My grandmother grew up in a family wealthy with Ashkenazi Jewish cooking, which I’d by no means have identified had been it not for a surviving doc her twin brother, my great-uncle Shush, as soon as wrote to catalog the meals of their youth. I’ve written about this letter earlier than, in my article on learn how to make chopped liver, however let’s simply say that Shush was not a fan of a lot of these meals, quite a lot of which concerned offal.

Of all of the dishes their Latvian-immigrant mom made by hand, right now I acknowledge the names of just a few—and gefilte fish is acquainted to me not as a result of my great-grandmother’s recipe survived by way of the generations, however as a result of my mother would typically purchase it in a jar. The failure of conventional meals like miltz (spleen), p’tcha (calf’s-foot aspic), and lungen (lungs) to take care of a foothold in my household is not a lot of a shock, given how a lot Shush, and presumably his siblings, hated them.

However there was one dish that he clearly cherished—matzo pancakes, which he known as pompishkehs.* Throughout Passover, he wrote, “we ate pancakes manufactured from matzo meal sprinkled with powdered sugar…a meal to be classed with the gustatory creations of all time…. Made hotcakes look like an aberration.” The primary time I learn his letter, my coronary heart leapt on the point out of pancakes comprised of matzo meal: I do know these! They had been the one, the solely, dish my sister and I begged for once we visited our bubbe, who would prepare dinner us a batch in a matter of minutes and serve them with granulated sugar on the aspect to sprinkle on high.

*The closest factor I might discover after a fast net seek for “pompishkeh” was a Ukrainian fritter known as a pampushka, which, being yeasted, would not be kosher for Passover. In Claudia Roden’s The E-book of Jewish Meals, she makes use of the phrases chremslach and bubeleh for these matzo pancakes.

Right here, lastly, was my cultural inheritance: little ovals of egg and crushed unleavened cracker. Modest certainly, but additionally inarguably tasty. A meal to be classed with the gustatory creations of all time, as Uncle Shush hailed them? I would not go that far—foie gras, tacos, and sushi would rightly be offended by the notion—however they actually supply an ease-to-deliciousness ratio that is exhausting to beat.

Begin by smashing matzo into irregular bits and items. How small you make them is a matter of non-public alternative—I like a mixture, with some effective bits and a few chunky, however you may go very effective, all the best way right down to the scale of matzo meal (the finely floor stuff that is additionally used to make matzo balls).

Subsequent, soak them in chilly water for a minute or two to melt them. Drain the water, combine in crushed eggs and a pinch of salt, then prepare dinner dollops of what I suppose we will name the “batter” in a buttered pan.

The matzo capabilities just like the floury element of a pancake or fritter batter, however as a result of the flour used to make the matzo was already hydrated and cooked when the matzo was made, getting it moist once more and binding it with egg is all that must be completed this second time.

A bonus is that every one the nice and cozy, toasty notes of the already-baked matzo wind up within the remaining pancakes, that are then griddled, identical to basic pancakes, leading to layers of browned taste.

Readers conversant in Jewish meals could acknowledge these pancakes as a type of matzo brei, an egg-and-matzo creation that takes many shapes and is available in each candy and savory varieties. I would agree that they’re, or not less than appear to be, kind of the identical factor. The primary distinction is that matzo pancakes need to be formed like, properly, pancakes, and will be made with both damaged matzo, as in my recipe right here, or matzo meal. So far as I do know, matzo brei would by no means name for matzo meal, and it may be made extra like an egg scramble, or a big, cooked egg-and-matzo mass, or something in between.

I have been cooking matzo pancakes rather a lot not too long ago for my son, who’s one and a half now. Not solely is it one of many best breakfasts I can toss collectively for him, it is also the one unbroken chain of recipe heritage I’ve to go on. It isn’t a lot, however you would not comprehend it from how enthusiastically he gobbles them up.

April 2019

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