1,000 Jewish Recipes (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "The springtime festival of Passover takes place in late March or in April and lasts for eight days..." (more)
Key Phrases: heavy stew pan, fork until grains, hot pepper chutney, Rosh Hashanah, Middle Eastern, Sephardic Jews (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Faye Levy is passionate about Jewish cooking. Encouraged by her mother, who came from Warsaw to the U.S. and is now living in Israel; by her mother-in-law, born in Yemen and also living in Israel; and by their extended families, who cover the globe, Levy has an enthusiasm for her subject that is inspirational. Her rich culinary heritage ensures that no one is forgotten. Although most Jewish dishes can be roughly described as belonging to one of the two major branches of Jewish culture and cuisine--the mostly European Ashkenazim and the Spanish and Mediterranean Sephardim--the recipes she has included go far beyond these two traditions. No Jewish cookbook would be complete without recipes for gefilte fish, potato latkes, and honey challah, but with 1,000 opportunities to make your mouth water, Levy gets creative with recipes like a Moroccan Cucumber and Pepper Salad with Fresh Mint, an Italian Eggplant Caponata, and the quintessential Alsatian coffeecake, Kugelhopf.

Levy explains in her remarkably informative introduction that the customs of the Jewish festivals strongly influence Jewish cooking, so she uses the festivals as one way to divide up this mammoth collection. The volume begins with a comprehensive chapter on each of the major festivals, with recipes for starters, main courses, vegetarian dishes, side dishes, and desserts appropriate for or inspired by each holiday. While Creamy Raspberry Blintzes and Apple Cinnamon Noodle Kugel with Sour Cream may come as no surprise in the Shavuot section, Barley Tabbouleh, Striped Vegetable Terrine, and a Creamy Onion Soufflé are welcome additions to ancient traditions. Levy has collected these recipes from Jewish cooks all over the world and the results are clear and concise, the way your mother (and The Joy of Cooking) would share a favorite dish. Dvora's Bright and Easy Pepper Salad, for instance, begins with a charming nod to Dvora, a Moroccan-born relative of Levy's husband, we learn, who serves this during Succoth; the recipe goes on to list just a handful of ingredients and no-nonsense instructions.

While 1,000 Jewish Recipes may be the perfect reference cookbook for anyone interested in Jewish cooking, it is also, quite simply, a fabulous collection of recipes. Oven-Braised Short Ribs in Hot and Sweet Tomato Sauce, Hungarian White Bean Soup, French-Style Couscous with Wild Mushrooms, and Chocolate-Pecan Rugelach are all sure to be crowd pleasers. For those cooks particularly interested in the mores of Jewish cooking, there is a short section on keeping kosher, and every recipe is categorized as dairy, meat, or neither (pareve). --Leora Y. Bloom

Product Description

A celebration of Jewish kosher cooking and tradition, this expert cookbook offers all the recipes and information any cook needs to celebrate Passover, Rosh Hashanah, and many other Jewish holidays. 1,000 Jewish Recipes includes:

• Instructions for maintaining a kosher kitchen
• Information on the delicious culinary heritage of Jewish cultures
• Tempting and easy-to-follow recipes such as Three-Cheese Knishes and Old-Fashioned Roast Chicken.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 656 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (September 15, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0028623371
• ISBN-13: 978-0028623375
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.8 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #235,307 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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  #45 in	Books > Cooking, Food & Wine > Special Diet > Kosher
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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Winner of the 2000 National Jewish Book Award, March 7, 2001

By	Larry Mark "editor of MyJewishBooks.com" (nyc) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Winner of the National Jewish Book Award 2000 (awarded March 2001). Ms Levy is a syndicated columnist with the LA Times and an experienced cookbook author. Her book contains new and classic Jewish recipes for life and nearly every holiday and Shabbat. It also includes 23 sample menus. Each recipe is tagged with either a (P)areve, (M)eat, or (D)airy tag. Chapters include those for Passover, Shavuot, the High Holidays, Sukkot, Hanukkah, Purim, Shabbat, and Appetizers, Salads, Soups, Dairy Specialties, Fish, Poultry, Meats, Vegetarian and Pareve Main Courses, Veg. Side Dishes, Noodle and Pasta dishes, Rice and Grain dishes, Breads, Desserts, and a section of basics, including flavorings, sauces, and 10 different types of stocks. Recipes among the 1,000 that I found most interesting including Persian Pear and Banana Haroset for Pesach; Farefl Stuffing with leeks and Carrots; Passover Turkey Schnitzel (incorrectly tagged as Pareve; it is meat); Onion Matza Brei; Spinach and Cottage Cheese Noodle Kugel; Macaroni and Cheese Kugel; Beet Salad with Apples and OJ; Gefilte Fish; Sea Bass with Saffron and Tomato Sauce; Turkey Tzimmes with Sweet Potatoes; Adi Levy's Kibbutz Honey Chicken (you partially roast it, then glaze it with soy and honey); a Meingue Topping; Sephardic Spinach Cakes; Queen Esther's Salad (lettuce, nuts and seeds to eat in the palace); Haman's Fingers; Alsatian Jewish Sauerkraut with Meat; Alsatian Kugelhopf cake; Mock Chopped Liver (one with cashews, one with lentils); Spicy Moroccan Fish Stew; Chicken with Olives; a Friday night Chicken with Cumin Tumeric and Pepper; two dafinas and eight cholents; Miami Style Sweet Potato Puree; at least six chopped liver recipes, 7 hummus, 7 knish, 6 matzo ball (one which is matzo and cholesterol free), 13 challah, 8 bagel, 4 pita, one dozen blintzes, and 5 potato salad recipes; and one for Egyptian Jewish Okra Salad. Now you can see why it won the award.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Comprehensive and contemporary, March 7, 2002

By A Customer

A very comprehensive and contemporary cookbook featuring traditional kosher cuisine and new classics. Includes all types of kosher cuisine (Sephardic, Ashkenazic, European, etc.). An excellent all around cookbook to have--our family cookbook "bible". I am not generally too fond of her cake recipes, but the "My Favorite Cheesecake" is fabulous! A must for the modern kosher cook!

26 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Misleading Title, July 10, 2001

By	Celia Lemonik "celial" (Great Neck, NY United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I am a former kosher food columnist and was somewhat disappointed in this large and expensive tome with the promising title. Faye Levy lives in Israel and this is really a comprehensive overview of the various Israeli styles of cooking, with a few French-style (she trained in France) and Ashkenazi recipes (from her family) thrown in. Most of the recipes don't sound either particularly exciting or easy to make and her prose is, well pretty prosaic, so it's not a good armchair book either.

A better title would be 1000 Kosher Recipes, although it probably wouldn't sell as well. If you're a big fan of Israeli cuisine, you might find this book useful. If you're expecting more of the traditional East-European and American-Jewish fare, pass it up.