matzo ball soup jewish penicillin

Roasted Chicken Matzo Ball Soup
Roasted Chicken Matzo Ball Soup

Roasted Chicken Matzo Ball Soup, Jew-ish: A Cookbook: Reinvented Recipes from a Modern Mensch by Jake Cohen. Photography by Matt Taylor-Gross.

Jew-ish: A Cookbook: Reinvented Recipes from a Modern Mensch

When you think of Jewish food, a few classics come to mind: chicken soup with matzo balls, challah, maybe a babka if you’re feeling adventurous. But as food writer and nice Jewish boy Jake Cohen demonstrates in this stunning debut cookbook, Jewish food can be so much more.

In Jew-ish, he reinvents the food of his Ashkenazi heritage and draws inspiration from his husband’s Persian-Iraqi traditions to offer recipes that are modern, fresh, and enticing for a whole new generation of readers. Imagine the components of an everything bagel wrapped into a flaky galette latke dyed vibrant yellow with saffron for a Persian spin on the potato pancake, best-ever hybrid desserts like Macaroon Brownies and Pumpkin Spice Babka! Jew-ish features elevated, yet approachable classics along with innovative creations, such as:

  • Jake’s Perfect Challah
  • Roasted Tomato Brisket
  • Short Rib Cholent
  • Iraqi Beet Kubbeh Soup
  • Cacio e Pepe Rugelach
  • Sabich Bagel Sandwiches, and
  • Matzo Tiramisu.

Jew-ish is a brilliant collection of delicious recipes, but it’s much more than that. As Jake reconciles ancient traditions with our modern times, his recipes become a celebration of a rich and vibrant history, a love story of blending cultures, and an invitation to gather around the table and create new memories with family, friends, and loved ones. (more…)

Chicken Soup (aka Jewish Penicillin)
Chicken Soup, Kosher Style by Amy Rosen, Photography by Ryan Szulc

Chicken Soup, Kosher Style by Amy Rosen, Photography by Ryan Szulc

In the Jewish culture, as in many others, bubbes, saftas and nanas are the matriarchs of the kitchen and thus the rulers of the roost. They are culinary giants in quilted polyester muumuus and silk slippers who know how to make the Semitic linchpins cherished from childhood—the kugel, the gefilte fish, the matzah ball soup and the crispy-skinned roasted chicken. They all have their specialties but, of course, they won’t be around to feed us forever, and that will be a loss indeed. But it will be an even bigger loss if the recipes we grew up on pass away with them, along with those special connections to our past.

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