Southern Fried and Syrian Passover

The real secret to good fried chicken is the marinade and authentic southern fried chicken is marinated in buttermilk. Since we keep kosher, I had to find another alternative to achieve the same tenderizing effect that buttermilk produces….. lemon juice. And, since we are not allowed to use flour during Passover, I used matza meal instead, and although it doesn’t stick as well as flour, it worked beautifully. This produces a nice lemony-garlic fried chicken. It is definitely finger licking good.

My husband decided to surprise me this Passover with a bag of potato flour. I have never cooked with potato flour in my life and cannot remember anyone in my family using it. So, I wanted to find something interesting to make with it. I once had a cake made with potato flour and really disliked the texture. I remembered seeing a recipe once for crepes made with potato flour and decided to marry those with a Syrian meat filling I found from Poopa Dweck. She just wrote a beautiful cookbook about Syrian Jewish cooking and I must buy this book. I saw it at our local bookstore and it has my name all over it. The meat filling is called Hashu and it is typically used to fill vegetables. My husband adapted the recipe by adding pomegranate molasses and hot paprika. It is delicious and worked nicely with my chive crepes.

How do you like the kosher squid to the right of the crepe? That is my husband trying to be clever with the leftover crepe batter. 🙂

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Syrian Passover Meat Crepes

This recipe is adapted from Aromas of Aleppo: The Legendary Cuisine of Syrian Jews by Poopa Dweck.

Ingredients

For the crepes:

• 4 Tablespoons potato starch
• 1 cup water
• 4 eggs
• 3 tablespoons of chopped fresh chives
• Salt and Pepper
• Olive oil

For the Hashu (Aleppian Ground Meat and Rice Filling)

• 500 g 1 pound lean ground beef
• 1/3 cup short-grain rice white or brown
• 2 teaspoons ground allspice
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1-1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon hot paprika
• 2 tablespoons pomegranate molasses
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
• 1 onion finely chopped (1/2 cup)
• 1 cup pine nuts
• 1/4 cup water

Instructions

For the crepes:

1. In a small bowl, slowly add the water to the potato flour and mix thoroughly. Add the potato flour mixture, chives salt, and pepper to the beaten eggs and mix well. Heat a non-stick crepe pan over medium heat. When hot, add a little oil to coat pan. Stir batter and ladle about 4 tablespoons into the skillet. Immediately swirl batter to spread the pan.? Cook until bottom is light brown. Flip crepe and cook for about 1 minute until speckled. Fill the crepes with about 3 tablespoons of the meat filling and roll. Heat rolled crepes in a 150C (300F) oven for about 5 minutes or on a Shabbat plate until heated through. Do not over cook.
2. 

For the Hashu (Aleppian Ground Meat and Rice Filling)

1. Soak rice in cool water, enough to cover, for 30 minutes. Drain.
2. Combine all ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Mix well with your hands. Add the meat mixture to a frying pan, add water and start breaking the meat in to small pieces. Cover until the rice is cooked through for approximately 10 minutes.