Happy Purim
Today is the beginning of Purim. For those of you not too familiar with Jewish holidays, let me quickly explain. Most Jewish holidays have pretty much the same theme - they tried to kill us, we survived, let's eat!
And that is precisely what Purim is all about. Really. You can look it up, if you don't believe me.
In that spirit, I would like to offer you my own hamantashen recipe. This is not quite how my grandparents do it, but they won't give me their recipe in any sort of legible format, so this is as close as I could get.
Ingredients:
4 cups of flour
4 large eggs
1 cup of sugar
2 cups of softened butter
1.5 tbsp. Orange juice
1.5 tsp. Vanilla extract
2 tsps. Baking powder
pinch of salt
1 pound of strawberry/raspberry/apricot preserves
Procedure:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees, and grease a cookie sheet with a stick of margarine.
2. Place all the ingredients (except for the preserves, obviously) into a mixer, and beat together. If it's too dry, add some more orange juice; if it's too moist, add some more flour.
3. Roll the dough until it is about 1/8-inch thick. Use a round cookie cutter, or appropriately sized glass, to cut out circles, about 3-inches in diameter. (Sorry to be so mathematical about it, you can obviously make necessary adjustments).
4. Place about 1 teaspoon of the fruit preserves in the middle of each circle.
5. Fold the dough over the filling, into a triangle (think one of those musket-man hats).
6. Bake for 20 minutes.
This is an easy one, so let me know if you try it. I might give it a go tonight, in which case, the people at work can comment tomorrow.
I haven't calculated the nutritional content, or anything like that. (You can probably go lighter on the butter, but why would you?) So, much like most of my cooking, this is certainly not recommended for the diet-minded individuals. However, it should be noted that this is a significant improvement over my other favorite Purim dish - kreplach (much emphasis on the 'ch' please) which is basically deep fried, meat-filled dough. Mmm.
4 Comments:
I think the butter is what makes it good. More butter = more better, I always say.
i most certainly will not be trying this at home. your recipes should come with a "do not try this at home kids" warning. last time i tried to cook something on your advice i almost burned down the entire house. but by all means feel free to send some treats my way when you're done.
sounds good to me, send some to boston please. and happy purim.
If you want to get people (who are watching their cholesterol) to eat your cookies, don't advertise how much butter you use. Ok. Lesson learned.
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