SC - Problems with savory wafers
Seton1355 at aol.com
Seton1355 at aol.com
Sat Dec 18 19:33:07 PST 1999
With reference to Matzot, Or actually, wafers, I looked up some recipes for
you. Perhaps these will be a workable alternative for you...
Phillipa Seton
Homemade Matzoh
2 cups all-purpose flour 1 cup wholewheat flour spring water Preheat oven to
450 F. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper. Mix two flours
together and add water until you have a soft, kneadable dough. Knead about
five minutes. Let dough rest a couple of minutes. Break off egg-sized
portions of dough. Stretch as thinly as you can before rolling into thin,
oval slabs that are as thin as possible. Prick each slab with a fork or
pastry docker. Place on baking sheet and as soon as sheet is filled with
matzohs, place in oven, and bake until crisp and buckled, about 3 minutes.
Cool and eat.
DO-IT-YOURSELF PESADIG MATSOT
(As done for 20 years by David L. Kline) Ingredients: 1 part water (cold) 3
parts flour (approximatly) Knead quickly into firm, non sticky dough. Divide
into 1" - 1 1/2" balls, the rounder the better. Roll out to 1/8" or less
thickness. Poke holes. Bake on tiles, at hottest setting till done (2-3
minutes). No more than 18 minutes may elapse from the touch of the water to
putting the matsah into the oven.
Notes for mehadrin("meticulous beautifiers") 1 Flour: the everyday product is
acceptable. My Hungarian predecessors include Solomon Ganzfried, than whom no
one could be Orthodoxer. In his Kitsur Shulchan Aruch , among the meticulous
instructions is the following: "If part of a bag of flour has been moistened
by water, whether it is still moist or already dry, we may hold that part of
the bag in our hands while emptying from it the rest of the flour, the use of
which is permissible; only the moist part may not be used. If, however, the
bag of flour has become wet in many places, so that it is impossible to
proceed as aforementioned, then if it is still moist, we sift the flour, and
the lumps alone which remain in the sieve is leaven, but the rest may be
used. If mice have eaten some of the flour, it should also be sifted. If,
however, the bag of flour has already become dry, sifting is of no avail, and
the use of the entire four is forbidden." (English edition, Book 3, page 24)
Kal v'chomer(a fortiori), I consider a nice, sealed, bag of flour from the
super market to be shamur("kept") from the hazards of moisture.
2 Water: H2O from the cold faucet. Ganzfried prefers a river to a well
because the water is generally colder. He lets the water rest overnight so
that no sun rays may touch it. I figure the tap runs with water that has
rested at least that long and the pipes are opaque.
3 All bowls, measures, rolling pins, hole punchers, peels, tiles are reserved
for Pesach preparation. A Stainless steel mixing bowl works fine. B I use
styrofoam cups, one for flour, one for water. C Rolling pins, either the
expensive long tapered model or 1 1/4" dowel cut into 18" lengths. Clean them
with sandpaper after each rolling. D The hole puncher is called a "dough
docker" (tahker!). I found a neat plastic toothed roller, made for pizza
preparation. (I also have a gadget with metal disks bearing wicked looking
perforators designed for tenderizing steaks.) E A peel (sometimes called
"spade") is the flat wooden or metal plate with handle, used for taking baked
bread out of a brick oven. F Line oven shelf with tiles, plain red or brown,
such as are sold for floors. One inch fire bricks will do but they are
heavier. Leave room at edges for convection.
4 To avoid any chance for onset of yeasting -- chometsdigity -- eighteen
minutes is the just-to-be-on-the-safe-side maximum preparation time.
Ganzfried takes it for granted. The Soncino footnote to Pes 46a considers it
"generally regarded." Talmud offers the charming definition: "the time it
takes to walk from Migdal Nunia to Tiberias, a mil." Rashi, in Yoma, says
that a mil is 2000 cubits, and Soncino concurs. I say that doing 3000 feet in
18 minutes is strolling, not walking, but why should I be more
machmir("stringent") than the Hungarians? (I'm German on my mother's side.)
Besides, bread dough, even with the addition of yeast and kept warm takes
hours to leaven.
5 Line the kneading/rolling surface with layers of brown paper. Remove a
layer at the end of each 18 minute session. (I learned this by watching the
Shmurah Matsah makers on the Lower East Side.)
6 Best for 8-10 to work together. Dough needs to be kneaded constantly till
rolled, perforated and baked. Assembly line does the trick. At the start of
each session, and maybe once or twice more for good measure, all recite:
"L'shem matsah shel mitsvah."("intended for mitsvah matsah," i.e. the matsah
we are commanded to eat, particularly at the seder)
============================================================================
To be removed from the SCA-Cooks mailing list, please send a message to
Majordomo at Ansteorra.ORG with the message body of "unsubscribe SCA-Cooks".
============================================================================
More information about the Sca-cooks
mailing list