"Kosher Kettle is a 'must add' to your cookbooks collection. It is extensive in its scope and range, tantalizing in
its wide variety of new and traditional taste sensations and welcoming in its format and easy to follow recipes. Congratulations to Five Star Publications and Sybil Kaplan for this outstanding contribution to the world of Jewish cooking."

-- Kay. K. Pomerantz, author of Come for Cholent, Come for Cholent Again, Come for Everything... but Cholent

Succot: Cabbage Strudel

Pareve/Dairy, from Israel
Joan Nathan, Washington, D.C.
Yield: 8 to 12 Pieces

I first tasted the recipe with caraway seeds in Jerusalem at the enchanting home of Josef Tal, the famous Israeli composer. This is one of my favorite recipes.

1 2-pound head cabbage 1 teaspoon salt 4 tablespoons vegetable oil 1 medium onion, coarsely chopped Freshly ground black pepper 1 teaspoon caraway seeds (optional)

1 tablespoon sugar 1 teaspoon cinnamon 8 fillo leaves 6 tablespoons butter or pareve margarine, melted ½ cup fine bread crumbs 1 egg white

1. Remove the core and shred the cabbage, using a food processor or grater.
2. Sprinkle with salt and let stand about 15 minutes. Squeeze out the excess water.
3. Place about 4 tablespoons oil in a heavy frying pan. Brown the onion until golden. Remove, and begin sautéing the cabbage (you will probably have to do this in 2 batches), cooking carefully until wilted.
4. Combine the cabbage and the onions. Sprinkle with pepper, caraway seeds, if using, sugar and cinnamon. Adjust seasoning to taste.
5. Preheat oven to 350°F.
6. Cover a pastry board with a cloth. Taking 1 fillo leaf at a time, lay it on the board and brush with melted butter or margarine, 1 tablespoon bread crumbs, and pepper. Lay the next fillo leaf on top and brush with the identical combination. Continue until you have 4 layers of fillo leaves and topping. Along the longer side of the fillo, spoon out half the cabbage filling about 4 inches from the edge of the dough. Fold the edge over the cabbage. Then, using both hands, lift the dough and let the cabbage roll fall over and over itself, jelly-roll fashion, until the filling is completely enclosed in the pastry sheet. Place, seam down, in a greased jelly-roll. If the roll is too long, cut with a serrated knife to fit your pan.
7. Repeat the above process with remaining 4 fillo leaves, bread crumbs, cabbage and pepper.
8. Brush the crust with additional melted butter or margarine. Then brush with egg white which has been lightly stirred.
9. Bake 45 minutes or until golden. Slice thin and serve immediately. Or serve lukewarm, sprinkled with confectioner's sugar, as a dessert.

Note: After the rolls have been formed, you can freeze them on cookie sheets and then remove them to plastic containers for freezer storage.

This scrumptious dish can be served as an elegant hors d'oeuvre, a vegetable accompaniment to goose, chicken or pot roast, or sprinkled with confectioner's sugar as a dessert.

Preparation and Cooking Time: 1½ hours

Note: Cabbage, one of the oldest known vegetables, was highly regarded by Jews for both nutritive and medicinal purposes. Because the grapevine and the cabbage plant were said to loathe one another, cabbage can to be thought of as a prevention against intoxication. If a man ate cabbage while drinking, he would not become inebriated. It was also a cure for hangovers. It is no wonder, then, that Hungarians traditionally prepare cabbage strudel for Simchat Torah and Purim, the two holidays when drinking and revelry take place.

Purim: Marathi Puran Polis

Pareve, from India
Solomon Michael Daniel, Bombay, Maharashtra
Yield: 8 to 12 Pieces

300 grams (10½ ounces) refined flour (maida) 200 grams (7 ounces) wheat flour (atta) 1/2 teaspoon salt 30 mi (1 ounce) oil

500 grams (10½ ounces) chana dal (Bengal gram) 400 grams (14 ounces) sugar 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1. Place the maida and atta flours and salt in a bowl. Add half the oil and knead a soft, elastic dough, sprinkling water on the dough in the process. Set aside for 2 to 3 hours.
2. Meanwhile, place the chana dal in a pan and cook until tender with just enough water to cook. Add sugar and cook until mixture becomes thick and moisture evaporates. Cook until the mixture is soft and neither too liquid or too dry.
3. Add nutmeg to the mixture. Grind on the grinding stone (a very sticky and tedious process) to a smooth paste. The idea is to make the flour so soft and elastic that a lump pulled out of it will trail behind a tail of dough.
4. Use a large, flat tawa to bake the chapatis. Take a lump of dough the size of a medium-size lemon. Put a dot of oil in the palm of your hand and mold this ball into a hollow katori shape. Take 2½ times as much stuffing as dough. Form it into a neat ball and place it in the katori of dough.
5. Gently mold the dough around the stuffing to close at the top. Sprinkle the rolling board liberally with flour and roll out the ball into a fine thin chapati. This is a very delicate operation. You cannot lift the chapati and turn it over as you would an ordinary chapati. The plentiful flour keeps the chapati moving on the board. An expert can work this size of ball into a chapati about 27.5 cm (11 inches), but a thicker, smaller chapati could be made to start with. Once rolled, the chapati has to be put on the tawa very carefully.
   The traditional way to do this is to roll it around the rolling pin and then unroll it on the tawa. Let it bake well on one side, then carefully turn it over. When the second side is done, apply ghee or dalda on both sides and remove from the tawa.

Preparation and Cooking Time: 4 hours

Note: Tawa is a flat, iron grid for baking chapaties. A nonstick frying pan can also be used.
Chapati is an unleavened pancake like bread from India where the dough is rolled into thin rounds and baked on a griddle.
Ghee is butter which is slowly melted to separate the milk solids from the golden liquid on the surface.

Shavuot: Israeli No-Bake Cheese Cake

Dairy, Israel style
Sybil Kaplan, Overland Park, Kansas
Yield: 4 to 6 Servings

I learned this while living in Israel.

1 package instant vanilla pudding 2 cups low-fat milk 2 cups low-fat white cheese ½ cup raisins Milk

64 lightly sweetened plain cookies Coconut (optional) Pineapple slices (optional) Strawberries, sliced (optional)

1. Mix pudding in a bowl with milk according to package directions. Add cheese and raisins. Set aside.
2. Place some milk in a shallow dish. Dip 16 to 20 cookies in milk. In a deeper square or rectangular baking dish, arrange 4 to 5 rows of 4 to 5 cookies each. Spread one-third pudding-cheese mixture on top.
3. Add another layer of 16 to 20 cookies, which have first been dipped in milk, on top of first layer. Spread second third of pudding-cheese on top mixture. Add final layer of cookies on top. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

For decoration, sprinkle coconut on top or arrange pineapple slices or strawberry slices on top.

Preparation and Cooking Time: 20 to 30 minutes