Knishnaut: One is Not Like the Other

Left: Old & Busted. Right: Like Will Smith in MIB, it makes this style look good.

Knishes are baked...unless they are fried. Among the pizzaratti, there is something called the "Pizza Cognition Theory." It states that:

The first slice of pizza a child sees and tastes (and somehow appreciates on something more than a childlike, mmmgoood, thanks-mom level), becomes, for him, pizza. He relegates all subsequent slices, if they are different in some manner from that first triangle of dough and cheese and tomato and oil and herbs and spices, to a status that we can characterize as not pizza.

Now take out the word pizza, and insert the word knish. For the average New Yorker, the defining knish is not Mrs. Stahls, the same way most pizza-heads can't really claim Di Fara's as their ur-slice. For many (particularly non-Jewish) people, if they have an early, formative experience with a knish from the days before foodies and artisanal mayonnaise, it would be... this:

Deep fried squares, usually sold from a cart along side hot dogs, an echo of the time of knish-carts from the time of our grandparents. These are Gabila's knishes, a.k.a. Coney Island–style knishes, and while I may take time at a later point to delve into this history, only three things are of import here:

1. They are not too available on carts anymore due to DOH & Giuliani, but are still widely available in supermarkets.
2. They are fully enclosed in dough.
3. They are deep fried, not baked.

So a few days ago, in an attempt to eat healthier after eating way too much crap for the week before and few weeks after my son Lil' Knyshy was born, I decided to make some spinach knishes, strictly for home use. With some left over dough and some plain potato filling, I strapped on my knishnaut helmet and I went to work on exploring the outer reaches of what my knishtchen could produce....

Mandatory nudie knish pic, you pervert.

Well, it's square--so, square I made it. Well, rectangular, anyway. It's hip to be a square, and it's post modern to be a rectangle.

For ODB, as he likes his knishes raw.

Then I folded it up, used a bench scraper to seal the edges and then....

Little did he know that it was not a Jacuzzi...

In culinary school, we spent weeks on each method of cooking -- sautéeing & pan frying, roasting & baking, poaching & braising, curing & smoking & more. Only one method got a single solitary day: deep frying. In the lecture part of the class, the chef explained that if you have your time and temp right in deep fry, you are pretty much guaranteed to come out delicious -- and that's why the combination of fancy egg-timer-technology and non-trained high school drop outs can make perfect french fries at McDonalds for 50+ years all over the globe.

But a handmade knish does not come with time and temp instructions, so I had to wing it. Using a quart of peanut oil (peanut, because it has a high smoke point) that I zapped up really hot -- 500 degrees (french fries go good at around 450), I decided to just eyeball the frying until it looked about right. Unlike fried chicken, I would not have to worry about pre-cooked innards being raw, and a higher fry temp would prevent much oil from being absorbed by my knish.

Boil, boil, toil & trouble.

The knish started looking pretty golden at about 30 seconds, and I let it go for another 15 to get some nice mahogany spots all over the crust, guaranteeing some nice brown flavor. I cut it open, and it was nice and hot on the inside.

I am an American. If you deep fry it, I've been trained to automatically like it. When I went to try this knish, I was thinking, "Well, I didn't make any consideration for this method -- I'm using the same dough and the same filling as a baked knish, so let's pay attention to how this needs to be adjusted." After taking a bite, my only thought was, "Oh my. I need to take another bite." And my second thought was, "If my grandma was from Mumbai instead of Israel, this would be her very oniony, very underspiced samosa." And my third thought was, "Oh shut up, stop thinking so much, this is kinda good." I have a few ideas for improvements, but this was a very auspicious Coney-style knish v 1.0.

I had a few Gabila's knishes lying around (because if you are a Knishman, Rule 38.3 of the Lifestyle Code dictates you must always have a few Gabilas lying around) so I put them down, head to head.

Two generations.

Which one would you like to eat?

ADDENDUM: I was hoping to do a round of holiday knishes for special order for Hanukkah/Xmas/New Years ever for special order, like I did for Thanksgiving. While making this recent round of knishes, I took responsibility for caring for Lil Knyshy:

Lil' Knishy rides a bouncy table full o' Spinach Knishes

Caring for an infant while making 72+ knishes is like working with one hand tied behind your back. It took me a little longer, but all the knishes came out to my satisfaction, and in the evening I got into mad-scientist mode with the boiling oil after everyone went to sleep.

However, the preschool my toddler attends was put on emergency hiatus (another story for a non-food-blog post) and for the next two weeks I will have two arms and one leg tied up plus a rope around my waist tying me to a cranky radiator. So I will be forced to skip this holiday season and focus on some winter holidays -- please check out the poll on this blog as well as our Facebook page.

Thanks to everyone for their support!

Cabbages, cabbages

Recently, I got an random email:

If you can even approximate a Mrs. Stahl's Cabbage Knish (Brighton Beach) you'll have a devoted customer for life. Please advise.

The Eggcreamer, Encino, CA

I replied:

Oh man. I grew up on Mrs. Stahl's, but because I was a kid, I only had access to what my parents would buy, and that did not include cabbage!!

Though I have not rolled them out yet, I have tinkered with a cabbage knish -- it's one of the few fillings that are as old and traditional as potato and kasha (and I keep a steady supply of home made 2nd Ave Deli-recipe health salad in the fridge.)

Could you do me a favor? Describe to me, in as much detail as you can muster, everything you can remember about a Mrs. Stahl's cabbage knish, and next time I take a crack at it, I'll keep what you say in mind. Thanks!

-N

Anyone else out there have fond memories of a favorite cabbage knish? Though I love cabbage, I never had a cabbage knish that I would campaign for President of the Knish Klub...

Is Tablet Magazine calling me a Fatty McFatfat?!

I'm not doughy, I'm big boned!

Thanksgiving Pumpkin Knishes: Thank you!

A hot steaming pile of pumpkin.

My wife has a friend who once insisted that it was not possible to make a pumpkin pie from anything other than canned pumpkin. And that may be true, but I don't want my knish to taste like pie!

Anyway, thanks to everyone who ordered knishes -- we cooked close to our 1 day capacity, and everyone either came to HQ to pick up or were where they said they were going to be when I delivered in the afternoon and early evening.

Pumpkin knishes in search of yo turkey n' gravy.

So far all the feedback I received from the front lines of people's Thanksgiving tables have been good vibes -- if you had our pumpkin knishes, feel free to gimme a shout and give me a piece of your mind.

Until we start selling at some fairs in the Spring, the mind ponders....what holiday knishes can we sling next?....

Pre-order Pumpkin Knishes for Thanksgiving!

You can't keep a good knish down! It's savory (not sweet), full of big pumpkin flavor and spicing, and held together with the thin crisp/chewy/potato-y knish crust that'll make your Thanksgiving folk kvell!

So I recently got some feedback from a customer who sampled the pumpkin knishes at our Knishening event; she wants to serve those same knishes at her Thanksgiving table. It's hard to say no to someone who's excited about one's own product, so I decided to warm up the oven and make the following announcement:

Knishery NYC is baking pumpkin knishes for Thanksgiving this weekend! Place your order by Friday, November 18th, and you will be able to either pick them up on Sunday, between 11 am to 12pm, on the Lower East Side or have them delivered to your door Sunday afternoon and early evening.*

• 1-9 pumpkin knishes: $3 each + tax
• 10-19 pumpkin knishes $2.50 each + tax
• 20+ pumpkin knishes: $2 each + tax

Cash only at point of pick up/delivery. They will arrive cold, and will hold up in the refrigerator quite well until Thanksgiving. [Reheat in oven at 300 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes before serving.]

To order, email knisherynyc(at)gmail.com; you will receive a confirmation email. We have limited capacity; orders placed will be filled first come, first serve.

Pumpkin knishes are vegetarian and dairy-free, not vegan (due to eggs) or gluten-free (due to wheat.) Depending on availability, they are 50 to 95% made with organic ingredients.

*Delivery zone limited to anywhere in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. Deliveries to be made via the knisher's own cargo bicycle. So here is your chance to meet KnisheryNYC in 3-D! Rough delivery times assigned the day before delivery. In case of scheduling issues, limited deliveries can be made on Monday. No extra charge for delivery. So be nice, not a nudgenik!

Explorations in Kasha

Kasha, all the way

With the left over dough from the last round, I decided to play with some kasha. Don't really have a formal recipe yet, so here goes:

• 1 box of course granulation kasha (13 oz), cooked to directions, plus 2 extra egg yolks in the toasting stage (yield about 8 cups cooked)
• 4 cups chopped caramelized onions
• 1 cup shortening
• 8 whole eggs, lightly beaten
• 2 teaspoon salt
• Eggwash (whole egg and water) to coat

Which all looks like:

What a whole box of kasha wrought

400 degrees in the oven, convection setting, for 40 minutes. They came out pleasingly golden. I tasted the mix for salt before moving forward, but the baking changes things -- the eggs firms it up, the fat gets absorbed by the grain, the mouthful is mixed with the crust. Upon eating one the next day, was very happy to find the final product pleasingly fluffy and savory, the opposite of the dense, grainy, crumbly kasha knishes I've had in the past. Still had that buckwheat flavor, but...elevated. Hmmmm. I wonder what other people will think.

Wanna here something nasty? You just wanna hear about that nasty Ham & Swiss thing at the top. You're all the same. I had enough dough and space in the oven after using up the kasha for two more knishes. No chocolate in the house thanks to a very pregnant wife, and the mac n' cheese in the fridge is kid-friendly knish-repellent Kraft dinner.

But looking at the supplies on hand for my kid, I have some freshly sliced cold cuts and cheeses for variety on her dinner plate. Thin-sliced Swiss cheese and thin-sliced country ham. Hmmmm. Ham & Swiss in a pressed sandwich, panini or croque monsieur is an obvious. The rough n' tumble potato dough might be a good match. So to each standard sized knish dough, I crumpled two slices of ham, 2 halves of a Swiss slice, and a dollop of caramelized onion. And....

Ham & Swiss Knish...nikkit!!

As you can see by the top pic, it came out looking nice. I would have maybe reduced cooking time by 5 to 10, but the only thing that actually burned was a little onion peeking out the top, and it actually gave a very mature, smokey overtone to the whole mess. I really enjoyed it much more than I should have, but I think it needs work. My ideas:

• Cubed precooked meat (turkey, pastrami, something a little less trief)
• Cubed cheese (Swiss is a gimme, gotta explore eastern European cheeses more)
• In the interest of respecting Jewish custom, maybe some hashbrown-styled cubed potato for instead of cheese.
• Onion as condiment is a winner. There is a certain umami that could do some of the heavy lifting cheese usually does.Maybe pre-mustardize the insides, too.

And the money shot:

You can call me Ms. Jackson.

I had dinner with my Knish Rabbi last week, who was not amused by this very nontraditional mix. It's not that she's particularly against trief things or doesn't find a warm n' gooey ham & cheese unappealing, it's that it kind of dilutes the Jewish identity of what a knish is. I'm not kosher myself, and I don't plan to immediately court of the kosher marketplace, but she does have a very good point that I can't help but feel has something crucial to it. More thought and study is required.

ADDENDUM:
This post was written last week, but was delayed in posting due to the appearance of one particular, peculiar, and distinctly piping fresh knish:

Baby Knish, limited edition of 1. Much rarer than the McRib.

 All is well, and knish baking to resume sooner than, uh, my wife realizes....

Knishnaut: Peanut Butter Chocolate

Person 1: "Hey! You got PB& chocolate in my knish!" Person 2: "Hey! You got knish in my PB & chocolate!"

 Having fully recovered from the Knishening this past weekend, the main thing on the to-do list was....make more knishes. A full quart of left over potato filling needed attending to, and with the help of a bag o' the green stuff, I popped out a couple dozen potato and spinach/roasted garlic samples to get off to various people who might be able to help KNYC in the spring. However, there was the vexing question of enough filling for 24 knishes but enough dough for 25....

They're so innocent and full of potential when they're young.

I'm not about to cook a whole batch of some filling prevent the waste of one little scrap of dough, so I go hunting - bubbe style: I search for left overs. The mac n' cheese made from scratch on Wednesday have already been devoured by certain unnamed members of my family, so I was gonna have to go deeper. I did have a handful of chocolate chips.... but not enough to fill a knish.

Peanut butter goes well with chocolate, and when I have limited amounts of chocolate, PB is a good extender. I took out a work bowl, threw down one heaping table spoon of natural peanut butter. To it, a teaspoon of shortening, a teaspoon of sugar, one egg yolk, a pinch of salt, and a double pinch of flour. Tossed in the chips, rolled it into a ball, wrapped it in knish dough like it wasn't an unwelcome guest to the party, and into the oven after the egg wash.

That's the way this knish crumbles.

 The ingredients I laid down, in different proportions, could be three things: peanut butter chocolate pie, peanut butter chocolate cookie, or peanut butter chocolate fudge. What came out was somewhere between pie and cookie -- surprisingly light, moist, delicate, rich but not overwhelming. The glutenous potato-based dough wasn't a great match for it, but the flakier sweet knish dough I use would probably work fine. But it got me thinking:

I'm not a huge fan of fudge, its most common occurrence is in poor quality at tourist traps. But fresh fudge made with the right ingredients can be delightful, except for its form factor: it comes in ungainly cubical blocks that have to be held with paper, or fudgy shmears are guaranteed on your fingers. If said fudge were contained on 2 or 3 sides by a nice thin sweet knish dough....now THAT could be like Mr. Nathan introducing hot dog to bun! Well, maybe not, but a knishman can dream....