Passover Marathon, Stage 1

Passover cooking is constrained cooking. One cannot use flour or any bread other than matzah. Even if one is in a family where the laws of kashrut are usually disregarded, it's probably best not to engage in any flagrant flouting of them, so no pork, no shellfish, and no use of dairy at all since, unless one is in a vegetarian household, it is also traditional to have some sort of large piece of roasted animal flesh as the centerpiece protein--with lamb being traditional among those of Sephardi and Mizrahi background, and chicken, duck or goose being more common among Ashkenazim. There must certain traditional items: a purely decorative roasted shank bone from a lamb or goat, hard boiled eggs, fresh herbs and leafy green vegetables, a paste that is supposed to look like mortar called haroset, usually made with apples and nuts and wine (but recipes vary), and bitter herbs, most often horseradish, called maror.

There are other, more recent traditions that have cropped up in households like ours that celebrate Passover for its political significance as a tale of human emancipation, rather than in a traditionally religious framework: oranges a sign of support for gay liberation and feminism; olives in solidarity with Palestinians. And then there are the traditions that have no religious or political significance, but whose neglect would cause open familial strife: For example, what would Passover be without matzah ball soup?

The shankbone has been roasted. It came out of a Southpaw Farms shank that I braised earlier this week for a kind of lamb stifado. Southpaw Farms are the sellers at the Portland Winter Market whom I praised earlier as the purveyors of the best lamb I've had in the United States. One of their lamb shoulders has just finished defrosting, and I need to figure out how I want to spice rub it for tonight.

"This is the bitter herb that we eat as a remembrance of our affliction...." I'll spare you the Maxwell House haggadah liturgy. Really, this is fresh horseradish from another mainstay of the Portland Winter Market (farm name escaping me at the moment) who had horseradish roots for sale last week. I had already been making use of the root earlier this week. What was left, I ran through the food processor, put into a Bell jar and covered with distilled white vinegar. This will be making me happy for weeks to come. I just took some roasted beets out of the oven, one of which will go into a toned down version of maror for the Little One and Hot Librarian. For that, just puree one beet with about a half-teaspoon of the prepared horseradish. I just dressed the other two roasted beets with cumin, coarse sea salt, lemon juice and olive oil.

And here's the haroset. Because HL doesn't like the taste of alcohol, and LO is 4, this is an alcohol-free version. 3 Macintosh apples, coarsely chopped and cored but not peeled, 6 seeded Deglet dates, coarsely chopped, 2 dried Turkish figs, two small handfuls of walnuts, pan-toasted, about 1/4 teaspoon each of cinnamon, clove and cardamom powder (maybe a bit more of the cinnamon, but not too much), and finally 2 tablespoons of R.W. Knudsen 100% Concord Grape juice. Put them all in the food processor and pulse, do not grind. You want to keep pulsing until it looks sort of like this--mortar-like, but with the fruits and nuts retaining some integrity, not mushy baby food.

Now I need to check on my chicken soup, and rub some spices on the lamb. More to come.