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Knishes


KeithA

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You know you are a food-obsessive when you keep getting and reading more books about food and restaurants and then you try to make them.  I've recently been reading "Knish" so of course I tried my hand at making these Jewish filled dough delights. I used the recipe from Smitten Kitchen - but since I only have enough 2/3 of the required potatos, I used sauteed parsnips for the final third of the filling. I also was a bit lazier and didn't fully carmelize the onions.  Also I only baked them for about 25-30 minutes, not the seemingly too long 45 minutes in the recipe.  Regardless they turned out awesome, and were surprisingly easy - the dough is not very sticky and very stretchy - my 5 year old loved helping to pinch it together.  My wife and I really thought the parsnip added a nice accent flavor to the potato.

I also did some research comparing recipes and found this one to be the best for traditional baked knishes that you get in at a deli.  Now I need to come up with some more fun filling options for batch #2.  Any ideas?  Also if anyone has any tips for kasha knishes, please send they are my mother in law's favorite and likely to be in a batch soon.

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 these Jewish filled dough delights

:lol:

I'm not trying to make fun of you, really, but I have a twisted sense of humor so this made me laugh a little.  How would you punctuate this phrase?

Jewish-filled dough delights

Jewish, filled-dough delights

Placing a dash in compound adjectives is a practice that needs reviving.

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My mother used to make them with a farmer cheese and pineapple filling. She rolled the dough and filling together jellyroll style. Haven't seen Smitten Kitchen's dough recipe. Does it have sour cream in it?

Nope. Cream cheese.

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My mother used to make them with a farmer cheese and pineapple filling. She rolled the dough and filling together jellyroll style. Haven't seen Smitten Kitchen's dough recipe. Does it have sour cream in it?

Nope. Cream cheese.

Actually, the link above provides a dough recipe with no cheese - it is pareve/dairy free.  Most of the knish dough recipes I looked at are very similar - typically they have oil or chicken schmaltz and no cheese.  A few replace these fats with butter. The link does provide two fillings - traditional potato onion and a more modern one which uses cream cheese, potatos, kale and leeks.  I've seen some references to sweet knishes with cheese and/or fruit fillings and I bet some of those recipes use sour cream or cream cheese as part of the dough - kind of like a rugelach or cinnamon roll dough.

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We did a Feast of the Seven Knishes for friends and neighbors on the weekend between Christmas and New Year's, 2012.  The two fillings I made for the first time for that event and really enjoyed were a kim chi and mashed potato filling and the duxelles filling.  I included a small amount of mashed potato in the duxelles filling to make the knishes easier to eat--I don't like having my filling jumping out of my knishes.  I also liked the spanikopita filling in theory, but I think I blew the seasoning on it and it should have been a bit more tasty.

I use a modified version of my grandfather's recipe for the dough (his called for margarine, I use butter), which makes one of the most delightfully workable doughs I've ever experienced.

1 lb butter

4 cups flour

3/4 cup water

1/4 cup white vinegar

1 egg

Cut butter into flour (or use the Cusinart's dough blade to make unspeakably fast work of this)

Put butter/flour mix into a bowl, add egg and stir gently.  Add vinegar and water and combine all ingredients together.  Turn onto a well-floured board and roll together to get a well formed ball.  Roll out thickly, fold four ways and roll out again, leaving it fairly thick.  Repeat 4-5 times, roll into a ball, wrap tightly and refrigerate until stiff and well chilled (Grandpa suggested overnight, but I find 2-3 hours works okay).   Tightly wrapped, this will hold for weeks.

Roll out thin (I can see the marks on my pastry board through the dough) and fill.

Grandpa suggested 15 minutes in a 450 degree oven, and painting the outsides with yolk prior to cooking to give them an eye-appealing glaze.

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The town where I attended university in NYS had the requisite main drag full of divey bars, but not only was there a place with a walk-up window for pizza slices, there was another place with a walk-up for knishes! We did have a very large demographic of students from Long Island.

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Its been two years now of making knishes (see original post above). I still mostly make Yukon potato-parsnip filling and alternate with sweet potato - both with lots of caramelized onions. However, I hit upon a new winner this year for Thanksgiving. I made an all Yukon gold potato filling with sautéed onions and then instead of just salt and pepper, I also added lots of fresh thyme, sage, and a bit of parsley for "stuffing seasoning" flavored knishes. They were a big hit. My favorite was slicing one in half to form a bun shape which I layered with leftover turkey, cranberry sauce, and onions that cooked under the turkey in the schmaltz drippings.   We had a lot of left over potatoes and onions that likewise cooked underneath the turkey in the roasting pan. So tonight I plan to cook up a new batch of stuffing flavored knishes but with these schmaltzed filling. I also am for the first time using turkey schmaltz (rendered fat cooked with onions) as part of the fat in the knish dough (vs. my usual canola oil). I think it will be pretty indulgent and delicious. 

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