In the Kitchen with Henny: Seder-inspired recipes to eat throughout Passover

As I sit here in between meal planning, shopping lists, and cleaning out my freezer, I hear the birds singing “Aviv he’giya Pesach ba” (“Spring is here, Passover is coming”), and I’m getting excited and emotional as well... Six months and 3,000 years later, we’re still screaming “Let our people go!” 

Okay, let’s get back to the food, or is it that the food takes us back? However you look at it, we continue to remember our slavery and celebrate our freedom at the same time. So this year is different because we’re living through it again and not just commemorating it. 

The Seder is full of tradition and symbolic foods to enable us to feel the emotions on a deeper level. I felt inspired this year to take some of these foods and bring them into the chag to be enjoyed in the days following the Seder as well.

Charoset Salad

I was getting my menus planned for Passover and I wanted to include a new salad, something associated with Pesach.

As I was thinking about perhaps a Waldorf salad, it hit me – the ingredients are similar to those we use for charoset. So here is a fresh and delicious charoset salad for you to add to any meal this chag.

Candied walnuts:

• 1 Tbsp. coconut oil or olive oil
• ½ cup sugar
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1 cup shelled walnuts 

Note: You can use pecans or almonds instead of walnuts.

Salad:

• 1 bag of baby greens or romain lettuce
• 2 green apples, sliced
• 2 red apples, sliced
• 8 pitted dates, sliced

Dressing:

• ¼ cup olive oil
• ¼  cup sweet red wine/grape juice
• 3 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar
• 2 Tbsp. honey/silan
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• ½ tsp. salt

To make the candied nuts: 

Line a baking sheet with baking paper and set aside. Heat up a frying pan on low heat, put in the oil, sugar, cinnamon, and nuts. Mix together and continue to stir for 5-7 minutes on low heat until the sugar crystallizes, but don’t let the sugar burn, so stay close. Spoon the candied nuts onto the baking sheet and spread out into a single layer to let cool. 

To make the dressing: 

In a jar/container that has a lid, put in all the dressing ingredients. Cover the jar and shake very well. Keep refrigerated, and shake well again before serving.

To make the salad:

Line a large salad bowl with lettuce or greens of your choice. Add in the sliced apples, dates, and candied nuts.  Pour about half of the dressing on before serving, and save the other half for the next salad.

Karpas Veggies

In keeping with our theme of using some of our symbolic foods from the Seder, I created a side dish that brightens up our potatoes and combines really well with any meal, as well as the minute steak roast in the next recipe. 

Yields 6 servings.

• ¼ cup olive oil
• 3 or 4 stalks of celery, chopped
• 6 cloves of garlic, chopped (or 3 frozen cubes)
• 6 to 8 potatoes, cubed (3-cm. or 1” pieces)
• ½ cup parsley leaves, chopped (fresh is best)
• 1 Tbsp. coarse salt
• 1 tsp. ground black pepper
• 1/4 tsp. ground ginger
• 1 cup water or clear soup stock
  In a wide, deep pan, heat up the olive oil and add in the chopped celery. Mix for 2 minutes, then add the garlic, potatoes, and chopped parsley. Sprinkle on the salt, pepper, and ginger. Mix well, and sauté in the pan for 5 or 6 minutes, stirring occasionally. Pour in the water or stock, stir, then cover the pan almost completely, leaving it just a little open, then lower the heat. Let cook for 30 minutes until potatoes have softened. Serve while hot.

Minute Steak Roast

My mother often makes this roast for holidays or special occasions, and it always yields delicious results. In Israel, a minute steak roast is cut #5. I recommend buying it fresh and asking the butcher to remove the surrounding membrane. If you buy it frozen then use a sharp non-serrated knife to remove the outer membrane while it’s still partially frozen for best results. There is very little prep time and can be made in advance, as it freezes well.

Yields 6 to 8 servings.

• 2.5 to 3 kg. roast #5 (5 to 6 pounds)
• 2 onions, diced
• 2 cups red wine/grape juice
• 6 garlic cloves, diced or 3 frozen cubes
• 2 Tbsp. olive oil
• 1 Tbsp. paprika
• 1 tsp. garlic powder
• ½ tsp. black pepper
• ½ tsp. kosher salt

Preheat oven to 160C/325F. (If you are using the turbo/fan mode on your oven, lower it by 10 degrees Celsius). Place the diced onions on the bottom of a large roasting pan. Place the roast in the pan, and pour the wine over it. In a bowl, mix together the olive oil, minced garlic, paprika, garlic powder, black pepper, and salt until it becomes a paste. Spread this over the entire roast, making sure to cover the bottom as well. Tightly cover the pan with foil and place in the oven. Let the roast cook for 3 hours. Then check it by using a fork to see if it’s soft. If it is not, re-cover and let cook for another 30 minutes to an hour, checking after 30 minutes. When done, remove from the oven, uncover partially, and let cool. Remove from pan to a cutting board to slice. Return the slices to the pan with all the juices.

It can be refrigerated for up to 2 days or frozen for up to a month. Reheat before serving.

Almond Butter Blondies

Although the ingredients in these brownies are not necessarily used at the Seder (except for the eggs), these are delicious Passover treats and so tasty that you would never believe how easy they are to make with only four ingredients. 

Yields one 8”x8” pan (20 cm.x20 cm.)

• 1 cup all-natural almond butter
• 2 eggs
• ¼ cup maple syrup/honey
• ⅔ cup of chocolate chips 

Preheat oven to 170°C/350°F. Grease or line a 20 cm.x20 cm./8”x8” baking pan with baking paper. In a bowl, place the almond butter, honey and eggs. Mix well with a silicon/rubber spatula until the mixture thickens. Add the chocolate chips and mix well.

Pour the batter onto the pan and bake for 15 minutes. Let cool and cut into squares.

I KNOW that right now we feel that salt water won’t be “needed” at the Seder, as we have enough tears to go around. But I hope and pray that by the time you are reading this, or at least by the time we sit down at our Seder tables this year, our loved ones are home and safe. We didn’t know how we would be saved from Egypt where we were enslaved by the mightiest empire at the time. We didn’t even think about the possibility of the Red Sea splitting in half. Our salvation will come in a way we will not expect. It will come and bring us all the feeling of complete awe of our God as He saves our nation and our land. 

Le’shana hazeh b’Yerushalayim habnuya. This year in the rebuilt Jerusalem.

Wishing you all a chag kasher ve’sameach! 

The writer is a kitchen coach who teaches women how to meal plan and cook so they get dinner on the table and prepare for Shabbat and chag on time. For one-on-one coaching or an event: inthekitchenwithhenny.com