Yes­ter­day, Rae and Noah Bernamoff wrote about how they went from sling­ing smoked meat to writ­ing a cook­book. Today, Noah writes about an upcom­ing some of their upcom­ing events, plus shares some great chal­lah recipes. They will be blog­ging here all week for Jew­ish Book Coun­cil and MyJew­ish­Learn­ing.

Last year in Berke­ley, Rae and I attend­ed the Deli Sum­mit to dis­cuss the direc­tion of Jew­ish food and deli cul­ture, and since then we’ve been work­ing on a way to con­tin­ue the con­ver­sa­tion. On Octo­ber 12th we’ll be host­ing a Shab­bat din­ner for the NYC Wine and Food Fes­ti­val and we’ve invit­ed friends from around the coun­try to join us in prepar­ing an epic nine-course meal. It only seems fit­ting since the Shab­bat table and my Nana Lee’s kitchen are my very first mem­o­ries of food and cook­ing — Me, sit­ting on the counter, her, pre­sid­ing over the stove like any great chef. That sense of time, place, and rit­u­al gave mean­ing to my fam­i­ly’s week as the Shab­bat table has for so many Jews, both sec­u­lar and reli­gious. It is a place to ask ques­tions, to air griev­ances, to express grat­i­tude, and some­times, to sim­ply close the week at peace with a warm bowl of chick­en soup. I hope this Fri­day’s oppor­tu­ni­ty to gath­er around our Shab­bat table will bring to light the poten­tial for Jew­ish cook­ing as food that we eat dur­ing spe­cial occa­sions and every­day at home. Sim­i­lar­ly, we wish to inspire those attend­ing to ques­tion the core of Jew­ish food­ways and to strength­en their com­mit­ment to its survival.

The next day, on Sat­ur­day Octo­ber 13th, along with Tablet Mag­a­zine and ABC Home we’re pre­sent­ing the Future of Jew­ish Food, a tast­ing and talk with the country’s fore­most prac­ti­tion­ers, thinkers and crit­ics. From 5:30 — 9 PM at the ABC Home Mez­za­nine we’ll bring togeth­er Gail Sim­mons, Mitchell Davis, Jor­dana Roth­man and Josh Ozer­sky for a pan­el mod­er­at­ed by Joan Nathan about Jew­ish food in the home and then we’ll have a sec­ond pan­el with the deli men from Wise Sons (SF), Ken­ny & Zuke’s (PDX), Saul’s (Berke­ley), and Mile End mod­er­at­ed by David Sax. Unlike the night before where the food will do the talk­ing, this dis­cus­sion is an amaz­ing gath­er­ing of some of the finest prac­ti­tion­ers of Jew­ish cook­ing — peo­ple who have com­mit­ted them­selves to exam­in­ing and cel­e­brat­ing our rich culi­nary his­to­ry while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly inno­vat­ing and mov­ing for­ward the con­ver­sa­tion about its future. With a vari­ety of opin­ions and per­spec­tives, I’m expect­ing a very live­ly conversation. 

After all the eat­ing and talk­ing there will be more eat­ing with a tast­ing of house made pas­tra­mi and smoked meat from each of the delis plus a book sign­ing with all of the panelists.

To read more and pur­chase tick­ets for the Shab­bat din­ner, please vis­ithttp://​nycwine​and​food​fes​ti​val​.com/​e​/​m​i​l​e​_​e​n​d​_​s​h​a​b​b​a​t​_​d​i​n​n​er-15 and to read more and pur­chase tick­ets for Sat­ur­day’s dis­cus­sion, please vis­it future​of​jew​ish​food​.com.

Recipe: Twice-Baked Challah

Serves 4

Noah: Like so many deli­cious foods, this chal­lah was born of thrift and neces­si­ty. We found that on any giv­en morn­ing we had plen­ty of left­over chal­lah, but not enough room on our grid­dle to make French toast with it. So we took a cue from the French boulan­gerie tra­di­tion of using day-old brioche for a sweet pas­try and came up with a rich syrup and top­ping for the bread that would take well to bak­ing. We like to serve it with fruit Com­pote (page 193). (Note: You can make the top­ping ahead and refrig­er­ate it for up to five days; the syrup will keep in the refrig­er­a­tor for up to a week.)

For the syrup:
½ cup sug­ar
1 cup water
½ cup orange juice
½ table­spoon vanil­la extract
1 cup maple syrup, plus more for serv­ing

For the top­ping:
½ cup (1 stick) unsalt­ed but­ter, at room tem­per­a­ture
½ pound almond paste, bro­ken into pieces
½ cup sliv­ered almonds, plus more for gar­nish
¼ tea­spoon almond extract
2 large eggs, at room tem­per­a­ture
½ cup all-pur­pose f lour
1 cup dried cher­ries
8 1‑inch-thick slices of stale Chal­lah (recipe fol­lows), prefer­ably day-old or old­er

Make the syrup: Com­bine the sug­ar, water, orange juice, vanil­la, and maple syrup in a medi­um saucepan and bring to a boil, stir­ring occa­sion­al­ly. Remove the pan from the heat and let cool; set the syrup mix­ture aside.

Make the top­ping: Put the but­ter in the bowl of a stand mix er and, using the pad­dle attach­ment, mix on medi­um speed for a few sec­onds. Add the almond paste and mix on low speed for a few sec­onds, scrap­ing down the sides of the bowl. Mix on medi­um speed until the mix­ture comes togeth­er, about 1 minute. Add the sliced almonds and mix on medi­um speed for 20 to 30 sec­onds, stop­ping to scrape down the bowl if nec­es­sary. While the mix­er is still run­ning, add the almond extract and mix until it’s incor­po­rat­ed, a few sec­onds more.

In a sep­a­rate bowl, beat the eggs and then restart the mix­er at medi­um speed. While the mix­er is run­ning, slow­ly pour in the eggs; con­tin­ue mix­ing until they’re ful­ly incor­po­rat­ed, about 30 sec­onds. Add the flour and mix on low speed for about 30 sec­onds more. Add the dried cher­ries and use a spat­u­la to fold them in by hand.

Assem­ble and bake the chal­lah: Pre­heat the oven to 350°F and line a 10-by-15-inch bak­ing sheet with parch­ment or grease it with canola oil or cook­ing spray.

Quick­ly dunk the slices of chal­lah into the syrup mix­ture, shake off any excess, and lay them on the pre­pared bak­ing sheet. Spread about ½ cup of the top­ping onto each slice of chal­lah, dis­trib­ut­ing it all the way to the edges of the bread. Sprin­kle with sliv­ered almonds.

Bake the chal­lah, rotat­ing the tray 180 degrees halfway through cook­ing, until gold­en brown, about 20 min­utes. Serve either warm or at room tem­per­a­ture, and for extra sweet­ness driz­zle some maple syrup over the chal­lah before serv­ing.

Tip: It’s impor­tant to use stale bread; it should be crisp to the touch. You can even slice the chal­lah and leave it out to dry overnight.

Recipe: Chal­lah

Serves 4

Noah: The best chal­lahs, in my opin­ion, are the ones that strad­dle bread and cake; they should have a sweet, super-moist crumb — you should be able to squish a piece into a dense lit­tle square, like my sis­ter and I used to do as kids — and a glossy crust. It’s a cel­e­bra­to­ry Shab­bos bread, after all. The chal­lah dough also makes our Plet­zel and our Cin­na­mon Buns. This recipe will yield just the right amount of dough for either of those prepa­ra­tions, though you can also eas­i­ly dou­ble the recipe and divide the dough into two batch­es pri­or to ris­ing. Left­over chal­lah is also great for French toast and for its deli­cious cousin, Twice-Baked Chal­lah.

1¼ cups luke­warm water
1 large egg, at room tem­per­a­ture
1 large egg yolk, at room tem­per­a­ture
2 tea­spoons instant yeast
1 table­spoon canola oil
¼ cup sug­ar
4 cups bread f lour
1 tea­spoon Dia­mond Crys­tal kosher salt
1 addi­tion­al large egg, beat­en, for the egg wash (if mak­ing a braid­ed loaf)
¼ cup sesame seeds or pop­py seeds (if mak­ing a braid­ed loaf)

Make the dough: Com­bine the water, egg, egg yolk, yeast, oil, and sug­ar in the bowl of a stand mix­er; whisk the ingre­di­ents by hand for a few sec­onds until com­bined. Add the flour and salt and, using the mixer’s dough-hook attach­ment, mix on medi­um speed until the dough comes togeth­er, 3 to 5 min­utes. (You can add a lit­tle more f lour if the dough seems too sticky.)

Let the dough rest in the bowl for 5 min­utes, then con­tin­ue mix­ing, sprin­kling on more flour if nec­es­sary and stop­ping once or twice to scrape down the dough hook and the sides of the bowl, until the dough is fair­ly smooth, 3 to 5 min­utes more.

On a well-floured sur­face, roll and tight­en the dough into a ball. If you’re freez­ing the dough, wrap the ball of dough tight­ly in plas­tic wrap and place it in the freez­er; it will keep there for up to 1 month. If you’re going to make the chal­lah (or plet­zel or cin­na­mon buns) right away, place the dough in a bowl that’s light­ly greased with oil or cook­ing spray, cov­er the bowl tight­ly with plas­tic wrap, and let the dough rest in a warm, draft-free area until rough­ly dou­bled in size, about 2 hours, before pro­ceed­ing with the recipe.

If you’re mak­ing a Pull­man loaf, shape the dough: Trans­fer the dough ball to a well-floured sur­face and press and stretch it into a rough­ly 10-by-8-inch rec­tan­gle. With the short edge of the rec­tan­gle fac­ing you, start rolling the dough for­ward into a cylin­der. Coat your hands with f lour a few times if nec­es­sary to keep the dough from stick­ing to them. Tuck in any loose edges or ends so that you have a snug, even-sided loaf; trans­fer the rolled dough to a stan­dard-size loaf pan that’s greased with oil or cook­ing spray. Light­ly grease the top of the loaf and cov­er the pan with plas­tic wrap; let the dough rest in the pan in a warm, draft-free area until it has risen rough­ly to the top edge of the pan, about 1½ hours.

If you’re mak­ing a braid­ed loaf, shape the dough: Trans­fer the dough ball to a well-floured sur­face and divide it into 3 equal por­tions. Work­ing with 1 por­tion at a time (and using plen­ty of f lour to keep the dough from stick­ing), use the f lat of your hands to roll the dough por­tion into a nar­row, rough­ly 12-inch-long strip that’s slight­ly tapered at the ends and slight­ly fat­ter in the mid­dle. Repeat with the remain­ing 2 dough por­tions so that you end up with 3 strips of rough­ly equal length.

Arrange 1 strip of dough per­pen­dic­u­lar t o the edge of the table in front of you, then arrange the oth­er 2 strips at a 45-degree angle to the mid­dle one, so that the far tips of each strip are just over­lap­ping. Squish the over­lap­ping tips togeth­er with your fin­gers so that they’re well stuck togeth­er.

Braid the chal­lah: Gen­tly lift one of the out­er strips, bring it over the mid­dle strip, and lay it down along­side the oth­er out­er strip. Next, gen­tly lift the oth­er out­er strip and bring it over the mid­dle, lay­ing it down along­side the oppo­site strip, gen­tly tug­ging the strips taut so there aren’t any gaps. Repeat this braid­ing process until you’ve reached the ends of the strips; pinch togeth­er the ends. Tuck both pinched ends of the braid­ed strips under the loaf and trans­fer the loaf to a 10-by-15-inch bak­ing sheet that’s been greased with oil or cook­ing spray. Light­ly grease the top of the loaf, cov­er it with plas­tic wrap, and let it rest in a warm, draft-free area for about 1½ hours.

When you’re ready to bake, remove the plas­tic wrap and brush the top of the braid­ed dough with the egg wash. Place the sesame seeds or pop­py seeds on a plate, moist­en your index fin­ger in water, and press it into the seeds. Then press your fin­ger onto the top sur­face of one of the braids; the seeds should come off onto the dough. Repeat so that each braid­ed seg­ment has a dec­o­ra­tive patch of seeds on it.

Bake the chal­lah: Pre­heat the oven to 350°F dur­ing the final rise.

Bake the chal­lah for about 25 min­utes, rotat­ing the pan or tray 180 degrees halfway through cook­ing, until an instant-read ther­mome­ter insert­ed into the cen­ter of the bread reads 180°F.

If you’re mak­ing the Pull­man loaf, let the bread rest for 5 min­utes before unmold­ing it.

Makes 1 pull­man or braid­ed loaf

Check back tomor­row for Noah and Rae Bernamof­f’s final post for the Vis­it­ing Scribe and vis­it their offi­cial web­site here.