Fork and Gobble It: Crossing the Streams and Parting the Sea

Being half of a mixed faith/heritage marriage, I have made a lot of observations and notes to self over the last few years about the differences in traditions and holidays. Every time I think about our intermingling traditions, it reminds of that scene in Ghostbusters ... "Don’t cross the streams!" She was raised in the Jewish faith, me a Roman Catholic. This time of year I think about dyeing eggs and eating lamb and she makes chopped chicken liver and stuffs her face with as much pizza as she can eat up until the first night of Passover. Luckily for her, during my brief 18 year stint as a culinary professional, I was taught about Passover food by a pair of restaurant owners I worked for. I came pre-loaded with the software on how to prepare Matzoh Brie, and chopped chicken liver. Last year in preparation for the week of all the bread, pasta, etc., that she would not be able to eat, she requested that I adapt my meatloaf recipe to be in keeping with these dietary requirements. Meatloaf made with matzoh meal instead of fresh breadcrumbs????!!!!!! Seemed foreign to me but for the sake of marital bliss I would give it my best effort. It turned out well enough to be deemed an instant tradition.

This year in anticipation of the holiday and the cooking that goes with it, my wife brought home matzohs and matzoh meal for the holiday meatloaf. Unfortunately, no one had clued in our new arrival Elvis the Coonhound about these goings on. I came home one afternoon last week to find two boxes of Passover matzohs shredded, partially eaten, and distributed to every room in the house. He had done the same with the box of matzoh meal and artfully worked it into representations of sand dunes to commemorate Moses wanderings in the dessert. I think he must now be Jewish by ingestion and we have formally re-registered his breed as "Cohenhound." So now it was back out to the grocer's for more matzoh and matzoh meal. The meatloaf must go on!

Matzoh Meal Meatloaf

-2 oz. Olive oil or Kosher Canola oil as per your requirements
-1 clove garlic minced
-1 medium to large onion diced small
-1 large green bell pepper diced small
-3 ribs celery diced small

Saute the vegetables in the oil until they begin to dry out and start to brown. Set aside to cool.

Pre-heat the oven to 350F

-3# 80/20 ground beef
-vegetables from above
-3 whole eggs
-1 cup matzoh meal
-2 Tbsp salt
-1 tsp black pepper
-2 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
-½ cup ketchup or BBQ sauce
-a healthy squirt of Sriracha

Mix the above together well adding more matzoh meal if necessary. The texture should be wet but it should hold shape. We like to take a small bit of the mixture and microwave it until done to taste for seasoning and adjust if needed.

Form the mixture into two even sized loaves and sprinkle with dehydrated chopped onion if desired.

Bake at 350F for approximately 1 hour or until the loaves reach 160F internal temperature.

Two meatloaves should be enough to sustain one person for the entire Passover holiday.

Speaking of which, Kosher for Passover wines do not need to be an abysmal experience of overly sweet and syrupy wines. There are some killer wines coming out of Israel these days and producers like Yarden, Barkan, and Ella Valley are making really excellent Cabernets and Merlots to go with said meatloaf. For my personal preference, I chose a Cabernet Sauvignon by Hai called The Patriots from the Judean Hills region of Israel.

This wine is complex, full bodied and thoroughly delicious. It shows aromas of coffee, red currant, and kirsch with fine grained but very assertive tannins. It retails for about $14.00 and will convince you that the Concord grape stuff may be fine for a traditional toast, but for drinking, this is the real deal.

By the way, it is probably a good thing Moses was Jewish and not Italian. If it had been one of my people leading the crossing of the Red Sea we probably would have stopped for lunch. At least the seafood would have been really fresh. "Hey, who packed the Soave?!"