Tamar Ansh is an author, edi­tor and food colum­nist, among many oth­er things. Her newest book, Let My Chil­dren Cook!, is a Passover cook­book for kids aged 8 – 108 with easy to fol­low recipes, safe­ty tips and hilar­i­ous illus­tra­tions, that will help any kid (and their fam­i­lies!) enjoy a deli­cious and fun Passover for years to come. She will be blog­ging here this week for Jew­ish Book Coun­cil and MyJew­ish­Learn­ing.

I recent­ly pre­sent­ed a cook­ing demo based on my new Passover kids’ cook­book Let My Chil­dren Cook, in Jerusalem. Dur­ing the time the women and I had togeth­er we talked about some of the recipes (of course), watched some of them being made and baked right there, and tast­ed every one of them (was this in doubt?). I don’t know who had the bet­ter time – the ladies or myself. I real­ly enjoy meet­ing new peo­ple this way and hear­ing their expe­ri­ences, their feed­back, and, of course, their own recipes. 

After writ­ing a num­ber of cook­books, you’d think I’ve heard it all when it comes to gefilte fish. Then, a par­tic­i­pant speaks up and tells me her favorite ver­sion of what to do with an aver­age gefilte fish roll — some­thing I’d nev­er even con­sid­ered. So, if I am smart, I run and get a scrap of paper and write it down because these kinds of ideas are gold nuggets when it comes to cre­ativ­i­ty! Or, some­one tells me that her grand­moth­er from (name that coun­try) used to tell her what her moth­er made for Passovers when she was a child, and I get intro­duced to yet anoth­er facet of Jew­ish his­to­ry and food. Some­times I think I ought to record my shows since I don’t always remem­ber every sin­gle thing by the time I get home and that’s a shame, since every mem­o­ry is precious. 

I also find that with every demo, I learn some­thing to help me in the kitchen. Whether it’s a good tip or a recipe, there’s always nov­el wis­dom I gain from the par­tic­i­pants. This demo was no exception.

I was in the mid­dle of demon­strat­ing and explain­ing how I came up with the unlike­ly ​“Moroc­can-Style Gefilte Fish” recipe in my new cook­book. I was explain­ing the way I devel­oped the recipe and what I’d done to get the taste just right. Then one par­tic­i­pant asked me if I defrost the roll first. I explained that it is best to defrost for about a half hour, so the paper on the roll removes eas­i­ly. Some­one else chimed in explain­ing a very easy way to avoid the wait: Sim­ply take the wrapped, frozen loaf out of the plas­tic. Unwrap the two ends, run it under a stream of water, and…voilà! The paper then slides right off. I just shaved half an hour off this recipe. What a great tip! I’m cer­tain­ly going to remem­ber that for next time.

Since I men­tioned my new gefilte fish recipe and the won­der­ful time-sav­ing tip I learned, I’d like to share the recipe with you:

Moroc­can-Style Gefilte Fish

Okay, so maybe this one is mess­ing around with two dif­fer­ent cus­toms of fish — ​“gefilte fish” is most­ly East­ern Euro­pean, and Moroc­can-style is most­ly, well, Sefar­di, but it comes out so good that I just had to share it…

Pareve; Serves 10

Let’s get to it!

• 1 frozen, ready-made gefilte fish roll
• 1 cup toma­to paste
• 1 table­spoon olive oil
• 1 table­spoon paprika
• 1 tea­spoon hot papri­ka (cayenne pepper)
• 1 table­spoon gar­lic powder
• 1 table­spoon onion powder
• ¼ tea­spoon ground ginger
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 car­rot, peeled and cut into round slices

And here’s how you do it!

1.Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C).
2. Line a loaf pan with parch­ment paper. Peel off the wrap­per and parch­ment paper from the frozen fish loaf and place it in the lined­loaf pan.
3. In a small bowl, mix togeth­er the toma­to paste, olive oil and all the spices.
4. Smear this all over the fish loaf and add in any left­over toma­to paste.
5. Place the cut onions and car­rots all over the fish loaf and in any spaces you find in the pan.
6. Cov­er the loaf with the parch­ment paper and then again with a piece of foil. Seal the edges well.
7. Bake for 1½ hours. Remove from the oven and let cool; refrig­er­ate until serving.

Serve sliced, with the cooked veg­gies on the side. Real­ly del­ish and quite dif­fer­ent, too! And the aro­ma it emits while bak­ing in your oven makes the whole kitchen smell invit­ing and amazing. 

Excerpt­ed from Let My Chil­dren Cook! A Passover Cook­book for Kids (Judaica Press)

Some of Tamar Ansh’s oth­er books include: A Taste of Chal­lah; Let’s Say Amen!, & Pesach – Any­thing’s Pos­si­ble!, an adult Pesach cook­book with over 350 non gebrochs & gluten free no-fail recipes. Every­thing can be viewed via her web­site at www​.Tama​rAnsh​.com. Mrs. Ansh also does live cook­ing and chal­lah shows, and has been pub­lished in a wide vari­ety of both print and online publications. 

Relat­ed Content:

• Read­ing List: Passover Picks
• 2013 Chil­dren’s Passover Favorites: New and Old
• Starred Chil­dren’s Reviews
• Essays: Food, Eat­ing, and Recipes
• Essays: On Passover