Ahead of the high holidays and a whole lot of cooking, check out the delicious recipes from these regional cookbooks before finalizing your holiday menu
The 100 Most Jewish Foods:
This comprehensive bible of Jewish foods incorporates the top 100 recipes that are most significant to the Jewish religion as deemed by author Alana Newhouse. Get ready for the fluffiest matzo balls, blintzes, and kugel, in addition to more obscure, yet culturally significant dishes such as unhatched chicken eggs and jellied calves’ feet. Some items don’t even require any cooking at all: bazooka gum, seltzer, sweet’n low, and Entenmann’s doughnuts. In fact, you may wonder what the connection is between these items and the Jewish religion. This cookbook unveils all of those mysteries.
The 100 Most Jewish Foods
Modern Jewish Baker:
In Modern Jewish Baker: Challah, Babka, Bagels & More, Shannon Sarna teaches us how to put a twist on all of the traditional Jewish recipes we know and love. Learn how to make her signature tomato basil challah, everything bagel rugelach, s’mores babka and more. Impress your family and friends with these modernized recipes; you’ll probably find yourself hosting all of the dinner parties from now on.
Modern Jewish Baker
Suqar:
The winner of the 2019 James Beard Foundation Award in the Baking and Desserts category, Suqar ("sugar" in Arabic) is a beloved and beautiful ode to Middle Eastern sweets by acclaimed chef Greg Malouf and writing partner Lucy Malouf. Revel in the beauty of the clemetine cardamom cake and chocolate arabesque wafers, complemented by the sweet treat of Iftar Jallab, a specialty mollasses drink made of grapes, dates, carob and rosewater.
Suqar
Feasting:
Take it from the very best: Amanda Ruben. She runs some of the hottest and most successful Jewish deli cafes in Melbourne…with a menu containing “the closest thing you can find to a NYC-style pastrami on rye in Australia.” Lucky for us, she spills all her secrets in Feasting: A New Take on Jewish Cooking. Test out her savory roasted cauliflower with dukkah, grilled figs with tomatoes and burrata and vincotto dressing, and modern takes on Jewish classics.
Feasting
The New Mediterranean Table:
If you enjoy cooking or eating Mediterranean food… or both... there is no one better to take advice from than Chef Sameh Wadi. Wadi is an expert in creating the best Mediterranean dishes while balancing exotic spices with traditional flavors. Here, Wadi’s recipes take us through his food journey from growing up in the Middle East to co-owning two of the most popular restaurants in Minneapolis.
The New Mediterranean Table
Baladi: Palestine, A Celebration of Food From Land & Sea:
Bestselling author Joudie Kalla's latest, channels her childhood while taking traditional Palestinian dishes to the next level. Surprise your next houseguests with her daoud basha, khubzet za’atar, samak makli bil camuna or atayef. The book is split into sections based on where the food comes from, such as the land, the sea, the fields and the orchard, so there is plenty of variety.
Baladi: Palestine
Millennial Kosher:
With an emphasis on unprocessed ingredients, legendary kosher food blogger Chanie Apfelbaum caters toward food trends inspired by millennials. By replacing margarine with coconut oil and chicken soup with bone broth, Apfelbaum developed recipes that are healthier than ever, without sacrificing taste. Her cookbook of 150 kosher recipes includes a myriad of vegetarian and dairy-free options for those who observe all types of diets.
Millennial Kosher
Levant:
In 1998, Palestinian-American Rawia Bishara opened a small Middle Eastern restaurant in Brooklyn with just ten tables inside. Little did she know it would become what it is today, one of the hottest restaurants in the area, with rave reviews from The New York Times, The New Yorker and more. In Levant, keep your eye out for her roasted beetroot hummus, peppers with walnut stuffing and butternut squash salad, plus over 100 recipes using olive oil, tahini, za’atar and sumac, in a modernized way.
Levant
Honey & Co. at Home:
Israeli superstar chef-couple Itamar Srulovich and Sarit Packer are the co-owners of one of London’s trendiest restaurant empires, Honey & Co, a tiny restaurant in Fitzrovia. Their third delicious cookbook focuses on seasonal ingredients organized into chapters like 'For Us Two', 'For the Weekend', and 'For a Crowd'. Dig into Jerusalem sesame bread filled with harissa and lemon chicken, or crisp salad with saffronpoached pears with walnut tahini.
Honey & Co. at Home
The Gaza Kitchen: A Palestinian Culinary Journey:
Explore the wonderful, yet often underappreciated, cuisine of Gaza in the awardwinning cookbook, The Gaza Kitchen, which includes over 130 recipes collected from in and around Gaza and also features exclusive pictures and interviews with Gazan cooks, farmers and merchants.
The Gaza Kitchen
Find all these books and more at local, independent bookshops like: HaMigdalor, 18 Mikve Israel St, Tel Aviv, 03-6868225; Sipur Pashut, 36 Shabazi St, Tel Aviv 03-5107040