegetarian. You avoid almost all the kashrut pitfalls that way. (And conversely, any meat you serve is highly unlikely to work.)

Spinach & mushroom lasagna. Cheese enchiladas. A beautiful vegetable quiche. Ottolenghi's squash with lentils and gorgonzola. Stuff like that.
posted by fingersandtoes at 2:32 PM on October 25, 2022 [1 favorite]

Best answer: At a potluck, there will be other dishes, possibly beef; I'd avoid cheese. Chicken pot pie, made from rotisserie chicken meat, and the bones and skin for stock, carrots, onion, mushrooms, peas, some potato, a bit of white wine, a little sage. Top with vegan or kosher puff pastry.
posted by theora55 at 6:09 PM on October 25, 2022 [1 favorite]

Best answer: people who keep kosher, eat only kosher meat. there are a million levels of "kosher", yes, but that one is baseline. that's why keeping it vegetarian is the way to go. Typically, kosher folks who eat in places that aren't kosher restaurants or homes, only eat vegetarian when out.

there are kosher-keepers who need special cheese, but that's a level of person who is highly unlikely to be eating anything at your house anyway.
posted by fingersandtoes at 8:01 PM on October 25, 2022

Best answer: A Jewish style slow (or pressure) cooked brisket comes to mind. It's something that was a standard part of growing up for many of my Jewish friends and will keep fabulously well in an InstantPot on the warm setting after finishing cooking. And to fingersandtoes point, if they're serious about Kosher you'd need to go to a Kosher butcher at the very least.
posted by Candleman at 6:39 AM on October 26, 2022

Best answer: people who keep kosher, eat only kosher meat. there are a million levels of "kosher", yes, but that one is baseline.

Separating meat and dairy? Not eating treif? Grappling with the issues of shechita and animal welfare in industrial agriculture? Hechsher? Modern interpretation and practice of kashrut is too complicated for such absolutes.

Also, since the OP suggested pot roast, that suggests that their kosher-keeping dinner party friends eat meat in the potluck setting, whether the entire group is purchasing kosher meat for potlucks or the kashrut practices of the friends encompasses something else, like eco-kashrut or not questioning the origin of meat when you're a guest.
posted by carrioncomfort at 7:16 AM on October 26, 2022 [1 favorite]

Best answer: OP, you're getting some wildly incorrect ideas fed to you here, in true AskMeFi fashion. The beauty of anonymous crowdsourcing.

Another idea: coconut milk based vegan chickpea and vegetable curry served over rice. Very easy to do in advance, very tasty, filling, vegan, free of kosher pitfalls, and gluten free. Should make everyone happy. You can even, without much trouble, divide the curry and add meat to one of the pots.
posted by fingersandtoes at 8:10 AM on October 26, 2022

Best answer: Ask your kosher-keeping guests for more details. You can see here that there are multiple ways to interpret “kosher” - you need to know what their parameters are and then work within them. Depending on these parameters, this might involve also making sure that all food at the meal is either “meat” or “dairy” (or parve, which is fine to serve with either meat or dairy).

Having said that, vegan should be safe regardless, at least for anyone who is willing to eat at a non-kosher home off non-kosher dishes.
posted by 2 cats in the yard at 8:23 AM on October 26, 2022 [3 favorites]

Response by poster: Thanks for all the suggestions. As hosts, we provide the main and everyone else brings sides, salad, dessert, etc. We have several Jewish friends, from food-observant like our guests to neighbors who are passionate lovers of bacon, so the particular recipes you all offer are welcome. Extra best answer points to Candleman for the Jewish style slow (or pressure) cooked brisket recipe, which wins the day.

A kosher butcher is 10 minutes away, and I'll be visiting them this afternoon.
posted by conscious matter at 8:46 AM on October 26, 2022 [3 favorites]