Interfaith Challah Baking Day

Today we celebrated the Jewish Shabbat, making our own Challot and trying many of the Eastern European traditional Jewish foods. According to Jewish tradition, the three Sabbath meals, Friday night, Saturday lunch, and Saturday late afternoon, each begin with two complete loaves of bread^. This bread commemorates the manna that fell from the heavens when the Israelites  wandered in the desert for forty years after the Exodus from Egypt. Each single loaf is woven with six strands, both loaves have twelve which represent each tribe of Israel.

Our beautiful Muslim and Jewish women sharing our special meal

We had much fun trying to plait a 6 braided challah, and deciding whether to include raisins into the dough to make a sweeter challah.

Considering plaiting a 6 braided Challah

very proud !!

 

I believe the best way to enjoy freshly baked, warm challah, is with traditional Shabbat foods like Chopped Herring, Pickled Herring, Smoked Trout Mousse, Pickled Cucumbers, and Egg Salad.

Holding a Smoked Trout

Boning a Smoked Trout

Making Smoked Trout Mousse

For the finale, we whipped up a delicious Apple Strudel. We lightly cooked the apples with some raisins, with a little sugar, then prepared the filo pastry.

Making the Apple Strudel

Samah brushing Strudel with melted butter and sprinkling ground almonds and sugar.

Apple Strudel

Apple Strudel

Trout Mousse, Pickled Cucumbers, Egg Salad, Chopped Herring

2 Challot for Shabbat, under the Challah cover

Shabbat Table

 What I love each week, when we all sit down and share a meal are the similarities we share in our traditions. How a Jewish woman prepares the shabbos dinner, is exactly how the Muslim woman prepares her Ramadan feast. We laugh how we all cook all day, wanting the home to be clean, the fridge full of food, the feast to be wonderful, and our family and friends to have enjoyed the celebration. The respect we all have for our traditions, and how important it means to each of us, to carrying on this tradition to our children and grand children.

Don't forget to visit our Shared Table on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Shared-Table/121816364572861 Until next week, Ciao, Mel

Jewish Muslim Interfaith Cooking Day - Middle Eastern Style

How wonderful to walk into a busy kitchen where all the beautiful women are working together..... the smells, the chatter, the hustle and bustle of a Middle Eastern kitchen, is so inviting, so warm, and so so delicious.

All hands were on deck, rolling out the dough for the homemade Manakish. This is a Lebanese style pita, is traditionally cooked over an open fire, on a dome griddle. the dough is brushed with either a za'atar which consists of olive oil, wild thyme, culinary sumac and sesame seeds, or the traditional topping called kashk of dried yoghurt, soaked buckwheat, finely chopped tomatoes, chillies and fresh herbs.

 Next on the menu was Nadia's homemade Falafel. A deep fried ball or patty made from ground chickpeas, garlic, parsley, cummin and coriander. The Arabic word means "a unit" ط ع م, and when translated meaning "a little piece of food". Falafel has become a common form of street food in the Middle East.  

The fried patties are regularly eaten as part of meze. During Ramadan, falafel is sometimes eaten as part of the 'iftar, the meal that breaks the daily fast

after sunset^. Falafel became so popular that Middle Eastern McDonald's now serves a "McFalafel".

 

 Fatimah made a traditional Lebanese dish called Fetteh. It is made of layers of toasted or baked pieces of pita bread and chickpeas which are covered with a thick layer of seasoned yoghurt and topped with roasted pine nuts and chopped parsley.

 

 

                                   

                                        

We ended the day on a wonderful sweet treat, making Ma'amoul. these are small shortbread pastries filled with dates, pistachios or walnuts.

Now what I love about our Interfaith cooking days, are the similarities we share as women, the passion we all have for food, for family and for tradition.

But as I have just discovered, we share far more than we all realise. Many households keep a stock of Ma'amoul all year round, but they are particularly used on religious festivals. Muslims eat them at night during Ramadan, and Egyptian Jewish communities, eat Ma’amoul during Purim.

And today in Modern Jewish homes, we celebrate our festival of Purim, eating Hamentaschen, date filled sweet pastries. 

We truly are family !!!!!

until next week, ciao, Mel

Jewish Muslim Interfaith Cooking Day - Israeli Style Shabbat Dinner

This week, we visited Our Big Kitchen (OBK). It  is a kosher and halal approved commercial kitchen located in Bondi. The kitchen is open to anyone who wants to use it to empower themselves or to help others. The kitchen was built by donations and runs on donations – of goods and services, food and most importantly, donations of time by volunteers.

 

Here are some biscuits that were baked by volunteers, ready for delivery.

 And here we are learning about OBK

Our meal this week was inspired by Lynda Ben-Menashe, with a selection of old family Shabbat recipes from a time when Lynda was living in Israel. The sabbath starts on Friday night, and until the sun sets on Saturday, the Jewish people rest. So the Jewish kitchen is very busy all day Friday, preparing meals for our Sabbath.

 The first recipe we made was a deliciously soft and moist chocolate cake. Above, we can see the women working together in creating this spectacular dessert.

What is so special about our Interfaith Cooking days, is not only the new and exotic recipes we cook each week, it is the conversations we share together.

 The women made a pea dish and a grated carrot salad with mayonnaise and raisins which was a refreshing accompaniment to the chicken and rice.

We enjoyed a chicken dish baked in spices, date syrup and slowly cooked in its juices. We made a Middle Eastern rice dish, where the onions were cooked in oil and margarine first, then the rice, parsley and stock were added. When the stock was boiling, we reduced the temperature until the rice had absorbed the stock. This is a great dish that stays warm on the stove for hours with the lid on and the gas off.

Lynda had a smile from ear to ear, so excited to be sharing her family recipes with us all. And as you can see below, we too, enjoyed the meal.

 

As part of the dessert, Elaine poached pears in a wonderful cinnamon, cardamon syrup, which worked so well with the chocolate pudding / cake.

And below we have the youngest member of the OBK team, resting after a busy morning in the kitchen.

Until next week in the interfaith kitchens ..... Ciao, Mel