In the chaotic kitchen of a recipe developer, you get a food blog called FoodMayhem.
I'm Jessica, an Asian-American, born and raised in NYC, and that's Lon, my Jewish, white husband. While professionally trained as a French culinary- and pastry chef, many of FoodMayhem recipes are my attempt to preserve and share authentic Chinese and Taiwanese recipes learned from my mom. We don't eat Chinese food every day, so you'll get a little bit of anything we find delicious enough to share: from our Eastern European side; recipes and techniques learned from my restaurant days; restaurant reviews, food travel tips; and a few other juicy bits along the way. Welcome to FoodMayhem!
Growing up, there were many Jewish delicacies that I truly loved. The nature of them ranged widely including items like smoke white fish (whole or as salad), knishes, wursts, etc. But one of the easiest, most enjoyable items was Kasha Varnishkes.
There can not be a person on this planet who doesn’t like Matzoh Balls, and if there is, I’m not sure I want to meet them! Known in Yiddish as knaidelach, which literally means “dumplings”. They’re super delicious and easy to make.
We realized that we cover many Chinese dishes on FoodMayhem, but with the exception of the recent Matzoh Brei post, we rarely discuss Jewish dishes. Tonight we took on that task full charge. Making quite a few dishes at once.
First things first. One of the key ingredients in Jewish cooking is rendered chicken fat, also known by its Yiddish term, Schmaltz. So before cooking, I had to get my hands on some. But where? Well we just made it… it’s not hard.
