Geo wrote:Those things are freaky good. Anyone know anything about them? Is this just a Montréal thing??


Geo

I think it's just a Montreal thing. I noticed the matzo when I visited Fairmont last summer, but I was there at an off hour and they didn't have any in stock for me to try. I've never run into a matzo board anywhere else.

toria wrote:It seems to me that matzo and saltine crackers are somewhat similar. But matzo has a harder texture to it.

Toria,

Not similar at all. Saltine crackers are high fat and contain butter or other fat as well as milk. Matzo is simply flour, water and sometimes salt. Saltines are made from a "short " dough with the fat cut in, which is why they're more tender/crumbly than matzo.

boudreaulicious,

Your seder dinner sounds fantastic.

In my family, we made Matzo brei savory but with a touch of cinnamon. My own version has evolved over the years: just butter, lightly moistened matzo, beaten egg, salt, pepper and touch of cinnamon. Years ago, I'd add fried onion and cook it in schmaltz. Steve's version sounds great, but I've evolved towards a simpler rendition. Once in a while, I will have some strawberry preserves with it,

"Isn’t there any other part of the matzo you can eat?"

— Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962), American actress, on being served matzo ball soup three meals in a row

Every year, after Passover, I would buy a box or two of matzohs. My favorite way to eat them was spread with a good butter and lightly salted and peppered.

My DW stopped by a Jewel two years back and bought a full CASE a couple years back ... I do not want to think about matzohs for a year or two.

razbry wrote:Wow boudreaulicious, thank you for the invitation. I would love to come next year!

We look forward to having you join us!

This was by far my favorite Seder ever. Everything worked. Lots of laughter. Only a few tears (good gawd BR, where did they grow that horseradish!!!!!) No-Schmaltzo balls. Last-minute save by EvA's Gefilte fish pâté. A wonderful table full of friends. AND homemade matzo!! Can't wait til next year.

boudreaulicious wrote:Last-minute save by EvA's Gefilte fish pâté.

stevez wrote:I'm a matzo brei savory guy all the way. Usually with salami & onions (and eggs).

Agree, breakfast this morning. Though I added red and green pepper.

Suiname wrote:Does anyone know where to buy Matzah Farfale, preferably on the northside of Chicago? My gf is looking for some for a passover dish she is making, but we couldn't find any at the local supermarkets. I suspect the jewel on howard and dominicks on mccormick may have them since they usually have all sorts of jewish/kosher fare, but if anyone else has any suggestions fire away.

Most of the places with a big Passover section should have matzo farfel, but if you can't find it, all it is matzo broken into quarter-inch pieces. You can make it yourself by put some matzo in a plastic bag and running a rolling pin over it.

Gypsy Boy wrote:We didn't have it covered in maple syrup (which sounds wonderful) but we always had it sweet (sprinkled with sugar), never savory. Looking back, savory is such a logical way to use it, I wonder why it never occurred. I have to think that how any given family is used to eating it is likely to depend upon where the family is from in the old country/ies. Just like regional food anywhere, I imagine that people in certain areas had matzo brei sweet and others had it savory. Does anyone know?

There is another whole thread about uses for matzo and matzo brei, with my family recipe. My family always did savory with onions, but then drizzled with a bit of sweet syrup. (It was raspberry syrup in my youth because we had that to mix with seltzer in the days before soda pop was kosher for Passover. I usually use maple, now.)

The sweet-savory dividing line is the same as for gefilte fish, Galitzianer vs. Litvak.

On the subject of homemade matzo, while it tastes wonderful, and I doubt anyone who's making it cares at all, just for the record, homemade matzos are chometz, not kosher for Passover -- not even if you make them within the 18-minute limit -- and they do not fulfill the requirement for Jews to eat matzo during the holiday.

To be kosher, matzo must be made under rabbinical supervision from flour that has been supervised from harvest through milling. Technically, you aren't even allowed to have flour in your house during Passover. While I doubt the ancient Hebrews had time to inspect their grain to be sure it hadn't come in contact with moisture as they fled Egypt, in the thousands of years since then, rabbis have added in a lot of extra rules. Call it rabbinical employment security.

Haaretz wrote:“I have never allowed anyone to bake their own matza. It is not kosher.” said Rabbi Zev Schechter, director of the Metropolitan Rabbinical Kashrut Association in Washington, or Metro-K.

When there used to be a shmura matzo factory in Chicago, they allowed people to come in and make their own matzos using their flour and ovens, but, alas, it is long closed. There may be somewhere like it in New York, but not here.

Geo wrote:They make a delight they simply call "matzo", but which I think is more properly called matzo board —it's very hard-surfaced, crunchy, addictive. While she won't eat their bagels, TODG has been known to eat so many of the poppy seed matzo boards that she gets a high (or at least claims she does!) from the poppy seeds.

Those things are freaky good. Anyone know anything about them? Is this just a Montréal thing?

I think what you're describing is the same thing that kosher bakeries elsewhere call "pletzels." In Chicago, these are fairly thick, stiff flatbreads, but in Detroit, where I grew up, they were thin and crisp, coated with poppyseeds and onions, and had the alternate name of "onion boards."

Kaufmann's pletzel is far from a flatbread, it's basically focaccia (fokosheria?)

JoelF wrote:Kaufmann's pletzel is far from a flatbread, it's basically focaccia (fokosheria?)

There appears to be a wide variation, from thick and foccacia-like to thin and crisp.

The Bialy and Pletzel wrote:

This looks like the "everything" flat bread that I recently bought in the grocery store.