Cheese Knishes

This one is for the Jews in the house.

I have never been much of a fan of most Jewish food. When everyone is losing their mind about the sinful delight that is potato latkes, I'm like, 'So?' When my family is asking for second helpings of matzo ball soup, I'm secretly shoveling mine to whatever dog is blessedly stationed beneath the table (you try getting a dog to eat off a spoon). As a teenager, when I started putting mayonnaise on my sandwiches instead of mustard, my parents just shook their heads at me and wondered where I came from.

It's not that I hate Jewish food. Well, okay, if I never had another kugel, blintz, or brisket again I would die a happy woman. But mostly I'm just indifferent. A less virulent feeling than my breakfast sentiments, perhaps.

Of course, there are exceptions to this rule. Oddly, I appear to like what most would deem the grosser contingents of my ancestry's culinary history. That is to say, gefilte fish and chopped liver I will eat with odd, and some would say disturbing abandon. But above all my crowning favorite Jewish food is the knish. This, I feel, is a superior food form, and one that blessedly features as an appetizer at every family gathering I have ever had, Jewish or not. Yes, please pass the Thanksgiving knish. Thank you.

For those non-semites in the audience, a knish is a pastry filled with, in my experience, either meat or potato, although you will see I have just discovered sometimes cheese will also do the trick. They are also delicious, and I routinely station myself by the knish plate and helplessly fill up on them before the main course. They are little bites of delight.

An unforseen problem, however, arose when I moved away from Boston: when I went to delis in Chicago and now LA and have ordered knishes, I have been greeted with a giant enormous potato-sized thing. This is not the knish I was looking for. You see, in Boston the knishes are small, one- or two-bite-sized. Deviating from this formula just makes the knish not the same. It is bloated, huge, and un-fun, and most of all unsatisfying. I was so distressed by this that the last time I went to Langer's in LA, I actually asked the waiter if he knew of anywhere I could find a non-enormous knish. He looked at me like I was an alien, which, perhaps, I am.

From this I deduced that the small knishes are either New England or--worse--Boston-specific. This is a tragedy, to be sure, but I just added it to the list of foods I have to fill up on during my annual pilgrimmage home (fried clams-check, subs-check, knishes-check).

Until.

Until I happened upon the next recipe in the recipe book, a recipe for Cheese Knishes provided by Ellie Baker, the wife of one of my dad's oldest friends. An excitement coursed through me; one I have not felt since before embarking upon the brunch section of the book. Could this possibly be the end to my knish woes? I wasn't so sure. I mean, my family doesn't make their own knishes; they buy them from the deli like every good Jew. Could a homemade version really measure up?

Yes. Yes. O yes.

The recipe is ridiculously simple, save for the fact that it calls for farmer's cheese, which I have never heard of. Luckily, as you know, I am married to an Iowan, so when I see the word 'farmer' I know I can just ask him. Josh explained that farmer's cheese is a "very simple, boring, white cheese" that I would find in the low-budget cheese section of a normal grocery store. "Not the fancy cheese part!" he cautioned. "It will be in a block!" Okay, okay, I get it. "What should I do if I can't find it?" I asked. "Call home."

So, I set off to the grocery and spent the better part of 20 minutes staring intently at every single block of cheese in the cheap cheese section. Nothing. I called home. Josh had me read off all the cheeses in front of me. "American. Extra sharp cheddar. Medium sharp cheddar. Monterey Jack," I said. "No. No. No," he said. Some woman, looking for something less exotic to California than farmer's cheese elbowed me out of the way. Obviously she could not tell that my reading the cheese off into the phone was top priority. I silently murdered her in my mind.

Ultimately we settled on Mozzarella as the closest possible substitute and I went home to embark upon the dough, which, of course, had to be refrigerated overnight.

Sunday morning was officially knish time, which involved a festival of flour, dough, and filling. It turns out that making knishes is somewhat labor-intensive. Not complicated, per se, but this recipe makes about 5 dozen knishes, which means an awful of dough rolling, cutting, filling, sealing, and shellacking. I must have been at it for like an hour or something, but good God was it worth it. My first taste of knish made my eyes all but roll back into my head with glee, as I promptly informed Josh we would not be sharing these with anyone. Josh looked at me seriously and asked if he would be allowed to eat any of them. I like him, so I said yes, but have been putting away a good 10 a day since Sunday in an effort to make sure I get the lion's share. Luckily Josh wakes up early, so he can sneak some for breakfast before I have a chance to stab his hand with a fork.

I may actually be tearing up with joy in this picture

Now I just have to figure out how to make a meat filling for these and my life will be complete. Does one buy mince meat? Or does one mince it oneself? One does not know, but one will surely find out.

Membership has its privileges

Cheese Knishes (a la the now sainted Ellie Baker)

2 cups flour
1/2 lb margarine (not butter? evidently not. whatever you say Mrs. Baker)
1 cup sour cream
2 lg onions*
1 lb farmer's cheese (or, you know, Mozzarella)
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 lb cream cheese
1 tbsp sugar
1 egg

1. Mix dough ingredients well and refrigerate overnight (flour, margarine & sour cream). Wonder why it says margarine and not butter, but decide you aren't going to mess with it and get margarine.

2. Saute onions in margarine. Okay, in butter. Specifically: too much butter.

3. Roll dough thin, cut with round Coca Cola glass from your grandfather's pharmacy. Fill with filling, seal, and brush tops with beaten egg. Determine that the filling must be the onions, cheese, salt, cream cheese and sugar, since, you know, those are the only ingredients left.

4. Bake - 20 minutes at 375 on a greased cookie sheet. Eat. Lose mind.

*Onion chopping method: contact lenses, which aren't even failsafe.