Foodwanderings

Milk Halwa for Rosh Hashanah

Halwa is a traditional Indian milk custard made by the Bene Israel Indian Jews in Mumbai for Rosh Hashanah. In India halwa is made with “chick,” a wheat gluten, but in Israel, a majority of the community is using cornstarch as a substitute, at times together with China grass (agar-agar). The recipe can be made with either milk or coconut milk diluted with water. At home growing up, my mom always made it with whole milk — as I continue doing every Rosh Hashanah. This year, I might make it with coconut milk inspired by "How A Mumbai Cook Prepares For Rosh Hashanah.

This recipe and article "Flavors of an Indian-Israeli Rosh Hashanah" were originally published in Haaretz English edition on September 8, 2015. In an effort to curate my articles and recipes in one space, I republished the article and recipe in this space.

Look at the rosy halwa reel I made a year ago here, my son and a yellow "turmeric" halwa reel I made over two and half years ago here.

This article was originally published in The Forward on September 15, 2017. To curate my articles in one space, I am republishing it here just before Rosh Hashanah eve, falling on September 18, this year. Watch the recipe prep video at the bottom shot in Mumbai by me and edited by Amy Sawyer (Smoky Leo). All copyright material © ShulieMadnick. Please do not copy or republish without permission. A link to this post can be shared.

How A Mumbai Cook Prepares For Rosh Hashanah

On the morning of Rosh Hashanah Eve 2016, I met Sharona Hayeems, a local Indian Jewish caterer, at her home in Dadar, a neighborhood in Mumbai where some of the remaining 4,500 Indian Jews in India still live. I was there to spend some time watching her cook for Rosh Hashanah.

I was introduced to Hayeems, a Bene Israel (Sons of Israel) Indian Jew, by the inimitable Elijah Jacob, the India executive director of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (AJDC). Hayeems prepares kosher meals for Meals on Wheels, a program subsidized by the AJDC and Indian Joint Trust, which feeds the less fortunate in the Jewish community throughout the year, according to David Kumar, India AJDC welfare manager.

The crown jewel in my mom's culinary arsenal is this luxurious, aromatic lamb biryani. Only the regional biryanis I have had in India lived up to my mom's. The Mumbai biryanis made me think of how my mom, who still several decades later, manages to preserve the flavors and encapsulate the essence of Maharashtrian cuisine in Israel.

This sensational lamb biryani is at the center of the Bene Israel Indian Jewish Community's Passover holiday table. The rice is infused with saffron and then layered with the curry-spiced leg of lamb and garnished with cashews, raisins, crispy onions, and cilantro chips. The juxtaposition of sweet and savory flavors, crunchy and soft textures and many colors create a festive dish that is a Bene Israeli Passover (and Rosh HaShanah) tradition.

Biryani is originally from Persia. It was brought to India by the Arabs and Mongols. Over the centuries, the native Indian communities adapted the dish and made it their own. Although ghee, clarified butter, and yogurt are often used in the dish, Indian Jews replaced those dairy ingredients with vegetable oil to create a kosher rendition.

"Biblical Rituals and Passover Traditions of the Bene Israel, India's Largest Jewish Community," published in Haaretz newspaper in 2016 and re-edited and curated here, explores further the Bene Israelis foods of Passover (in India, the community primarily used goat meat). The article also explores the community's over 2000 year history in India and its unique Passover traditions.

Author's Notes:

1. Allergen alert: Those with a tree-nut allergy can leave out the cashews or substitute them with peanuts.

2. Some of the preparations for this dish can be made a couple of days in advance. The entire dish can be fully assembled the day of. This recipe is long, but the steps are not particularly difficult. The end result is well worth the effort.

3. At times, my mom also makes this biryani with a layer of potatoes at the bottom of the pot. The potatoes get crisp and golden, similar to the potatoes in the Persian tahdig. She then flips the pot into a serving dish for a showy presentation. I might share a simplified version of biryani with potatoes in the future.

4. I edited this recipe since, in versions published in both the Forward and the Hadassah Magazine, I used garam masala to make the process easier. My masala mix for this biryani contains 13 spices. I make a large batch and save it in the freezer. It can get costly and time-consuming, especially if you don't cook Indian food often. To make life easier and lower the cost, I suggest you buy a ready-made curry mix. Either a chicken/meat masala or a biryani one. Bonus points if you score masala from the State of Maharashtra, which Mumbai is its Capital. The dry masala mix recipe I will share one of these days.

4. In this method, I fully cook the rice and not cook it al dente in water like pasta, then finish it off layered in the pot with the lamb covered in the oven, not over the stove. I will share the al dente method when I share the simplified biryani (or tahdig) with the potato layer at the bottom (see number 2).

5. You can add more cashews, raisins, cilantro leaves and onions, depending on taste. Just make sure to fry them (see directions below).

Lamb Biryani

Lamb Ingredients

2.2 pounds deboned leg of lamb, cut into small/medium-sized cubes

Water to cover

1/4 - 1/2 tsp salt

2 - 3 bay leaves

8 -10 cloves

This article was slightly tweaked from the original version published in The Forward on January 17, 2017. To curate my articles in one space, I am republishing it here just before Rosh Hashanah eve, falling on September 18, this year. All copyright material © ShulieMadnick. Please do not copy or republish without permission. A link to this post can be shared.

You can read How A Mumbai Cook Prepares For Rosh Hashanah from the Rosh HaShanah and High Holidays series.

Chasing Challah in Mumbai

It was the break of dawn on a Thursday, as the monsoon waned in late October that we descended from the skies over the slum rooftops and landed at Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport in Mumbai. My travel companion and I were then whisked off by our lovely Indian Jewish tour guide, Hanna Shapurkar, to Om Creations.

Om Creations is a nonprofit center where Down syndrome and autistic adults are taught arts and crafts and some culinary skills. The crafts and food are, in turn, sold as a means of support and income for the participants.

While still back home in the United States, planning my Jewish-Indian heritage discovery trip to India — my first trip to my parents' homeland — little did I know that I would be visiting Om Creations. What sparked my interest was an inconspicuous mention in an email correspondence from Elijah Jacob, India executive director of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), about delivering challahs to the Indian-Jewish community in Mumbai. I was so intrigued that chasing challahs became the end-all and be-all of my trip to India.

This article was tweaked from the original version published in Haaretz Newspaper on September 8, 2015. In an effort to curate my articles in one space, I am republishing it here just before Rosh Hashanah, falling on September 18, this year. All copyright material © ShulieMadnick. Please do not copy or republish without permission. A link to this post can be shared.

You can read How A Mumbai Cook Prepares For Rosh Hashanah and Chasing Challah in Mumbai from the Rosh HaShanah and High Holidays series. Recipes for both biryani and halwa will be published in separate posts.

Photography during the holidays is forbidden so I am sharing a snapshot of Magen Hassidim (above), my mom's synagogue in Mumbai, where I spent the 2016 High Holidays. This image, among others, is archived on The Museum of Jewish People's (בית התפוצות) library archives in Tel Aviv, Israel.

Flavors of an Indian-Israeli Rosh Hashanah

The first inkling that Rosh Hashanah was approaching when I was growing up was when my mom would come home to our fourth-floor walk-up apartment in Ashdod with Lily Pulitzer-like floral fabrics. I dreaded the frocks and matching hair bows that an Indian seamstress would sew us from the textiles. I would walk in the intense heat with my mom and my sister, who is a year younger than I, to the seamstress' home a few neighborhoods over for the measuring and fitting, and again for a second fitting and minor tweaks. My mom would definitively proclaim that the scraps and leftover fabrics "were enough" for my two youngest sisters' Rosh Hashanah gowns.

Marzipan Almond Challah Crown ©ShulieMadnick

This sublime Marzipan Almond Challah Crown recipe first appeared in Bonnie Benwick's "How to make your challah lovelier and sweeter for the Jewish New Year," published in The Washington Post on September 8, 2015. I am republishing the Marzipan Almond Challah Crown recipe, with some edits, just in time for Rosh HaShanah 2021 falling on the eve of September 6 this year.

I baked with then Deputy Editor of the Washington Post food section, Bonnie Benwick, some of my challahs at her home that year before Rosh HaShanah. And amidst the couple of tumultuous years we had with COVID-19 and the looming Delta variant, these are much needed feel-good quotes and testimonials I re-visited from Bonnie's article above:

"The Washington area food blogger and travel writer bakes challah every Sabbath, as was the practice in many of her friends’ homes when she was growing up in an Indian-Israeli community in Ashdod, south of Tel Aviv. Looking to complement her Rosh Hashanah dishes — lamb biryani, veal-and-beef-stuffed artichoke bottoms in a spicy red sauce and the cornstarch-thickened, sweetened milk custard called halwa — Madnick figured out a way to capture fruit and/or nut fillings within each rope of dough. She braids those ropes in such appealing ways as to create almost a new class of High Holiday challah."

"Madnick worked on her base challah dough over many years. It’s not too eggy and, like others, not so fussy. Her flavor combinations can be seasonal: apples and quince in the fall; cranberry, orange and nigella seeds in the winter; cherry and oats in the spring. Rosh Hashanah stuffed challahs call for something sweet: chopped dates, fresh figs, even marzipan. Each sub-portion of dough that might have been a simple rope in a braided loaf of challah is first rolled out to a thin rectangle, then swabbed lightly with a syrup or jam to help hold the chopped fruit or nuts in place. Once the dough is rolled up, the filling stays contained, allowing for the usual braiding and shaping."

"Except Madnick’s techniques rise above the norm, appropriately. She’ll do a four- or six-part braid, winding it in on itself like a nautilus.."

Honey Challah photography © ShulieMadnick

I realize that, with some exceptions, I have many challah recipe riffs on this site that are based on my basic honey challah recipe. I published the original honey challah recipe many years ago, as a guest blogger, on Indonesia Eats. I would like to share a slightly tweaked honey challah recipe here since my recipe testing and writing improved in over a decade, so we have a honey challah baseline on Foodwanderings. You can get creative with the toppings and even fillings. For fillings, first, check out some of my other filled and stuffed challahs for directions. Please find links to my published challahs on this site, the Washington Post, etc., at the end of this post.

I first published this Quince Challah Knots recipe in The Washington Post Lifestyle and Food sections on October 6, 2011, under the 'Challah with Quince, an Unexpected Holiday Treat' headline. With some edits, I am republishing the Quince Challah Knots recipe just in time for Rosh HaShanah 2021, which falls on the eve of September 6 this year.

Turns out, I initially baked these delicious beauties for Yom Kippur break-the-fast 2011, but they are a real treat for Rosh HaShanah as well.

My son was still in High School and I completely forgot that I used him and his soccer buddies as my guinea pigs. And below is what I wrote back in 2011 for The Washington Post:

Challah with Quince, an Unexpected Holiday Treat

For our Yom Kippur break-fast this year (which will take place Saturday night), I was looking for an alternative to my usual apple-filled challah when I hit upon using quince, the firm-fleshed fruit sometimes known as golden apple. It can smell of pineapple or guava, and it looks a little like a plumped-up pear.

The Date, Walnut, Silan and Sesame Challah recipe originally appeared in Bonnie Benwick's "How to make your challah lovelier and sweeter for the Jewish New Year," published in The Washington Post on September 8, 2015. I am republishing the Date, Walnut, Silan and Sesame Challah recipe, with some edits, just in time for Rosh HaShanah 2021 falling on the eve of September 6 this year.

In the Marzipan Almond Challah Crown recipe and post I published recently, I shared some feel-good quotes and testimonials written by Bonnie in the article above. Here I would like to share some of the heartwarming feedback on the Date, Walnut, Silan, and Sesame Challah recipe shared by a reader who baked it:

In 2015:

"The Eastern Shore is a fancy food desert. I had no hope of finding silan out here, so I substituted golden raisins and walnuts. The bread came out great, and I also thank you for teaching me a new braiding technique. I usually do the long four-strand braid.

Tonight, I happen to be in Nashville, and there's a Middle Eastern market less than a mile from my hotel. So I went in there, showed the proprietor a picture of the product, and he took me to...a display of strawberry jam. Is it possible a Middle Easterner doesn't know what silan is? If someone here knows where in Maryland to get this stuff, maybe Wegmans, I'm all (virtual) ears. Nashville's Whole Foods didn't have it, either, which I was surprised at."

Pomegranates and apples are the epitome of the High Holidays season but to me the rose-colored quinces' jam with cinnamon and cloves is the first sign of the fall season.

This recipe for Quince Jam was initially published on September 23, 2014, as a part of a collection of recipes in an article I wrote for break-the-fast on Yom Kippur for The Washington Post. I am republishing it here, slightly tweaked, just before Yom Kippur eve, falling on September 27, this year. Stay tuned for the article and other recipes for break-the-fast in the series re-published soon. All copyright material © ShulieMadnick. Please do not copy or republish without permission. A link to this post can be shared.

Serve with challah or Tunisian Bulo (similar to Mandelbread).