Steak Summer Rolls


I don’t know if I’m more excited for you to have this recipe, or to share the cookbook that it’s from! My friend Miriam Pascal, of Overtimecook as well as the author of one of my favorite dessert cookbooks, Something Sweet, is releasing her latest cookbook in the “Real Life” series, Real Life Shabbos Cooking.

Now let me tell you something about Miriams Shabbos food – I’ve experienced it – in real life. I was lucky enough to be her Shabbos guest at her home in California, not once, but twice! I still dream about her focaccia challah (yes, the recipe is in the book), all her delicious dips, dumplings, and so much more.

Aside from her delicious food, Miriam and I both have a passion (read: obsession) for good coffee, and her coffee bar is a dream, complete with an incredible coffee machine and the best ice nuggets. She also always has delicious cookies and cakes to eat along with it.

With the book release next week, I invited Miriam over to cook something together from the book, and the summer rolls were right up my alley! We had so much fun making them together! I’ve always struggled working with rice paper, and Miriam taught me a few tricks that really helped. I was so excited to make her a cup of coffee for a change, and I took out my Cumulus machine for an iced nitro cold brew which we thoroughly enjoyed before the fleish.

I’m so excited for you to have Miriam’s incredible Shabbos recipes in your hands, she really thought of everything in the book from Shabbos kiddush to shalosh seudot and everything in between!

Steak Summer Rolls
YIELD 12-15 rolls

1 (approx. 2-lb) London broil OR flank steak, thinly sliced
¼ cup soy sauce, GF soy sauce, tamari sauce, OR coconut aminos
½ cup pineapple juice
2 cubes frozen garlic
2 cubes frozen ginger
¼ cup brown sugar,
1 teaspoon kosher salt

MISO PEANUT DIPPING SAUCE
⅓ cup creamy peanut butter
1 Tablespoon white miso paste
¼ cup soy sauce, GF soy sauce, tamari sauce, OR coconut aminos
1 Tablespoon toasted sesame oil
¼ cup pineapple juice
2 Tablespoons honey

ASSEMBLY
12-15 rice papers
green or red cabbage, shredded
carrots, shredded
sugar snap peas, halved
bell pepper, sliced
scallions, sliced
avocado, sliced
cucumber, sliced
sesame seeds, optional, for garnish

Prepare the steak: Combine all marinade ingredients in a ziplock bag. Add sliced steak; seal and marinate for 1 hour,
up to overnight.

Heat a large frying pan over high heat. Add steak and marinade; cook, stirring occasionally, for 5-8 minutes, or until
steak reaches desired level of doneness. Discard liquid; set meat aside.

Prepare the miso peanut dipping sauce: Place all dipping sauce ingredients into a container; use an immersion
blender to combine until smooth and creamy. (This can also be done in a blender or food processor.)

Assemble the summer rolls: Fill a deep plate with water. Submerge 1 sheet of rice paper for 15-20 seconds, until just
a bit softened but not too soft. Place rice paper on a flat surface.

Add steak and vegetables of choice in a line in the center. Fold eggroll style: Fold sides over the filling, then roll to
fully encase in rice paper. Set aside. Repeat with remaining rice paper, steak, and vegetables.

Serve summer rolls on a platter, alongside a bowl of dipping sauce. If desired, sprinkle sesame seeds over summer
rolls.

PLAN AHEAD
Summer rolls can be prepared 1-2 days in advance. Wrap them in parchment paper to prevent them from drying out; refrigerate, covered.

Related Recipes:

Crispy Rice Paper Dogs
Hot Dog Eggrolls
Hamantachos! Eggroll Nachos

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Stuffed Cabbage Meatballs

Every year on Sukkos, one of the things I look forward to most is my grandmother’s stuffed cabbage, or her beloved cabbage soup. It’s one of those recipes that tastes like home, filled with memories and nostalgia, and no Sukkos feels quite complete without it. This year, I spent Sukkos in Peru, and while it was an incredible experience, I came home craving that familiar taste of my grandmother’s recipe. I hadn’t gotten my annual fix, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Bubby’s cabbage soup has always been one of my ultimate comfort foods. Her secret ingredients were green apple and golden raisins, which gave the sweet-and-sour sauce its signature flavor. It’s the kind of dish that takes me right back to my childhood with just one bite. Unfortunately, my kids don’t share my enthusiasm for the soup and while I’ve made countless variations of my grandmother’s recipe over the years, including stuffed cabbage cocktail dogs and stuffed cabbage Bolognese, I wanted to come up with something that would satisfy my craving while being something my kids would actually get excited about.

Enter stuffed cabbage meatballs! All the nostalgic flavors of my grandmother’s stuffed cabbage, but in a familiar form!

And wouldn’t you know it? The kids absolutely loved them! They got a meatball dinner they were excited to eat, and I got all the comfort and nostalgia of my grandmother’s stuffed cabbage. A win-win for all!

Stuffed Cabbage Meatballs

2 tbsp olive oil
1 lg onion, peeled and sliced thinly into half rings
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 heaping tbsp tomato paste
1/2 large head of cabbage, shredded (about 1 1/2 bags preshredded)
28oz. can crushed tomatoes
3 cups water
Juice of 2 lemons
1 cup brown sugar (packed)
1 green apple, grated
1/4 cup golden raisins
salt and pepper, to taste

Meatballs:

2 lbs ground beef
1/2 cup bread crumbs
2 eggs
1/4 cup ketchup
1 tsp garlic powder
1 1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp ground black pepper

Method:

In a large pot, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the onions and saute until softened, add garlic and saute until fragrant. Add the tomato paste and continue to saute for 2 minutes. Add the crushed tomatoes, water, lemon juice, brown sugar, apple and raisins and bring the mixture to a simmer. Season with salt and pepper, add the cabbage and cook until wilted, about 10 minutes. If the sauce seems too thick (this will depend on how big your cabbage is), you may add a bit more water before adding the meatballs (if it seems too thin, it will thicken as it cooks). Taste and adjust seasoning to your liking (adding more brown sugar if you like it sweeter, or more lemon juice if you like it more sour).

In a medium bowl, combine the meatball ingredients. Form into small balls and drop into the simmering sauce. Simmer, covered, for 1 hour.

Related Recipes:

Bubby’s Cabbage Soup with Flanken
Stuffed Cabbage Cocktail Dogs
Stuffed Cabbage Bolognese
Passover Stuffed Cabbage

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Mango Curry Crunch Salad

I don’t think I’ll ever get over the mangoes I had in Peru. They were, hands down, the best mangoes I’ve ever tasted—so incredibly sweet, juicy, and bursting with flavor. I’ll be dreaming about them for a long time!

While helping out in the kitchen at Chabad of Cusco in Peru, I wanted to create a salad that really let the mango shine. I worked with what they had on hand in the kitchen, including green beans and snow peas, and brought it all together with a curry honey lime dressing. The combination of sweet, savory, tangy, and crunchy was absolute perfection, and everyone went crazy for it!

We all loved it so much that I made it again for 200 people on Simchat Torah, alongside a few of my staple salads, including my roasted cabbage salad and Busy in Brooklyn house salad from Millennial Kosher (the Peruvians loved the addition of quinoa in it!). They were all a huge hit, but this mango salad was something special. A little taste of Peru that I’ll be dreaming about for a long time!

Mango Curry Crunch Salad

5oz butter lettuce
1 large ripe mango, diced (preferably Ataulfo mango)
1 heaping cup green beans, trimmed
1 cup snow peas, thinly sliced diagonally
½ small red onion, thinly sliced
½ cup roasted salted cashews, roughly chopped (I like the chili ones from Trader Joes)
1 generous cup sweet potato or root vegetable chips, lightly crushed

Curry Honey Lime Dressing

1/4 cup olive oil
3 tbsp freshly squeezed lime juice
2 tablespoon honey
1 heaping teaspoon curry powder
1 garlic clove, finely grated
kosher salt and pepper, to taste

Method

Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Add the green beans and blanch for 2–3 minutes, until bright green and crisp-tender. Transfer immediately to an ice bath to stop the cooking, then drain and dry thoroughly.

In a small bowl or jar, whisk together the olive oil, lime juice, honey, curry powder, garlic, salt and pepper until well combined.

Arrange the butter lettuce in a large serving bowl and top with the mango, green beans, snow peas, and red onion.

Just before serving, toss with the curry honey lime dressing and finish with the roasted cashews and crushed sweet potato chips.

Serve immediately while the chips are crisp and crunchy.

Related Recipes:

Curry Chicken Salad
Chili Lime Tuna Crudo with Mango Juice –
Bubby’s Green Bean Salad

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Chicken Gnocchi Shawarma Bake

When dinner is so good, I forget that the camera eats first! So I need to take a screenshot from my video for my blog (ie please excuse the horrible photo lol!)

If you love chicken shawarma and you love a good one-pan dinner, this one’s for you! Pillowy gnocchi gets tossed with juicy tomatoes, red onion, olive oil, and warm shawarma spices, then topped with generously seasoned chicken and roasted until golden. As everything bakes, the tomatoes break down, the chicken releases its flavorful juices, and the gnocchi soaks up all that shawarma goodness, getting tender on the inside with deliciously caramelized edges. It’s hearty, comforting, packed with flavor, and best of all, there’s no need to boil the gnocchi first. Just toss everything into a baking dish and let the oven do the work!

Chicken Gnocchi Shawarma Bake

1 package (16 oz) vacuum-packed gnocchi
1 small red onion, diced small
1 large ripe, juicy tomato, diced
5 1/2 tbsp shawarma seasoning, divided
5 tbsp olive oil, divided
Salt, to taste
Chicken pieces of choice (legs, thighs, or boneless or bone-in)

Method:

Preheat oven to 400°F.

In a baking dish, combine the gnocchi, red onion, tomato, 1 1/2 tablespoons shawarma seasoning, 2 tablespoons olive oil and salt. Toss until evenly coated and spread into an even layer.

In a small bowl, combine the remaining shawarma seasoning, olive oil and salt to form a paste. Rub the mixture all over the chicken pieces, coating them generously. Arrange the seasoned chicken over the gnocchi mixture.

Bake uncovered for approximately 40-50 minutes, or until the chicken is golden and cooked through and the gnocchi is tender with caramelized edges.

Note: Cooking time will vary depending on the chicken pieces used. Boneless chicken will cook faster than bone-in pieces. Cook until the chicken reaches an internal temperature of 165°F.

Related Recipes:

Sheet Pan Roasted Fish & Gnocchi

The Kugel Chronicles: Yerushalmi Kugel

There’s something about the smell of burnt caramel that just screams fall to me.

Maybe it’s because, for me, Yerushalmi kugel is wrapped up in memories of Sukkot and Simchas Torah—of growing up in Crown Heights, on the block of 770, the epicenter of Chabad, when thousands of people would come from all over to spend the holidays by the Rebbe. My mother would cook a feast, and the table would be overflowing with turkeys, stuffed chickens, rice, salads, cakes, and kugels. Lots and lots of kugels.

My mother is the kugel queen. Me? Not so much.

So I invited my mother over recently to make her Yerushalmi kugel with me, and I thought, why don’t we turn this into a series? if anyone deserves her own kugel series, it’s my mother. Her potato kugel is legendary in our family, but that’s just the beginning. There’s broccoli kugel, sweet lokshen kugel, salt-and-pepper lokshen kugel, sweet potato kugel, apple kugel—and I’m pretty sure she has a few more hiding up her sleeve.

But back to the kugel at hand: Yerushalmi. My father OBM, who grew up in Bnei Brak, taught my mom to make it, and she mastered it! Unliked the baked versions, this kugel is fried on the stovetop, for extra crispiness. The secret to this kugel is in the almost burnt caramel, and every time I’ve ever tried to make it, I burnt it! The smell of the caramelized sugar hitting the noodles immediately takes me back to my childhood in the best possible way. It’s Sukkos on a plate.

I’ve spent so many years sharing my own recipes here, but there’s something incredibly special about going back to the recipes I grew up with and getting into the kitchen with the woman who taught me what it means to feed people.

So consider this chapter one of The Kugel Chronicles.

We’re starting with Yerushalmi kugel—the one that smells like burnt caramel, tastes like Yom Tov, and brings me straight back to those crowded, beautiful Simchas Torah meals in Crown Heights.

And trust me, we’re just getting started.

Yerushalmi Kugel

16oz. fine egg noodles (see note)
1 cup canola oil + 1/4 cup to coat the pan
1 cup granulated sugar + 5 tbsp, divided
1 tbsp course grind black pepper
1 tbsp kosher salt
4 eggs

Method:

Cook the egg noodles until soft, drain and rinse lightly with water (we want some of those starches but we don’t want it to stick together). Transfer to a large mixing bowl. In a stainless steel skillet, combine 1 cup oil and 1 cup sugar. Stir over medium heat until the sugar darkens to a deep caramel and the oil starts to bubble, stirring constantly. The sugar will start to clump up at first, but be patient, it will melt again and start to turn golden, then darker, and finally amber. It is ok if the oil and sugar separate.

As soon as the oil starts to lightly bubble, pour the mixture over the noodles and stir immediately until fully coated and combined. Add the additional 5 tbsp sugar, black pepper and salt and stir until incorporated. Lightly beat the eggs and add them to the mixture, stirring to combine.

Place a round shallow pot with handles on the fire (this is essential because you’ll be flipping the kugel over) and add remaining 1/4 cup oil. Swirl around the pot, coating the bottom and sides. Once the oil is hot (you can test this by adding a noodle, it should sizzle immediately), pour the kugel mixture into it. Cook over medium heat until the bottom and sides of the kugel form a crust (lift gently with a spatula to check), about 10 minutes. Place a large plate over the pot and flip it over, then slide it back into the pot to fry the other side. Cook until the kugel is crusty on all sides, about 5-10 more minutes. Check that the kugel isn’t burning, but the more caramelized the crust, the better!

Serve hot or cold. Rest before slicing to give the kugel a chance to set.

NOTE: When my mom started making this kugel, they would sell 16oz. bags of lokshin. Now they come in 10oz or 12 oz. bags so you will need to use part of a second bag. Save the leftovers for chicken soup!

Related Recipes:

Orange Cardamom Noodle Kugel
Bubby’s Challah Kugel

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