Fay Baker Drus's Cheese Cake Seasonal Variation

• Ingredients

• 400g pkt plain digestive biscuits
• 150g butter, melted
• 750g cream cheese, at room temperature
• 215g (1 cup) caster sugar
• 2 teaspoons finely grated lemon rind
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 3 eggs
• 185ml (3/4 cup) thickened cream
• 60ml (1/4 cup) fresh lemon juice

Strawberry compote

• 2 x 250g punnets strawberries, washed, hulled, halved
• 250ml (1 cup) dessert wine or sparkling wine
• 2 tablespoons caster sugar

• Method

1. Step 1
   To make the strawberry compote, stir the strawberry, wine and sugar in a saucepan over low heat until the sugar dissolves. Increase heat to medium-high and bring to the boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for 2 minutes or until the strawberry softens slightly. Set aside to cool completely.
2. Step 2
   Preheat oven to 160°C. Line the base and side of a 23cm (base measurement) springform pan with non-stick baking paper. Process biscuits in a food processor until finely crushed. Add the butter and process until well combined. Transfer to the pan. Use a straight-sided glass to spread and press the biscuit mixture over the base and side of pan, leaving 1cm at the top of the pan. Cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge for 30 minutes to chill.
3. Step 3
   Meanwhile, use an electric beater to beat the cream cheese, sugar, lemon rind and vanilla in a bowl until smooth. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition until combined. Beat in the cream and lemon juice.
4. Step 4
   Pour the cream cheese mixture over the biscuit base. Place pan on a baking tray and bake for 50-60 minutes or until almost set in the centre. Turn off oven. Leave cheesecake in oven, with door ajar, for 2 hours or until cooled completely. Place in fridge overnight to chill. Top with the strawberry compote.

Sarah Kaplan Drus's Matzo Ball and Chicken Soup

Matzo ball soup at its most elegant, with clarified broth and thoughtfully cut garnish. Photos by Donna Turner Ruhlman

I had a question for my friend and neighbor Israela Cohen and her email ended thus: “By the way, Passover is almost here and I am making more schmaltz plus some high powered horseradish. Hope you have a fabulous Easter. Love the schmaltz lady.”

I do love the Schmaltz Lady! She helped educate me in the ways of schmaltz, the glorious rendered chicken fat that makes everything taste better, especially things like these matzo balls, one of the greatest chicken soup garnishes ever! The photos above and below are from our app for iPads (minis too): The Book of Schmaltz: A Love Song to a Forgotten Fat, a short cookbook with twenty recipes for traditional Jewish dishes (kishke, cholent), as well as contemporary recipes putting this great fat to use (savory brioche, vichyssoise) and great photography of all the dishes. (Here’s the video I made for the app; David Leite reviews the app glowingly at Leite’s Culinaria.)

The good folks of Edamam, a food-search database that aims to make finding good things to eat easier, are doing a giveaway of the app starting today on their Pinterest board.

Here in Cleveland, it’s cold and gloomy and I feel that some chicken soup with matzo balls, rustic as below, will be good for body and soul. It doesn’t have to be rustic, though; it can be four-star elegant if you put some craft into it!

Matzo balls in soup can be plain, as here, or, at top, elegant. Either way they’re delicious.

There are two camps when it comes to matzo balls: those who prefer sinkers and those who like them light. I prefer the latter so you’ll find that these are light and fluffy.

Classic Chicken Soup with Matzo Balls

Matzo Balls

• 1 cup/140 grams matzo meal (or 4 squares of matzo, well pulverized in a food processor)
• 4 eggs, beaten
• 1/4 cup/60 grams schmaltz, melted (or, sigh, vegetable oil)
• 1/4 cup/30 grams gribenes (optional)
• 1/4 cup/60 milliliters chicken stock or water
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

1. Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and stir until they are all thoroughly mixed. Cover with plastic wrap and set aside at room temperature for 30 minutes, or refrigerate for up to 24 hours.
2. With damp hands, form the matzo mixture into 8 golf ball-sized orbs (they will double in size).

For the Soup

• 2 tablespoons/30 grams schmaltz (or canola oil if you’re low on schmaltz)
• 1 Spanish onion, cut into medium dice
• 2 carrots, peeled and cut into medium dice (optional)
• 2 ribs celery, cut into medium dice (optional)
• 2 quarts/2 liters chicken stock
• salt to taste
• 8 matzo balls
• Chopped gribenes and parsley for finishing garnish (optional)

1. In a large pot, melt the schmaltz over high heat, add the onion (and carrots and celery if using), and cook for a few minutes, just until the onion is translucent, giving it a four-finger pinch of salt as you stir.
2. Add the stock and bring it to a simmer. Taste it and add more salt, if necessary. Add the matzo balls and let the soup return to a simmer. Reduce the heat to low, cover the pot, and simmer until the matzo balls are cooked through, 20 to 30 minutes.

Serves 8

Freda Shabelstock's Riga Borscht - Freda Shabelstock was my Grandmother

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Serves 8

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• I have never tasted borscht this pure and clean. Naked Beet's broth is supremely light, a clear essence of beet spiked with a healthy dose of lemon juice and perfumed with a large handful of dill. The carrots, potatoes and celery bob amongst the ruby shards of beet, so that each mouthful is substantial yet straightforward. We salted the soup towards the beginning so that the veggies would absorb some salinity, and we added plenty of lemon juice at the end. Don't skip a generous dollop of sour cream; when swirled gently into the soup, it lends just the right amount of richnessI had a low red blood count at birth so doctors in Russia suggested that my mother start including beets in my diet to increase my iron within the first year of my life. How did my Mother prepare beets for me when I was an infant? It's reasonable to assume that beet juice was my other 'mother's milk'. This vegetable and I really have been inseparable friends for all of my life.
  
  
  Over the years, I watched my mother make borscht countless times. When my mother made it (and she never wore gloves), the kitchen smelled of earth, which belied the surprisingly sweet flavor of this amazing root. In high school, I began refining the recipe, dispensing with my mother's use of sour salt and replacing it with more fresh lemon juice. In my twenties, I subtracted parsnips and dill stalks and used fewer carrots and potatoes. Every change I made allowed the focus of the recipe to return to its original beet flavor. My favorite borscht allows me to experience the contrast between sweetness and tanginess, and to adjust that contrast with my own preferred blend of sour cream and garlic slivers and juniper berries. Finding the balance that works for your tastebuds is the heart of this recipe's sex appeal. 
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• 10cups water
• 2tablespoons grapeseed oil
• 1large onion, finely chopped
• 1bay leaves
• 3medium sized beets
• 2medium sized carrots
• 1large potato (1 yukon or 2 small red)
• 1celery stalk, cut into thin moons
• 1/4bunch fresh dill, minced
• 1/2-1whole lemon, juice of
• 2-3teaspoons salt
• dashfreshly ground pepper
• 12whole juniper berries (optional)
• 1-2cloves of garlic
• 1tablespoon sour cream (per bowl)

1. Set your pot of water on low heat. Add in 1 tbsp of oil, chopped onion, bay leaf and juniper berries. Peel the beets and cut them into halves if they’re small enough or into thirds or quarters if they’re very large. You want them to be of relatively equal size. Drop them gently into the water as you continue working on the rest of the vegetables.
2. Peel and cut the carrots into rounds, and for the potatoes, cut them into 1/2″ size cubes or small chunks. (I prefer my vegetables small as I find they distribute a lot better into individual bowls.) Add them to the pot as they're ready. Then add the chopped celery and the juice of 1/2 of a fresh lemon. Bring your heat up and cook the soup until a fork easily pierces through one of the larger beet pieces; this should take about 15 minutes on medium low heat.
3. While the beets are getting tender, you should skim the soup from some of the foam that will form. By doing this, you will inevitably be taking out some of the oil along with it. Once you’ve skimmed it, put in an additional 1/2 tablespoon of oil.
4. Once your beets are done, scoop them out of the soup (bringing back into the pot any vegetables that might have clung to the beet) and let the beets cool for 2 minutes so you can handle them more easily. At this point, you can turn the pot to low heat. I’d advise wearing gloves for the next part so you don’t have to take beet stains off your hands. Using the large holes on your grater, shred your beets. Once you’ve grated all the chunks, carefully put all the shredded beets back into the soup pot and let this cook for an additional 10 minutes.
5. The soup should have a sweet tart taste. After the 10 minutes, add in the dill and taste the soup to adjust flavors accordingly. Add salt, a tad of pepper, and if the soup is still too sweet for you, another tablespoon or 2 of fresh lemon juice. Remember that if your soup is very hot, you will not taste the actual level of salt, so err on the side of less, as each time you reheat the soup, it will get slightly saltier. This soup is the perfect example of melded flavors getting better in the following days.
6. Notes: Serve hot or cold, with sour cream or not, but eat this with black bread. If you want to make the soup a bit spicier, add thin slices of garlic to the soup before serving. If you want just a hint of garlic, then rub a cut clove over the crust of your bread. In the Winter, if you want to experience an even more authentic Russian meal, serve this soup with a side of mashed potatoes topped with sardines. Let the juices of the sardines drip into the butter- or milk-mashed potatoes. If you cook this in the Summertime, omit cooking with juniper berries and use a topping of cubed persian cucumbers or a hard boiled egg split in half.