Healthy Jewish Cooking

Rating:
Summary: Healthy Jewish Cooking
Review: Once again noted cookbook author, Steve Raichlen has hit a homerun. His adaptations of time honored Jewish comfort foods to suit the modern , healthy life style is phenomonal. Cabbage soup is as good as my bubbe's and it is completely vegetarion. From blintzes to borscht; from chopped liver to chicken fricasse, Raichlen runs the gamut of Jewish cooking perfectly. Add the personal touches of wonderful stories of family feasts, the cookbook is a key to opening the vast storehouse of long held memories that we all share. A must for etnic cooks everywhere.

Rating:
Summary: Healthy Jewish Cooking
Review: Once again noted cookbook author, Steve Raichlen has hit a homerun. His adaptations of time honored Jewish comfort foods to suit the modern , healthy life style is phenomonal. Cabbage soup is as good as my bubbe's and it is completely vegetarion. From blintzes to borscht; from chopped liver to chicken fricasse, Raichlen runs the gamut of Jewish cooking perfectly. Add the personal touches of wonderful stories of family feasts, the cookbook is a key to opening the vast storehouse of long held memories that we all share. A must for etnic cooks everywhere.

Rating:
Summary: Fabulous Jewish cooking made healthy!
Review: This was a real find of a cookbook. I am looking to expand my repetoire of Jewish recipes and want them to be healthy as well. The introduction is a treat to read as well as the personal entries at the top of each recipe. The recipes I have made thus far have all turned out terrific and inspire me to want to cook more out of this book. I'd eat in this author's kitchen any day!

Rating:
Summary: Yes, it's true, kosher cooking can be lite and tasty
Review: Who knew that Jewish cooking can have a light touch? Raichlen, like many reformed Jews growing up in Pikesville/Baltimore in the 1950's, lived his Judaism through his foods - soups, mandelech, pirogis, briskets, desserts, flanken, knaidlach, tsimmis, and baklava. But, today, these foods can be done lite. His techniques include bake-frying and grilling, focusing on naturally low fat foods, using egg substitutes, using chicken broth instead of schmaltz, increasing the ratio of vegetables to meats, sauteing with non stick pans, and roasting. His 175 recipes include mock schmaltz made from canola oil, a breakfast sangria (for a Yom Kippur Break Fast) from the Caribbean, Curacaoan hot cocoa, quick bake-fried kreplach, sweet cheese kreplach, sephardic empanadas, baltic pirogi, veggie chopped liver, lowfat chopped chicken liver, a low fat chicken soup, matzo ball soup, hot borscht, Greek egg-lemon matzo soup, sauerkraut soup, salonikan soup, and sorrel schav soup. He includes eleven salads including a two-egg-salad made from eggs and eggplants. Speaking of vegetable dishes, there are fourteen, including a tropical tsimmis, a Jewish Romanian polenta (mamaliga) made with garlic and cinnamon; a basil marinated zucchini dish, and Pesach Spanekopita. Several breads are described, including a honey VANILLA challah, Passover rolls, onion rolls, matzo muffins, and Bukharan steamed buns with cilantro and chives. A Sephardic style scrambled eggs with garlic, paprika, cumin and bell peppers (strapatsata or Tunisian chakchouka) is a standout. In terms of meats, recipes include low fat Israeli spiced turkey cutlets, chicken cutlets with a mushroom stuffing, Syrian style Chicken with eggplant (a new Shepherds Pie); a sweet and sour turkey stuffed cabbage roll; holiday brisket with raisins, grape wine, prunes, and apricots; a Napa Valley style brisket; lamb tagine, and a Three-B's cholent. Five kugel recipes include a carrot apple kugel, and a zucchini kugel. Desserts include zvingous, or Greek Hanukkah fritters that are baked. They became a sensation after being mentioned in 1999 in a NYT Hanukkah recipe. A strudel recipe includes a Greek-Sephardic Pumpkin strudel that is usually eaten at Sukkot (Rodanchas de la Calabaza). Finally, let me add a word on Greg Schneider's photography... great. His picture of assorted low fat blintzes lying atop Hebrew newspapers, corralled by a set of tefillin is worthy of individual sale as a lithograph.