Don't Passover THIS Seder!

Uh oh! Today was the 15th day of the month of Nisan. You know what that means? That's right, it's time for another episode of . . .

Jen & Nate's Wildly Bastardized Jewish Holiday Meals!

It seems like every year I work late on Passover and come have less than an hour to make a seder dinner. Luckily we aren't particularly observant Jews. Some would argue that we aren't Jewish at all. So that makes it a little easier given the fact that we don't need to observe many rules other than the one where just have some dinner.



I started off by making charoset with some Gala apples, pistachio, Marcona almonds, honey, cinnamon, red wine, and ginger. I only got to let it marinate for about 35 seconds before plopping it onto a plate with some radish greens.



For a salad I used some red leaf, radish greens, and mixed baby greens. I steamed some white asparagus and served it with smoked salmon, shredded horseradish, salt, pepper, and a citrus dill aioli made with lemon, grapefruit juice, and cider vinegar. I garnished the plate with some halved kumquats which seemed to go well with the citrus dressing though they shocked Jen to the very core with their internal tartness.



I had purchased a veal shoulder to braise for tonight's meal, however, given the 45 minutes allotted for preparation I didn't feel this was adequate time to braise. So, cutting further into my time, I stopped in a at a store on my way home and picked up a veal loin chop with seared and roasted up in less than 15 minutes. I topped it with a gremolata I made out of shopped parsley, lemon zest, and shredded horseradish.



In the same pan with the veal loin I also roasted some garlic, carrot, yellow carrot from the Union Square Greenmarket, radishes, fennel, and shallots.



I also had to stop at the wine store to pick up a kosher wine. It's extremely important to have a kosher wine, particularly when you're as observant about tradition and authenticity as I am with all of my Passover preparations.

It's traditional to have four glasses of wine for Passover to symbolize the Pharoah's four evil decrees. All I can remember is the year that I had four glasses of Manischewitz. The only thing evil about the that particular seder were the curses I was muttering under my breath the following morning.

This year we opted to have four glasses between the two of us which was more than sufficient. However, how were we to cap off this meal? What dessert could follow this?

Oh, my friends, I'm afraid that will have to wait until tomorrow.

L'Chaim!

To be continued . . .