A food critic’s take on baba ghanoush, garlic confit, and gefilte fish

The Man

Chaim Yaakov Pollak, age 27, 1 child, full-time learning
Ramat Eshkol, Yerushalayim

The Plan Friday Night:

Challah, Baba Ghanoush, Pesto, Garlic Mayo, Onion Dip Browned Gefilte Fish, Israeli Salad, Onion and Duck Sauce Chicken, Mommy’s Famous Broccoli Kugel, Sweet Potatoes, Brownie/Rice Krispies Extravaganza

The Plan Shabbos Day:

Challah and Dips, Browned Gefilte Fish, Israeli Salad, Crock-Pot Meat, Deli Nish-Nosh Salad, Cranberry-Apple Kugel

I generally pride myself as a food critic. Case in point: My aunt likes to remind me that I once commented (correctly) that she had sprinkled salt on the chicken at a different point in the cooking process than she usually did. Yet even with my expertise as a critic, my cooking skills until now have consisted of delicious scrambled eggs and microwaved tuna melts. Somehow, however, I allowed my wife to talk me into doing this Man with a Pan business. Buckle up.

Fish and Other Important Matters

I got started with the gefilte fish first thing on Wednesday afternoon. As a true lover of gefilte fish, I’ll just give a little piece of advice: let the gefilte fish bake until it gets a dark brown, hardened crust on top. I learned this when we went to the Glazers (names in this article have not been changed) in Monsey, and they served that standard delicious tomato-saucy gefilte fish that a lot of families make. It wasn’t burned, but it was pretty well baked. I remember thinking, Hang on, why can’t we do this without the sauce, too?

As soon I got married, I instituted the fish-browning guidelines… which work great when my wife is making the fish. Somehow I, however, burned the top half of the gefilte fish loaf to a crisp. Whatever. I cut it off and it was fine.

Next up was the eggplant. There is nothing we take more seriously at our Shabbos meals than the baba ghanoush. To give you an idea, I used seven big eggplants for this baba ghanoush — and it was only for about one cupful of the dip. I rinsed them off, poked a bunch of holes in them, and stuck them in the oven. About seven hours later, right before I went to sleep, I turned off the oven and left the eggplants in for the night.

On Thursday morning, I checked the eggplants and decided they needed a few more hours to make sure they would really get the proper smoky flavor.

My day proceeded as usual until, at two thirty, my wife asked if we would starve for Shabbos. “Yes,” I said.

At three o’clock, I made the Duncan Hines. Then I promptly poured my wife and myself generous helpings of the batter.

I know.

Raw eggs. Don’t try this at home.

After we ate the batter, I put the leftovers into the oven to bake and went off to buy fresh parsley (please check for bugs according to your LOR) for the baba ghanoush.

I got back home and took out the brownies — which had burned. I ate half of the pan, threw the rest in the garbage, and went right back out to buy another box of mix. This time it baked perfectly.

After that adventure, I prepared the baba ghanoush. Just to be even more clear about how seriously we take our baba ghanoush, let me just say that I have an expensive knife that I use almost exclusively for chopping the fresh parsley in the baba ghanoush. You get the idea.

Challah Experiments

Afterwards, I started on the challah. Now, just to be clear, my wife had been extraordinarily discouraging in this regard, for my own good (so she says). She kept on telling me that I shouldn’t bite o­ more than I could chew. Thank goodness for my mother-in-law, who told her to let me do what I wanted. So I poured the yeast into the lukewarm water and waited for ten minutes before realizing something was wrong.

My wife kindly explained that I was supposed to let the sugar sit with the yeast. So I spilled out the mixture and did it again.

Right then, Rabbi Ari Ben-Uman called, and I had to leave the yeast/sugar mixture alone so I could learn Mishnayos Zevachim with him for a while. As soon as I finished, I rushed to check on the mixture and saw that the yeast had activated itself perfectly. I quickly mixed and kneaded the dough and then covered it to rise.