AlwaysInformed: Passover Meatballs

Arthur Bovino — March 30, 2010

Beef and Matzoh “Passover Meatballs” at The Meatball Shop.

No, The Meatball Shop isn’t kosher, nevertheless, they’ve gotten into the holiday spirit by creating a Passover Meatball as the daily special. It was featured last night, and a call to the restaurant confirmed they would be serving it again tonight.

The Passover Meatball is made with beef liver, chicken liver, ketchup, onion, egg, and of course, matzoh. The balls are more browned on the outside than their other renditions, and it has an almost meatloaf-like consistency. The matzoh was noticeably present— ragged, soft pieces that added texture.

Paired with The Meatball Shop’s classic tomato sauce, topped with grated cheese, and served with focaccia for scraping up the leftover sauce, the Passover Meatballs make a great rainy night dish ($7.00).

Featured Dessert: Streit’s Chocolate Covered Matzo

GutterGourmet — March 30, 2010

Chocolate-covered matzo (image courtesy of sfgate.com).

Like Russ and Daughters, Streit’s Matzos is a fourth generation Jewish family business that has been at its current Lower East Side Rivington Street location since 1925. It may be the Jewish equivalent of green beer on St. Patrick’s Day, but the only thing I look forward to more on Passover than Fox’s U-Bet chocolate syrup made with real cane sugar (instead of the non-kosher corn fructose the rest of the year) is Streit’s dark chocolate covered matzo.

Who needs bread? Better than a chocolate babka, the rich dark chocolate turns the dry cracker-like matzo into a luxurious dessert. So at Passover Seder when the simple son asks, “Why is this night different from other nights?” you can shout with glee like I do: “Chocolate covered matzo!”

Now if they could only perfect chocolate-covered gefilte fish.

Top 5: Matzoh Balls

Jeff Zalaznick — March 29, 2010

An unexpected contender, and a forgotten favorite have finally established a Top 5 Matzoh Ball list.

Last year’s Top 5 quest to find New York’s best matzoh balls, uncovered an amazing and disturbing discovery: some of the City’s supposed best Balls were no longer living up to their reputation. New York had only three contenders. A host of issues sunk classics like Barney Greengrass, Blue Ribbon Bakery, Bubby’s, Carnegie Deli (the worst in class), and 5 Napkin Burger. Most were plagued by underseasoning, and/or bad texture. It was a sad state of affairs for both the City and the Jewish culinary community.

But, the clouds have parted, and in the last year, the addition of an unexpected contender, and the reminder of a forgotten favorite, have finally rounded out a list worthy of exalting this Passover. We have a Matzoh Ball Minion!

Happy Passover! Now go do like the Persians do and smack each other with some scallions!

Click here to find out Always Hungry’s Top 5 Matzoh Ball Soup

Have an idea for a Top 5? We’d love to hear from you. Go to the bottom of a Top 5 page and enter your suggestion into the “Suggest a Top 5” field along with your rankings and your email address.

AlwaysPartying: Passover at Sammy’s Roumanian

The Gluttoness — April 13, 2009

With four mandated cups of wine, Passover is meant to be a happy holiday, a celebration of the Jewish people breaking free from the bonds of slavery, but there is one place that takes Passover to another level of craziness: Sammy’s Roumanian.

Every year, Sammy’s throws their back-to-back seders for the first two nights of Passover. Complete with a mini-service compliments of Cantor Jerry, Dani Luv’s funky renditions of Hebrew classics like “Dyanu” are only a warm-up to the raucous sing along of Billy Joel’s “Piano Man.” Metal bowls of pickled cucumbers, tomatoes and green peppers hold over the famished until Gefilte Fish, Stuffed Cabbage, Karnatzlack (homemade sausages) and Chopped Eggs & Onions arrive. Chopped Liver with Radish & Onions is always the star of the appetizers since it’s tossed table-side with a dramatic dressing of creamy shmaltz (shown right).

While all-you-can-drink Manischevitz is included in the $89.95 prix-fixe, the drink of the evening is Sammy’s specialty: frozen bottles of vodka, either Kettle One or Grey Goose. After a few drinks and plenty of Jewish jokes, matzoh boxes become hats and the whole restaurant is dancing around the over-capacity room. It’s a shame the Home Fried Potatoes don’t come in the beginning, as they’d be the perfect base for the over-the-top chopped liver. Side dishes also include inch-thick Potato Pancakes with Apple Sauce and Mashed Potatoes with Fried Onions. For the main course, you’re given the option of choosing between Brisket, Chicken, Steak, Veal (broiled or breaded) or Salmon—but the “Romanian Tenderloin” (aka the skirt steak) is always your best bet.

The night is capped off with a Chocolate Egg Cream and an attempt to throw down some macaroons—at this point, why not? The heart-clogging meal lasts long into the evening and Alka Seltzer is waiting for you on the way out. It’s definitely a night to remember and one your body will never forget. Good thing Passover is only once a year, since this is one old school celebration that you definitely don’t want to pass over.

Recipe of the Week: Matzoh Lasagna

The Gluttoness — April 08, 2009

Keeping Passover gets tough, and there is only so much Matzoh Brie one can eat. A Matzoh Sandwich always seems likes a good idea until it instantly crumbles into a worthless mess (it is a cracker, after all), and even Matzoh Pizza loses its allure by day five. Matzoh-Crusted Fried Chicken is always a sure hit, but my “I-cant-believe-this-is-matzo” Matzoh Lasagna takes the unleavened cake as the most satisfying Passover dish of them all.

Click Here for the Recipe >>

AHNY: Top 5 Matzoh Balls? Nope, Just Three

Jeff Zalaznick & Arthur Bovino — April 07, 2009

In honor of Passover, AlwaysHungry set out to find New York’s top five matzoh balls. What we discovered surprised us: there is no Top 5. New York City, despite having the world’s second largest Jewish population outside Tel Aviv, has only three knaidlech contenders. Sure, it was close between the top two but for the most part, outside these top three contenders, everything else was for the birds.

Noodles and dill, carrots and celery—we decided not to consider these varying soup ingredients as determining factors. This is about matzoh balls. After all, competing philosophies on how best to construct them are distracting enough (seltzer or water? oil or schmaltz? how long should the eggs be beaten? seasoned inside or out? boiled in salt water or chicken broth?). For Top 5 purposes, we judged based on three criteria: texture, flavor and appearance.

Continue Reading About Matzoh Ball Mania… >>