Food and Traditions

This recipe was shared with me by a descendant of Khashchevatoye, Yosef Rwho remembered it from his mother’s cooking. It is a lesser-known variation of the classic tzimmes, particularly popular among Jews of southern Ukraine and Odessa. The renowned Odessan artist Oleksandr Roytburd also mentioned this bean tzimmes among the Jewish dishes that have sadly disappeared from local tables.

Ingredients

A cup of dried red or speckled beans, two onions, half a cup of fresh tomato juice, a little flour, some vegetable oil, salt, sugar and spices to taste. Optionally, a tablespoon of chopped walnuts.

Preparation

Soak the beans overnight, then cook them in unsalted water until tender. Don’t throw away the cooking water — you’ll need it for the sauce.

Slice the onions into rings or half-rings and fry them in vegetable oil with a small amount of flour until golden. Then dilute this mixture with some of the bean cooking water and the tomato juice to create a sauce. Season with spices, salt, and a little sugar.

Place the cooked beans in a heavy-bottomed pot and cover them completely with the sauce. Let everything simmer together on very low heat for about half an hour, until the flavors come together.

If you like, stir in a tablespoon of finely chopped walnuts or onions just before serving.

Ingredients

4 T unsalted butter, melted, divided; 8 oz cooked egg noodles; kosher salt and white pepper; 2 large eggs, lightly beaten; 1 C sour cream; ½ C cottage cheese; 3 T chopped chives, or finely diced yellow onion; 1 C grated Swiss or cheddar cheese; ½ C breadcrumbs.

Preparation

Heat oven to 350°F. Butter a casserole dish (1½ qt). In a bowl, toss the noodles with 3 T butter, and season with salt and pepper. In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs, sour cream, cottage cheese, chives, and half of the grated cheese. Add the blended mixture to the noodles and season with salt and pepper.

Mix the breadcrumbs with 1 T butter. Pour the noodle mixture into the buttered casserole dish. Top with the remaining grated cheese and the breadcrumbs. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes or until bubbling and golden brown.

Jenny: “I usually double this recipe for a larger crowd.”

Eva remembers her grandmother’s baking, which she called “strudel” — thin dough rolled into long rolls that filled an entire baking sheet, usually two or three at a time. The fillings varied: cottage cheese, apples, or potatoes. Eva’s favorite was the potato strudel — her grandmother didn’t boil the potatoes but cut them finely, raw, and always added plenty of pepper.

Eva notes that her grandmother lost her mother at a young age, so she may have learned to bake on her own rather than from family tradition. Still, she wonders: perhaps someone else remembers eating something like this in childhood too.

This dish was identified by Yosef Roitman, a descendant of Khashchevatoye, as a traditional food from his family. Known in Yiddish as p’tcha (or petcha, fisnoga, galareta), and in Russian as kholodets, this jellied meat dish was a staple of Ashkenazi Jewish cooking across Eastern Europe. Jewish versions were always made without pork, typically using calves’ feet, sometimes with chicken. It was commonly served on Shabbat and at celebrations.

Ingredients

2–3 calves’ feet (cleaned and cut into pieces by the butcher), 1 whole chicken or chicken parts (optional, for a richer version), 2 onions (peeled, left whole), 2–3 carrots (peeled), 4–5 cloves of garlic, 2–3 bay leaves, 8–10 whole black peppercorns, salt to taste, 3–4 hard-boiled eggs (for serving), fresh lemon wedges or prepared horseradish (for serving).

Preparation

Thoroughly rinse the calves’ feet and soak them in cold water for 3–4 hours. Drain, place in a large stockpot, and cover with cold water (about 10 cm above the level of the meat). Bring to a boil and skim off any foam that rises to the surface. Add the onions, carrots, bay leaves, and peppercorns. Reduce the heat to very low and simmer gently for 8–10 hours (or at least 6), without adding more water. If using chicken, add it during the last 1½–2 hours of cooking.

When the meat falls easily from the bones, remove everything from the pot. Strain the broth through a fine sieve or cheesecloth. Pick the meat from the bones, discarding bones and gristle, and chop the meat into small pieces. Finely chop the garlic and mix it with the meat. Season the broth with salt to taste.

Arrange the meat in deep plates or a mold. Slice the hard-boiled eggs and place them decoratively on top. Slice the cooked carrots and add them as well. Pour the strained broth over everything, making sure the meat is fully covered. Let it cool to room temperature, then refrigerate for at least 6 hours or overnight until fully set.

Serve cold, cut into portions, with lemon wedges, grated horseradish, or mustard on the side.

Grivelach (also spelled gribenes, grieven, or gribn) were the crispy, golden cracklings left over from rendering chicken fat (schmaltz). In the shtetl, nothing was wasted: the skin and fatty scraps of the chicken were slowly cooked down until the fat melted away and the solids turned into irresistible, crunchy morsels. The rendered schmaltz was the primary cooking fat in Ashkenazi kitchens, and the grivelach were eaten as a snack, crumbled over mashed potatoes, mixed into chopped liver, or simply enjoyed with a piece of bread and salt.

Ingredients

Skin and fat from 2–3 chickens (cut into small pieces, about 2 cm), 1 large onion (diced), salt to taste.

Preparation

Place the chicken skin and fat pieces in a heavy skillet or pot with about 2 tablespoons of water (this helps the fat start to render without burning). Cook over low heat, stirring occasionally. As the fat melts, the pieces will begin to shrink and turn golden.

After about 20–25 minutes, when the pieces are starting to crisp, add the diced onion. Continue cooking on low heat, stirring from time to time, until both the skin pieces and onion are deep golden and very crispy — another 15–20 minutes.

Strain through a fine sieve. The liquid gold is your schmaltz — store it in a jar in the refrigerator for cooking. The crispy bits are the grivelach. Sprinkle with salt and enjoy warm.

Stuffed cabbage rolls were a festive dish in Ashkenazi homes, traditionally served on Sukkot and Simchat Torah. Known as holishkes in Yiddish, golubtsy in Russian, and sometimes called prakes, they were made with a sweet-and-sour tomato sauce that distinguished the Jewish version from its non-Jewish neighbors. The filling typically combined meat and rice, though some families used buckwheat instead.

Ingredients

1 large head of green cabbage; 

For the filling: 500 g ground beef, ½ cup rice (uncooked, rinsed), 1 onion (finely grated or diced), 1 egg, salt and pepper to taste.

For the sauce: 1 can (400 g) crushed tomatoes or tomato passata, 2–3 tablespoons brown sugar or honey, juice of 1–2 lemons, 1 onion (sliced), salt and pepper to taste, 1 cup water.

Preparation

Core the cabbage and place the whole head in a large pot of boiling water. As the outer leaves soften (after 3–5 minutes), peel them off carefully with tongs. Continue until you have enough large leaves. Shave down the thick central rib of each leaf so it’s easier to roll.

Mix the ground beef with the rice, grated onion, egg, salt, and pepper. Place a spoonful of filling near the base of each cabbage leaf, fold in the sides, and roll up tightly.

Line the bottom of a heavy pot with the remaining cabbage leaves or sliced onion (this prevents sticking). Arrange the rolls seam-side down in tight layers. Mix the crushed tomatoes with sugar, lemon juice, salt, pepper, and water. Pour the sauce over the rolls — it should nearly cover them. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a low simmer, cover, and cook for about 2 hours until the rice is tender and the sauce has thickened. Taste the sauce and adjust the sweet-sour balance to your liking.

If one dish could hold the entire soul of the shtetl kitchen, it would be chicken soup. In Khashchevatoye, as in every Jewish home across the Pale, the golden broth simmering on the stove was the heartbeat of Shabbat — its aroma filling the house long before the candles were lit.

The women of the shtetl wasted nothing. The chicken gave its meat, its bones gave depth to the broth, and its fat — along with goose fat — was carefully rendered into schmaltz, the liquid gold of Jewish cooking. Even the neck skin was put to use: it was carefully cleaned, stuffed with a simple mixture of flour, onion, and schmaltz, sewn shut with a needle and thread, and cooked slowly in the simmering broth. This was helzel — a humble, golden dumpling that children waited for eagerly, the reward for a long Friday afternoon.

Every pot of soup told its own story. Some women added a handful of dill at the end; others swore by parsley. Some strained the broth until it was perfectly clear; others left it thick with carrots and celery. The noodles might be lokshen — fine, hand-cut egg noodles — or, for Pesach, kneidlach (matzo balls) that could be light as clouds or dense as cannonballs, depending on whose mother made them.

But the soup itself was constant — golden, fragrant, and deeply nourishing. It was medicine for the sick, comfort for the weary, and the one dish that every Jewish child, no matter how far from the shtetl they wandered, would remember forever.

Ingredients:

For the soup:

• 1 whole chicken, cut into pieces

• 2–3 carrots, peeled and left whole

• 2 stalks celery

• 2 onions, halved (skin on for color)

• A handful of fresh dill and parsley

• Salt and pepper to taste

• Cold water to cover

For the helzel:

• 1 chicken neck skin, carefully cleaned and turned inside out

• 3 tablespoons flour

• 2 tablespoons schmaltz (rendered chicken or goose fat)

• 1 small onion, finely grated

• Salt and pepper

• Needle and kitchen thread

Preparation:

The soup:

 Place the chicken pieces in a large pot with cold water. Bring slowly to a boil, skimming the foam as it rises — patience here is everything. Add the carrots, celery, onions, and a pinch of salt. Lower the heat and let it simmer gently, half-covered, for at least two hours. The broth should barely bubble. In the last twenty minutes, add the fresh herbs. Strain if you wish, or serve as it is.

The helzel:

Mix the flour, schmaltz, grated onion, salt and pepper into a soft dough. Stuff the neck skin — not too tightly, as it will swell during cooking — and sew both ends shut with a needle and thread. Add the helzel to the soup for the last hour of cooking. When done, remove the thread, slice into rounds, and serve in the broth.

Close your eyes, and you are back in the shtetl.

Of all the dishes that graced the Jewish table in the shtetl, chopped liver may be the one that best captures the spirit of Jewish cooking — the art of turning the humblest ingredients into something memorable. In Khashchevatoye, as in Jewish homes across the Pale of Settlement, nothing from the chicken went to waste. The feet became broth, the skin became gribenes, the fat was rendered into schmaltz — and the liver, carefully koshered over an open flame, became the centerpiece of a beloved appetizer.

Every household had its own version. Some women chopped the liver fine until it was almost a paste; others left it coarser, with visible bits of egg and onion. Some added a spoonful of schmaltz for richness; others were more sparing. The onions might be fried to a deep, sweet gold or left only lightly softened. There was no single recipe — only the quiet certainty of every grandmother that her way was the right way.

Chopped liver was a dish for Shabbat, for holidays, for the moments when the ordinary table became something more. Spread on a thick slice of rye bread or a piece of challah, it was comfort in its purest form — golden, savory, and inseparable from the memory of the women who made it.

Ingredients:

• 500 g chicken livers, cleaned

• 2 large onions, diced

• 3 hard-boiled eggs

• 3–4 tablespoons schmaltz (rendered chicken fat)

• Salt and pepper to taste

Preparation:

 Kosher the livers by broiling them over an open flame or under a hot grill until cooked through but still slightly pink inside. Set aside. Fry the onions slowly in schmaltz until deeply golden and sweet — do not rush this step; the flavor of the dish depends on it. Chop the livers, eggs, and onions together by hand with a large knife or a hakhmesser (chopping blade) — a food processor will do the job, but the texture won't be quite the same. Mix in the remaining schmaltz, season with salt and pepper, and taste. Adjust. Serve on challah, rye bread, or matzo, and remember: your grandmother's was always better.