Southern Fried and Syrian Passover

The real secret to good fried chicken is the marinade and authentic southern fried chicken is marinated in buttermilk. Since we keep kosher, I had to find another alternative to achieve the same tenderizing effect that buttermilk produces….. lemon juice. And, since we are not allowed to use flour during Passover, I used matza meal instead, and although it doesn’t stick as well as flour, it worked beautifully. This produces a nice lemony-garlic fried chicken. It is definitely finger licking good.

Passover Fried Chicken with Lemon and Paprika
Ingredients
  • 3/4 cup fresh lemon juice
  • 6 medium garlic cloves crushed
  • 4 teaspoons sweet paprika
  • 3/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
  • 2 3 pound chickens, cut into eight pieces each
  • 1-1/4 teaspoons salt
  • 2 cups matzo meal or more
  • 3 eggs beaten
  • Canola oil
Instructions
  1. Combine first 4 ingredients in large non-aluminum dish. Add chicken, turning to coat. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight, turning chicken pieces over twice.
  2. Line 2 baking sheets with wax paper. Season matzo meal with salt and pepper.
  3. Drain chicken pieces and blot dry with paper towels. Dip chicken into matzo meal. Next, dip chicken pieces into egg and, finally, dip again in matzo meal, coating completely. Shake off excess matzo meal.
  4. Chill the chicken for 30 minutes.
  5. Heat 1.5cm (1/2 inch) of oil to 180C (350F) in heavy large skillet. Add thigh and leg pieces of chicken to the skillet, taking care not to crowd. Cook until golden brown and springy to the touch. When cooked, place on paper towels to drain. Add chicken breasts and repeat procedure.

My husband decided to surprise me this Passover with a bag of potato flour. I have never cooked with potato flour in my life and cannot remember anyone in my family using it. So, I wanted to find something interesting to make with it. I once had a cake made with potato flour and really disliked the texture. I remembered seeing a recipe once for crepes made with potato flour and decided to marry those with a Syrian meat filling I found from Poopa Dweck. She just wrote a beautiful cookbook about Syrian Jewish cooking and I must buy this book. I saw it at our local bookstore and it has my name all over it. The meat filling is called Hashu and it is typically used to fill vegetables. My husband adapted the recipe by adding pomegranate molasses and hot paprika. It is delicious and worked nicely with my chive crepes.

How do you like the kosher squid to the right of the crepe? That is my husband trying to be clever with the leftover crepe batter. 🙂

Syrian Passover Meat Crepes
This recipe is adapted from Aromas of Aleppo: The Legendary Cuisine of Syrian Jews by Poopa Dweck.
Ingredients
For the crepes:
  • 4 Tablespoons potato starch
  • 1 cup water
  • 4 eggs
  • 3 tablespoons of chopped fresh chives
  • Salt and Pepper
  • Olive oil
For the Hashu (Aleppian Ground Meat and Rice Filling)
  • 500 g 1 pound lean ground beef
  • 1/3 cup short-grain rice white or brown
  • 2 teaspoons ground allspice
  • 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
  • 1-1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon hot paprika
  • 2 tablespoons pomegranate molasses
  • 1 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
  • 1 onion finely chopped (1/2 cup)
  • 1 cup pine nuts
  • 1/4 cup water
Instructions
For the crepes:
  1. In a small bowl, slowly add the water to the potato flour and mix thoroughly. Add the potato flour mixture, chives salt, and pepper to the beaten eggs and mix well. Heat a non-stick crepe pan over medium heat. When hot, add a little oil to coat pan. Stir batter and ladle about 4 tablespoons into the skillet. Immediately swirl batter to spread the pan.? Cook until bottom is light brown. Flip crepe and cook for about 1 minute until speckled. Fill the crepes with about 3 tablespoons of the meat filling and roll. Heat rolled crepes in a 150C (300F) oven for about 5 minutes or on a Shabbat plate until heated through. Do not over cook.
  2. Syrian Hashu Filling
For the Hashu (Aleppian Ground Meat and Rice Filling)
  1. Soak rice in cool water, enough to cover, for 30 minutes. Drain.
  2. Combine all ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Mix well with your hands. Add the meat mixture to a frying pan, add water and start breaking the meat in to small pieces. Cover until the rice is cooked through for approximately 10 minutes.

Fish on Friday

No we are not Catholics, but we love fish and usually eat it two or three times a week. Did you know that batter-fried fish, as in “Fish & Chips” was a Portuguese Jewish invention and was introduced to England by Portuguese Jewish immigrants? One trip to London to visit my mother-in-law I had a hankering for fish and chips, so my lovely husband took me to a very nice and well known fish and chips restaurant, called The Nautilus (27-29 Fortune Green Road London NW6 1DU), in West Hampstead. Instead of using the heavy batter that some places use, they used a nice light coating of matzah meal! It was the best fish and chips I have ever had. I had plaice and David had halibut. I tried doing this at home and have never looked back.

Tomorrow night is Lag B’Omer and we decided to have fish for Shabbat dinner tonight and have meat tomorrow evening for the holiday. We didn’t get to have a BBQ for Israel’s Independence Day because I was abroad. So, we are making up for it tomorrow night.


I am marinating the meat above overnight. More about this and Lag B’Omer tomorrow.

This evening I fried red mullet fillets which I first dredged in an egg wash and then matzah meal that I mixed with fresh thyme and fresh chives, herb salt and black pepper. I served it with fresh corn on the cob and green beans.

We had this with a 10-year-old South African chardonnay that amazingly survived well. I thought it was going to taste like vinegar.

For dessert, I thawed out a cheat’s version of mincemeat filling that I had made for hamentaschen and made a mincemeat pie. The dough is a ready-made parve pastry that I bought at the supermarket.

Shabbat Shalom!