Eggplant-Walnut Pâté + Passover Ideas

D's birthday falls on Passover this year, which means I can't get away with thrice-a-day matza brei as our only sustenance. For the first time in a long time, I will be cooking a meal on Passover in actual, non-disposable pans, and serving food to actual friends on actual plates. This small feat makes me feel like an actual grown-up. What that says about me, or the holiday, or both, is a conversation for another day. For now, we need to talk about our menus.

Were my birthday on Passover - and seriously, I love food too much for that to be the case, so phew for February birthdays - I'd probably want a big Greek salad, a plate full of avocado in different preparations, and a dessert made with no small quantity of egg yolks, cream, and chocolate. But this is D; not much of a dessert person, undying lover of meat. We'll be having brisket.

Our brisket is from KOL Foods, a purveyor of sustainable, grass-fed beef that also is kosher. The brisket's flavor is good enough -- and, considering the astronomical cost, rare enough in our house -- that I'm taking a minimalist's approach to cooking it. Instead of my usual pomegranate molasses recipe, I've settled on the famed approach of Nach Waxman. It's deceivingly simple: onions, tomato paste, and one carrot. But in my experience, no recipe celebrates the flavor of brisket more than his.

As for the rest of the meal, I'm planning to slow-roast a mess of red onions until they become sweet and soft. I'll also make a carrot kugel, because kugel is D's favorite, and it's her day.

But the brisket can't last forever (at least, not this brisket), and chocolate pudding/mousse/ice cream only gets us so far. Many of our other meals are likely to include a heaping scoop of this pâté. It's pictured here with sourdough. Of course, it's better on sourdough; everything's better on sourdough. But if matzah is your cracker (it's not bread, people), this pâté will make it taste like something, something delicious.

The method is simple: broil a mess of eggplant slices and a whole bulb of garlic. If you've got a food processor, you'll puree those with a bunch of ground walnuts, some raisins and capers, and a hit of cinnamon. If you don't, some patient knife work will yield a lovely caponata-style spread, which is less shmearable but, on the bright side, lets each component shine more independently.

Either way, on a holiday where hummus and peanut butter and bread (sob) are not on the menu, this does a lot to compensate.

Passover, previously:

• These pina colada-flavored macaroons are good. Not in a relative sense - I'd eat them not on Passover.
• Carrot kugel is an essential part of our Passover diet.
• Good weeknight supper? These twice-baked sweet potatoes should fit the bill.
• If you must make cookies, these chocolate ones are a great choice.
• Plenty of other ideas here.

Passover, elsewhere:

• Deb's mushroom pâté looks awesome.
• Passover desserts need not contain matzah/coconut/almond flour. I'll be making this flan at some point.
• This Persian-inspired frittata looks like a fantastic addition to my Passover lunch-for-company menu.
• For a show-stopper main dish at a vegetarian meal, this gorgeous cauliflower is my choice.

However you celebrate, whatever you celebrate, have a wonderful weekend.

Sweet-Tart Roasted Eggplant and Walnut Pâté
Serves 6-8 as an appetizer

2 large eggplants
4-5 tablespoons olive oil
salt and pepper
1 whole head garlic, unpeeled
1/2 cup raisins 1 tablespoon honey
1 1/2 cups walnut pieces
2 tablespoons capers (optional)
2-3 tablespoons lemon juice
pinch cinnamon
chopped pistachios, for garnish

Set a rack about 4-6 inches away from the broiler in your oven and preheat the broiler. Trim eggplants and slice 1/2-inch thick. Drizzle 1 tablespoon olive oil onto an unlined baking sheet; sprinkle a pinch or two of salt over the oil. Place eggplant slices in a single layer on the sheet (if they don’t all fit, you’ll broil them in batches). Drizzle a bit more of the oil and sprinkle salt onto the tops of each slice. Broil for about 5 minutes, moving pan around under the broiler to ensure that slices brown evenly. Turn slices and broil another 4-5 minutes, until nicely browned. Transfer to a plate, layering slices on top of each other. Repeat with remaining slices. When all eggplant has been broiled and piled into the plate, cover the plate with plastic wrap and let sit for at least 15 minutes, and as long as overnight. Eggplant will steam and soften as it cools.

Place whole garlic bulb under broiler (on the same pan as the eggplant, if there’s room) and broil for 10-12 minutes, until skin has blackened and garlic is soft. Tuck garlic bulb onto the plate with the eggplant and let it steam-cool as well.

Meanwhile, place raisins in a bowl with the honey and 2 tablespoons of water. Let them plump up while the eggplant and garlic cool.

Place walnuts into the bowl of a food processor fitted with the blade attachment, and grind until the texture resembles bread crumbs. Squeeze the contents of the broiled garlic bulb into the bowl, along with the eggplant, the raisins and their liquid, the capers (if using), the remaining tablespoon of olive oil, the cinnamon, and 2 tablespoons of the lemon juice. Pulse until eggplant has broken up, then blend until mostly smooth. Taste; add salt, pepper, and more lemon juice as needed.

Serve cold or at room temperature, with a drizzle of olive oil and maybe a few chopped pistachios on top.

Quinoa and Asparagus Salad with Yogurt Dressing

Lurking behind the shiny exterior of this homepage is a Drafts folder, containing every post I've ever started. And friends, I could make an entire second blog out of the posts stuck in draft-purgatory. There's a parsnip cake I made for my mom's birthday back in 2011; a winter citrus salad that I keep meaning to tell you about while it's still...well, winter; a tremendous zucchini gratin that I will tell you about in just a few short weeks, when summer decides to make an appearance for good; and about 15 quinoa recipes, none of which I deemed delicious enough to share.

Thing is, I am no big fan of quinoa. Try as I might, I can't love the stuff. I wish I did: it's nutritious, cooks up really quickly, and at least purports to be versatile. I'm just not the biggest fan.

But last week, fresh on a tear to use up all the little bits of things in the bottom of jars in my kitchen, I came upon some quinoa, leftover from Passover and languishing at the back of my grain shelf. I've been trying to cook more economically, and I've been having success tucking bits of boring-seeming leftovers into new dishes. I improved my last batch of mujaddara by adding bits of salsa verde-braised green beans. What's a little quinoa?

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And here's the best part of it all: I actually enjoyed this salad a lot. It's bits of asparagus, golden raisins, and toasted pepitas for crunch. I'm especially fond of the dressing, which came together unexpectedly well, considering it was yet another attempt to use over bits of things in jars in the fridge. Win-win.

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Quinoa and Asparagus Salad with Yogurt Dressing Serves 6

Notes: I made this recipe to use what I had in the fridge, and there's no reason you shouldn't do the same. Feel free to swap out the quinoa for wheatberries, pearl barley, or bulgur. If you don't have (or don't like) asparagus (though I'm not sure we can be friends if it's the latter...), you might finely chop some raw greens, scallions, green beans, radish, or a mixture of these. Consider this less of a prescriptive recipe and more of a starting point. That said, this combination does work really well. -R

For the salad: 1 cup quinoa 1 bunch asparagus (about 10 spears), rinsed, ends trimmed, and sliced on the bias 1/2 cup golden raisins 1/2 cup pepitas (pumpkin seeds)

For the dressing: 1/2 cup yogurt 4 tablespoons olive oil, divided juice of half a lemon half a preserved lemon, diced (I like using the whole thing, but some folks use only the rind and discard the flesh) - or, if you don't have preserved lemon, check out this helpful post from the Food52 hotline 2 teaspoons honey salt and pepper to taste

Set a medium pot full of water over medium-high heat. When water reaches a boil, add quinoa, stir to combine, and cook for 15 minutes, until quinoa is cooked through but still keeps its shape. Strain and transfer to a large mixing bowl.

Meanwhile, heat a medium sauté pan over medium heat. Add pepitas, a pinch of salt, and the tiniest drop of oil; toss to combine, and cook until you hear one pepita pop. By then, pepitas should have started to turn golden. Remove from the heat and transfer pepitas to a bowl.

Place pan back on the heat, add 2 tablespoons of olive oil, and add the asparagus. Cook for about 3 minutes, just until asparagus glisten and start to turn golden in a couple spots. (If you like your asparagus fully soft, continue cooking for 4-5 minutes more.) Spoon asparagus into the bowl with the quinoa, and stir in raisins while asparagus and quinoa are still warm - it helps them plump up.

Make the dressing: Combine the yogurt, preserved lemon, honey, and remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil in a jar. Shake to combine. Taste, and add salt and pepper to taste (you must add the s&p after adding the preserved lemon, since it is quite salty).

Drizzle most of the yogurt dressing onto the quinoa, stir to combine, and taste. Add more of the dressing if desired. Top with the toasted pepitas just before serving.

Pineapple Macaroons

I always say that the true test of a Passover dessert is one simple question: would you eat it not on Passover.

In the case of these macaroons, which I first made last June, again in July, and once again in the fall, clearly the answer is yes. They remind me of those piña cola cookies I made back in October, but – dare I say it? – they’re better.

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No surprise there: David Lebovitz masterminded these macaroons, and most everything he makes – especially ice cream – is awesome. Pineapple macaroons, blissfully, are no exception.

Here’s how it all goes down.

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The first step is the most important: you’ll be caramelizing pineapple. Think of regular caramel, where you heat sugar until it turns golden. Same concept, except this time, you’ve got little bits of pineapple in the mix. When the pineapple has caramelized, it’ll be stiffer, golden brown, and really fragrant. That’s when you combine it with the usual macaroon suspects (coconut, egg whites, sugar), mush the dough into mounds, and bake them off.

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The result? Like a really good chocolate chip cookie, these macaroons have three distinct sections. They have a perfect outer crust, which gets crunchy and caramelized. They’ve got a soft inner core. And then they have that middle, which isn’t quite soft, but isn’t really crunchy either. It’s kind of perfect.

The first time I made these macaroons, I brought a huge tray of them to friends’. I was sure I’d leave a few for them to nibble on the next day, but slowly and surely, the six of us ate every last macaroon. Okay, true story: I made a second batch the very next day, they were that good.

And, with very little effort, they can be the star of the cookie platter at your seder table. I guarantee people will love them. I also guarantee that if, by some off chance, you end up with extras at the end of the holiday, you’ll have no urge to toss them out with that extra matzah. Like all good Passover desserts, these have staying power.

Pineapple MacaroonsAdapted from David Lebovitz

So David recommends using crushed pineapple, but I found that diced pineapple works much better. The crushed pineapple sort of melts into the coconut, and the texture of the resulting cookies is less...wonderful. The coconut gets less glazed, the pineapple is less distinctive, and the macaroons are generally not as addictive as when I used diced fruit. Either works, though, so use whatever you can find.

One 20 oz. can (about 600 g) diced unsweetened pineapple, with juice 1 cup (200 g) sugar pinch of salt 3 1/2 cups (245 g) dried unsweetened shredded coconut (available at health food stores, some supermarkets, and online zest of one lime, grated 3 large egg whites (not whipped) 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Put the pineapple, juice, sugar, and salt into a large shallow skillet (David recommends nonstick, but I used a regular skillet and it worked just fine) and set over medium heat.

Cook until the liquid mostly evaporates, stirring occasionally. Then keep cooking for 8-10 more minutes, stirring regularly, until the pineapple firms up, turns golden, and gets very sticky. Transfer the sticky pineapple bits to a medium mixing bowl.

Add coconut to pineapple, and use your fingers to combine the two, pressing the coconut into the pineapple. Then add the egg whites and vanilla, and again, use your fingers to combine the mixture until it is uniform. Your fingers will get covered in sticky macaroon batter; do your best to scrape the batter off your fingers back into the bowl, and rinse your hands before shaping the macaroons.

Preheat the oven to 350° and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper or silpat.

Take a golf ball's worth of batter in your clean hands, and shape it into a sphere. Set the sphere onto the baking sheet, flattening the bottom side of the sphere against the sheet. Then cup your fingers around the top half of the sphere, pinching toward the tip until you wind up with a cone shape. Repeat with remaining batter; no need to leave much space between cookies – 1/2 an inch will do.

Bake cookies for 25 to 30 minutes, until their tips are a deep dark brown and their exteriors are mostly golden. Start checking at 20 minutes, to ensure that cookies don't burn (too much).

Serve cookies at room temperature. These cookies are best the day they're made, but they're not half bad the day after. The batter can also be kept in the fridge for up to 5 days and baked off as needed.

Carrot Kugel

Growing up, Passover was the holiday with all the rules. Among the "must"s were cleaning the whole house, covering the countertops, replacing the spices. Among the "mustn't"s: bread, muffins, pasta, cake, cookies. Seeing as how I practically subsisted on spaghetti as a kid - homemade tomato sauce was the first food I perfected - I positively dreaded the gluten-less days of Passover. I really wasn't into all the rules.

Ironically, though, as soon as the holiday arrived, my usual rules of eating went right out the window. Foods I'd never eat during the year, like matzo kugel and whitefish, suddenly seemed delicious. I couldn't get enough. I remember sitting at my parents' dining room table on the last day of Passover one year, nibbling on a matzo brei, thinking just how tasty it was, and realizing that in five hours, when the holiday ended, I'd never want to see matzo brie again. Funny how that works.

Terri, D's stepmom, also breaks some of her own rules on Passover. An exceedingly healthy eater year-round, she goes through an absurd amount of margarine on Passover. What can you do, she says. There isn't much to work with.

And she's right. My mother, a mindful and healthy cook, makes a passover carrot kugel recipe that essentially reads like one for chocolate chip cookies. Sub carrots for chocolate, and you'll have a carrot kugel that actually will make people swoon. On Passover.

Inspired by Passover's permit to break the rules of healthy year-round eating, I attempted a carrot kugel of my own this year. It's adapted from everyone's favorite sisterhood cookbook, "Second Helpings, Please" - because sisterhoods are the leading source of excellent kugel recipes, no? - and it's delicious, on Passover and year round. A couple of you requested this recipe, and while I'm sorry it's taken me so long to share it, hopefully it comes just in time for your Seder. Don't sweat the fact that it's terrible for you; that's sort of what Passover food is all about.

Looking for more Passover recipes?Here ya go.

Carrot Kugeladapted from Second Helpings, Please

1 cup matza cake meal (if making this not on Passover, please, please use flour here) 1/2 cup sugar 1/4 cup brown sugar 1/2 teaspoon baking powder 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon 1/4 teaspoon cloves 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger 1 teaspoon lemon juice 2 1/4 cups grated carrots 2 eggs 1/2 cup melted butter or canola oil

Preheat oven to 325 degrees and set a rack in the center of the oven.

Butter and flour an 8” square baking pan.

Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl.

In a smaller bowl, combine eggs, oil, lemon juice, and carrots.

Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, and stir until the two are combined and no lumps of flour remain. Transfer batter into the prepared baking pan, and smooth the top with a spatula.

Bake for 45 minutes; when done, kugel should spring back when touched.

Serve warm or at room temperature.