Growing up, I was not a fan of the mushroom. In biology class we learn that mushrooms are scientifically called fungus (fungi if you wiant to get technical), in TV commercials, we learn that “tough actin’ ” Tinactin (TM) kills athletes foot, also known as foot fungus. Not a rousing recommendation for the mushroom. My sister loved them, raw, cooked and canned. I never understood her affection for them and quite frankly, for a long time I think I was actually nauseated by them. Now, I am aware that my aversion to mushrooms was a result of their biological association with jock itch and toe jam and to this day it still crosses my mind when I am in search of the perfect spawn of the spore.

I remember one morning in Montrachet, it must have been about 7am and I had just finished my daily grunge job of separating the claws and tails from live lobsters when a delivery guy walked through the door. He was from a company called Marche’ aux Delices, a distributor specializing in Mushrooms - in fine restaurants, almost every item has their special source, it is one of the things that separates a standard dish from a four-star dish even though they use the same ingredients. I don’t remember the guys name, I almost wish I did - because on that day, my impression of the mushroom changed forever.

There was this appetizer that they chefs were screwing around with, chanterelle mushrooms in a pear and port wine sauce. This might seems like a nasty combination, but if you understand the chanterelle you can see the connection. The color is golden and the shape resembles that of an over the top hat some women wear on Shabbat - wavy and uneven rims all around. The color is usually akin to gold, as is the price of the good fresh ones (about $100 per ounce). The aroma they give off is almost peach like, some liken the smell to an apricot. The flesh is meaty and tender and absorbs moisture well. Anyway, I cannot be sure how David, one of the chef’s there, picked up on my repugnance, but he did and decided that this was the day I got a lesson in loving the ’shroom.

My wife was in the hospital as she had been for a few weeks already due to pregnancy complications. I was supposed to be out of there that day by 1pm so I could go and spend some time with her. Yet, David, whose charge I was during my internship, wanted me to learn to appreciate the fungi. At 7am, I still had to shuck 30 lbs of oysters, 20 lbs of clams and brunoise (very small dice) a huge bag of onions and peel and trim a mess load of baby carrots and turnips - not to mention do whatever else anyone in the kitchen wanted me to do if it appeared for the slightest second that I was free. So, I did what every other loving aspiring chef husband with a wife on strict bed rest in the sterile comfort of a hospital would do, I stayed late. And while I paid the price for that decision in the short term, I learned a valuable lesson that day that continues to bring pleasure to my wife and children 13 years later - the mushroom cream sauce.

Being that chanterelles among so many other mushrooms in that kitchen were off limits for personal use, as they cost more than some of us got paid, David brought me four large and firm portobello mushrooms. Ironically, these mushrooms are perfect tools for the task of making a mushroom aficionado. With a distinct musky and earthy aroma, one can envision a forest in the early morning as the dew clouds being to rise. Their meat is thick and in its raw state, resembles the texture of a sponge, waiting to absorb all the moisture and flavor that surrounds it. But when it is cooked it does not absorb, in fact it gives off its secrets of the forest by releasing its moisture into the pan, and along with it the sweet taste of a free range (grass fed) beef - yes beef. The key to extracting their remarkable flavor is to get as much moisture out of them - then and only then can you gain the true appreciation of this delectable spore.

So, David brought me these mushrooms and handed me two medium sized Vidalia onions and told me to finely julienne them. He then handed me a spoon and showed me how to clean the mushrooms, pro-style (in school they tell you to take a knife and cut the thistle (the brownish black stuff under the rim - also known as the gills as they resemble the breathing apparatus of a fish). This is an efficient way to clean them, but you tend to take too much of the meat off with your knife - and much of the divine flavor within a mushroom comes from the base of the thistle - so you want to try and keep as much of it on as possible without allowing it to flake off into your sauce - presentation IS everything.

The best method is to take the spoon and slowly scrape the thistle off, leaving just a small amount of brownish hue to the base of the cap. Poor quality mushrooms will break, you are looking for a thick and firm cap when you select your mushrooms - that is why you should always buy loose as opposed to packaged mushrooms, you can choose the good ones and not have to deal with the over moist and soft bottom dwellers as I like to refer to the grimy stuff at the bottom of mushroom baskets.

After I had done the prep - David instructed me on the best way to make the sauce and as you will find out from following this recipe it is the best. One problem I have found in Israel as well as many other places, is that while the ingredients might be the same - the order and manner in which you cook those ingredients is essential. Too often, cooks and trained chefs alike tend to hurry the dish - and it shows in the finished product. My wife and I took our kids out to a cafe not too long ago and my daughter had pasta with mushroom cream sauce. The dish lacked depth - the mushrooms tasted like they came from a can, rubbery and wet, and the sauce had no definition to it. In a former life I would have gone in to the kitchen and showed the guy how to do it right, but I am not that crass anymore - the knowledge that I can do it better is much more satisfying to me and it gives me something to complain about when we go out to eat which is always good fun.

I might have been late many times in my life, my wife might have waited for me on numerous occasions - but on that day she was not going anywhere and I learned a lesson that changed the way I perceived food - and jock itch.

We used Crimini (aka baby bellas) - garnished with a sprig of rosemary

4 large portobello mushrooms, stemmed and de-gilled (as described above)

2 medium sweet onions (in Israel we have Egyptian onions, you can get them at the shuk and they are a better alternative to the Vidalia as they are sweeter with less of a sulfuric reaction when cutting them).

1 tbsp butter + 1 TBSP olive oil

1 cup 32% cream

1 1/2 cups 1-3% milk

1 tbsp flour

salt and pepper

Take your mushrooms and slice them about 1/8″ thick - slice your onions thin into half moons.

take the butter and olive oil and place them in hot sauté pan - the kind you would make eggs in. Once the butter is melted and little bubbles are forming, place your onions in the pan, stir regularly to prevent burning and cook them until they start to get a bit golden - about five minutes. At this point, add the mushrooms and a little salt (to help extract the moisture), stir frequently until they look about half the size they were when you first put them in. They should have this brilliant seared color to them and if left untouched for five seconds, seem to stick to the bottom of the pan.

Now, add the flour and incorporate well into the mixture leaving no trace of the white flour anywhere in the pan - this will create a roux (a French word for a thickening agent, you will see this word and method regularly here). Cook out the flour for about a minute - you will have what looks like a pasty mixture - and that is good - just be gentle when mixing so as not to destroy the mushrooms.

Now add the cream and milk and softly stir the mixture together making sure to scrape the bottom of the pan with your spoon - this will release the caramelized stuff from the bottom of the pan and add flavor to the sauce - bring to a boil and lower the flame to a minimum. Add your salt and pepper (fresh ground please) to your taste. The sauce should be on the brown side of cream, and be able to coat the back of a metal spoon (the word is called Nape - pron: napay -). If it is not this thick yet, keep it simmering, while stirring to make sure you do not scorch the cream until it gets there. It should take no more than three and a half minutes from the time you lower the flame to get to this point.

Serve over your favorite (you must use Barilla - so when I say your favorite, I mean Barilla) - or make your own pasta - I’ll get to that soon.

Try this sauce and let me know what you think. I guarantee that you will never order this dish in a beit cafe again - and if you do, you will not enjoy it as much as you enjoy your own version.

One of the things I miss terribly about New York, America for that matter, is good Chinese takeout. I am not saying that the Chinese food in Israel is bad – but when you grow up next to Chinatown and you are surrounded by hoards of immigrants and children of immigrants who know what the food is supposed to be like, you cannot compare. The fact is, many of the Chinese establishments in Israel are not Chinese food – it is food based on a what the owners consider to be authentic based on their treks to the Orient. There is a real difference between food cooked by a Chinese person and food cooked by someone who has visited China.

Even in the Chinese themed kosher restaurants in New York you could walk into the kitchen and see Chinese cooks. Here, it is rare to see that – and when you do, it is usually a person who knows nothing about cooking – someone who came here on a working visa to build a building or to tend to a farm and eventually found themselves in the kitchen of some restaurant with no real cooking experience. What I have found is that it is not too difficult to cook good Chinese food. A Wok is a necessity and proper ingredients are common here – it’s just a matter of knowing how to put it together - and get rid of the MSG and powdered chicken soup.

Anyway, this thought about Chinese food came up at home and a discussion ensued about a good eggroll, I mean a really good eggroll not dripping with oil and with a really good flavor inside. So, after Shabbat, I gathered the kids together for a fun evening of making a tasty, edible, crunchy on the outside and soft and flavorful on the inside eggroll. It was not difficult and proved to be a task that the whole family could join in – even my six year old got into it.

This is a fun activity for kids – the only thing I would suggest is preparing the mixture beforehand as it does take time to make the filling. Let the kids help make the skins and let them help fill it. Also, make sure you control the frying part – kids and hot oil are not a good match.

Ingredients

Egg Roll Wrappers

3 cups flour
1 egg + 1 egg yolk - whisked
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup cold water
Potato or Corn starch for dusting

Combine the salt and flour and sift (if you have a dry whisk, you can accomplish the same thing as sifting by mixing the flour with a whisk)

Combine the egg and the water, mix well (until you see some bubbling on top) and then add to the flour.

Mix well until you get a sticky kind of batter. Turn the dough out onto lightly floured surface and knead until it is smooth and stretchy. It can take about about 3-5 minutes depending on how well you knead.

Cover the dough and let rest in the refrigerator for About an hour.

Now, take the dough and cut it in to thirds. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface.Roll each half into a cylinder. Lightly score so that you have 12 equal pieces. Roll each piece out into 3 1/2 - 4 inch squares.

Stack the wrappers while you are preparing the remainder, covering with a damp cloth so that they don’t dry out. If necessary, lightly dust the wrappers with the starch to prevent them from sticking.

Use immediately - DO NOT FREEZE!!

Filling

½ small cabbage shredded
2 carrots, shredded
1 onion ½ mooned and sliced thin (julienne)
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 tbsp canola oil
(optional – whatever else you want, like pre-cooked meats, tofu, seitan etc)

In a really hot pan, add the canola and sesame oil - now sauté the cabbage, carrot and onion mixing every minute or so until the cabbage looks like it is 1/2 cooked (some bite to it, but soft - about 7 minutes) - now add the garlic, shut the flame off and cover for ten minutes.

Egg Rolls

Take a wrapper and lay it out on a flat surface, take about 2 TBSP of filling and put it inside (if you are using meat, now would be the time to add it as well). From both sides, fold in about 1/2 an inch (the purpose mof this is to seal in the ends) - now from bottom to top, roll the dough over the stuffing (making sure the stuffing stays inside) and complete the roll until the top end meets the rest of the roll. You can seal the top end tightly with a little water.

To fry it, fill a small sauce pan 1/2 way up with canola oil - get it really hot using a low flame (let it sit for about 7-10 minutes on the flame without touching it - now slowly add in the eggroll - turn the roll every minute or so until the entire roll is golden (about 3-4 minutes). Once you feel comfortable enough, you can cook three-four at a time.

This is a really fun project and a tasty one for the kids to do - its a great family activity.

BatayAvon!