| Man With a Pan |

Don’t Try This At Home

By Chaim Yaakov Pollak | September 30, 2020

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.

Now, a word about garlic: I originally got into garlic from the incredible garlic-in-oil thingy that Rebbetzin Blumberg would expertly prepare for the Friday night seudah in my alma mater, ZAJ. Then, several months ago, I took a piece of garlic from my wife’s garlic-in-oil and scooped it onto my challah together with (drumroll, please) mayonnaise. It was incredible! So we got to work perfecting this newfound garlic-mayo of ours and settled on the following instructions:

First, make your family’s standard garlic-in-oil as usual. You’re gonna be making tons of this dip, so here’s our little hack — use the special pre-peeled packs of garlic with a good hechsher. Place in a pan and cover almost completely with canola oil, then sprinkle with salt. Bake at about 300°F (150°C) until the garlic gets very browned. This may take some experimenting, but it’s absolutely essential that the garlic be firm enough on the outside that it doesn’t get slimy but is squishy enough for spreading.

Now take the garlic out of the oil and let it cool. Then mix it with a nice amount of mayo (please don’t use anything other than Hellmann’s, even if you live in Yerushalayim Ir HaKodesh — you can contact me for assistance via Family Table)… and voila.

Head’s up: After the dip sits in the fridge for a while, it gets pretty gross-looking. Don’t worry about that. Just give it a quick mix and maybe add some fresh mayo, if necessary.

I then braided the challah into five weeks’ worth (!) of challos and made the cranberry-apple kugel. Okay, basically, this kugel was my one real disaster of the Shabbos. I’ve made it perfectly several times, but… after I made the topping and crumbled it onto the kugel, I realized that I had forgotten the oil. So (please close your ears, Abba) I poured about a cup of oil over the top of the kugel.

Then my wife and I took one of the challos (we make really, really small ones to reduce consumption of challah carbs) and ate it with some of the garlic dip. It was delicious.

Afterwards, I took the cranberry-apple kugel out of the oven. It looked amazing. However, as we discovered on Shabbos, to our chagrin, it was a FAIL FAIL FAIL! Whatever — don’t pour oil on top of a crumble.

Then I made Mommy’s Famous Broccoli Kugel. It’s an old childhood favorite. I put in way too much pepper by mistake, but it still tasted great. The pepper actually made it a little more interesting — kind of like that kick you get in Yerushalmi kugel.

To the Finish Line

On Friday, I tackled the job that I was most apprehensive about — the special chocolate Rice Krispies Treat topping for the brownies. I got the recipe from the Apels. I was worried about it because it had to be mixed on the flame and I know from experience that chocolate on a fl ame gets very disastrous very quickly. Baruch Hashem, however, it came out perfectly. With the help of my cute, little bewildered bechor, Yitzchak Akiva, I spread it over the brownies that I had made on Thursday. Then I returned said bechor to my wife, cut the cake into squares, ate a bunch of them, o ered half of one piece to my above-mentioned wife, and put the rest aside for a shalom zachar that night. I’m counting the amazing concoction as a dessert made for our Shabbos meals (see the meal plan sidebars) because I’d originally planned to only give away half of it to the shalom zachar, but, you know, diabetes and obesity.

I then got started on the mains. I had waited until Friday because I am really makpid on freshness when it comes to meat and chicken. Everything needed onions and, since I’m extremely sensitive to them crying-wise, I asked my wife to cut them up. (At least I kill the bugs in our house. I’m not a totally delinquent husband. Also, I gave her five weeks’ worth of challah, remember?)

Other than the onions and cutting up salads on Shabbos (because Shabbos itself doesn’t count, I reasoned) and watching the baby and doing the laundry and cleaning and giving advice and working full time — hello!? — and in general being amazing… which she of course does every week in addition to all the cooking… my wife didn’t need to help me. I don’t know how she does it.

I made my aunt’s Onion and Duck Sauce Chicken, which was easy and came out incredible. Then I started sautéing the onions for the onion dip, which ended up coming out really oily and unappetizing. My wife advised adding salt and draining the oil, which helped it out a lot. I cut up the sweet potatoes for a side dish, then I got to work on the meat for Shabbos day. Cholent is so pre-COVID, so we make meat in a Crock-Pot. (Think about it, everyone is always just fi shing around in the cholent bowl for the meat anyway.) My friends Machi and Yissi taught me the general idea, and every week we test out a new recipe.

I got everything ready in the CrockPot and left it on a timer set to go on in the middle of the night. Please note that the Crock-Pot was covered before Shabbos with all the proper halachic paraphernalia such as foil on the inside (sticking out) and on the knob, as well as foil balls on the bottom. Ask your LOR for halachic clarification, but I asked both my rosh yeshivah and my mara d’asra, who both said it was fi ne to leave it raw and on a timer (I asked two poskim because it just seems so assur). It came out great, except for the fact that I don’t really like beer, which happened to be the main ingredient in this week’s experiment, so whatever.

I made the pesto (which goes amazingly well with the above-dissected garlic — my wife’s idea) and just like that, I was finished!

The Wife’s Take

Chaim Yaakov did an amazing job! The food was super delicious. Maybe I did slightly discourage the challah… but I’m so happy he decided to make it anyway. It was better than I ever made it! I think it’s because he kneaded it very well (I usually just mix it; I’m not so particular about kneading it).

All of the dips were excellent. He had a really challenging job — because I come from a Moroccan home, nothing I make has measurements. For example, when he was making the baba ghanoush, he asked how much salt/garlic powder to put in, but I had no idea!

Two of Chaim Yaakov’s best friends are professional chefs, and another two are great cooks. I know that deep down Chaim Yaakov has it in him to be an excellent cook — and this challenge definitely pushed him to help out in the kitchen more. (Although he does help me lots with washing dishes, taking care of the baby, and many other household responsibilities!) Thanks for an exciting and restful Shabbos.

Mommy’s Famous Broccoli Kugel

20–24 oz (570–680 g) frozen broccoli
¹⁄₂ cup mayonnaise
¹⁄₂ cup pareve milk (we use soy)
salt and pepper, to taste
¹⁄₂ tsp chicken or other soup mix
3 eggs

Cook broccoli and drain well. Place in a large bowl and add remaining ingredients. Mix well and pour into a pan. Bake at 375°F (190°C) for 45–55 minutes (or until it starts browning at the top).

Note: Make sure you use broccoli that is certified bug-free from a reliable hechsher.

Onion and Duck Sauce Chicken

For best results, make this in a Pyrex pan (not disposable!). Thinly slice onions into rounds (1–2 onions per chicken bottom). Place half the onions on the bottom of the pan. Rinse off chicken and place chicken pieces on top of onions. Cover with the rest of the onions. Pour tons of duck sauce on top.

Cover and bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 45 minutes, then uncover and lower oven temp to 300°F (150°C). Bake for about an hour or until the top of the chicken is very crispy.

(Originally featured in Family Table, Issue 712)

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