By Joel Magalnick, JTNews Correspondent
Everyone expects that the big boxes of matzoh from the supermarket will taste like cardboard. It’s tradition! Even the shmurah matzoh, the special stuff created by hand to fulfill the requirements of a seder, don’t taste much better. The oversized crackers break so easily when trying to put on the simplest of spreads and make a huge mess.
So this year, instead of bothering with the mess and the headache, we decided to make our own instead. Something tasty, something fun, and something adhering to the laws of kashrut. In a word: tortillas!
The laws of kashrut in creating matzoh—particularly the lechem oni, the bread of affliction that is used to make a seder—are very strict. Given these laws, we decided it could still be done in the comfort of a familiar kitchen, provided we did everything correctly. So we gave it a shot.
One recent Sunday afternoon, I joined Seattle resident Tod Harrick, who went to great lengths to collect all of the equipment and necessary ingredients. Here’s the equipment we started with:
A stainless steel grain mill, previously unused—the one he bought is an attachment to his Kitchen-Aid mixer. It’s available at online kitchen stores, but since we needed it right away, we eventually found one at the Bon-Macy’s. Since wheat berries are so hard, a coffee grinder’s blades will dull right away. Spring for the good grain mill and don’t bother with hand-cranked unless you’re feeling particularly masochistic.
• Two glass bowls – glass can be kashered for Passover
• A glass measuring cup
• An unused pizza stone for baking. If you’ve used the stone for pizza already, it won’t be kosher for this purpose, and the stone is too porous to do anything about that.
• An unused cast-iron skillet. A skillet can be kashered for Passover if used for other purposes
• A brand new plastic spatula. If you don’t have metal, which can be kashered, the plastic spatula is cheap but useless for Passover if not bought specifically for the holiday. We found this out the hard way.
• Aluminum foil, for kneading and then wrapping the tortillas
• A stopwatch
The ingredients:
Unground wheat berries – enough to make 2-3/4 c. of flour per batch
3/4 c. room-temperature water
5 heaping tbsp. Kosher-for-Passover nyafat—in plain or onion flavor.
Eighteen minutes is the golden rule of making matzoh. The countdown begins the moment the wheat touches the water, because that’s the point when a chemical reaction takes place. If the tortillas are not mixed, kneaded and baked within that 18 minutes, they can’t be eaten.
Tod picked up the wheat berries from Whole Foods Market, though they should be available at PCC or other health food/gourmet stores. He called ahead so he could get the berries “directly from the bins they’re shipped in,” and not the plastic containers normally found in the bulk aisle. By doing so, he greatly reduced the chances that the wheat would be exposed to moisture.
To start, we heated the skillet on the stove and set the oven on the self-cleaning mode to let the pizza stone heat up and work out any residues. Tod downloaded an easy tortilla recipe from the Internet and adapted it to our kosher standards—meaning he substituted the nyafat for the lard.
Then we got to work. We measured out the ingredients beforehand, but kept them separate, and ran the wheat through the mill. Unlike regular white flour, which sifts out the germ, we actually get some vitamins and nutrients in our tortillas! Left in flour, the germ can go rancid after 72 hours.
As soon as the wheat was ground, we started the clock and got moving. We put the nyafat in first and kneaded with our hands. Then we mixed in the water and kneaded for two more minutes. Then we took chunks off, flattened them and rolled them with the side of a glass. An unused wooden rolling pin would also have done the trick.
Once rolled out, we put a few into the pan and a few into the oven, and let them cook.
The skillet method went much faster, but our taste tests concluded the slow baking from the oven made the tortillas taste better—and they were quite good.
We came within 30 seconds of losing our oven-baked tortillas, but got them out right in time.
After the 18 minutes were up, we wrapped our kosher tortillas in foil and stuck them in the freezer.
Except there was a problem.
As it turns out, the lechem oni can be made only from flour and water. What we had made was kosher for Passover, but not for the completion of the seder. So we did it again.
This time, however, we made sure to kasher the grain mill, glass bowls and utensils again, as well as the skillet.
Also, we were not as careful with our measurements. It wasn’t necessary. We mixed the flour and water together until we got a consistency of solid bread dough—not too grainy and not to floury.
Having been through the process before, things went much more smoothly and we were able to sling out even more tortillas than the first time we tried.
We made three large oven-baked tortillas, which Tod will use for his seder, and a boatload of smaller skillet-made tortillas for the rest of the meal.
The downside of the nyafat-free tortillas, unfortunately, is that they taste like matzoh, but seeing as how we had such a good time making it, does that really matter?
Tod had a few tips as well. One, he said, this should be done with friends or family. It’s good to have a second person to watch the time and help with the kneading. If you’re having the kids help, however, remember that the oven and stove will be very hot.
Also, clean towels are helpful to wash and dry the equipment. And, make sure you keep an eye on that spatula. If it touches something that isn’t kosher, it’s done for. Give it a try, though. If nothing else, it’s a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon!
Sink or float? What makes a good matzoh ball soup
When the Hebrews had to rush to leave Egypt, they had very little time, and could bring but a few of their belongings. The spirit of the exodus shows throughout the seder, from the bread of affliction to the soup we slurp—complete with balls made from the unleavened matzoh. Since that time, the merits of what makes a perfect matzoh ball have been discussed, debated, and delicatessened.
JTNews, which has been tuned into this millennia-old discussion for oh, say, the last three weeks, now brings the most recent of these arguments to you. So which is better? Matzoh balls that sink or matzoh balls that float? At last, you can decide.