I have never been non-kosher, but I was exposed to the scent of cooking bacon when I took a class at the French Culinary Institute. The smell alone was enough to make me crazy for bacon. No stranger to complicated food projects, I decided that the time had come to try my hand at making beef bacon.

The beef cut used for making bacon is the plate or belly. It’s a very fatty cut, sometimes used for corned-beef or pastrami. To procure my beef-plate, I contacted Abeles & Heymann, a NJ based producer of deli products including Beef Fry, a popular bacon replacement. They were happy to sell me beef-plate for $5/lb. Once I got the beef home, the first step was to cure it. I decided on a maple cure recipe, found in Michael Ruhlman’s seminal work on the topic, Charcuterie. It consisted of maple syrup, brown sugar, kosher salt and curing salt. The meat spent 1 week in the cure before it was time to smoke it. I used apple-wood to smoke it for about 3 hours. After cooling down fully, it was time to slice. This was the finished product:

The first dish I prepared with my bacon had to be a simple bacon and eggs. It was super-delicious.

Next, I tried to go with the fad and make candied bacon. It wasn’t as sucessful as I had hoped, but there is hope for the future. I used a slab of unsliced bacon in that weekend’s chulent, and the flavor took my chulent to a whole new level. The smokiness made my usual chulent into a Texas-style-bbq flavored chulent. The uses for this stuff truly are endless. Recent discussions on Chowhound lead me to believe that breast of veal is another good cut for making bacon. When I run out of this batch, perhaps that will be my next project.

1/2 cup almond flour or well ground, blanched almonds
2 tablespoons Red Star nutritional yeast
2 teaspoons chickpea miso (Miso Master brand is certified by the Atlanta Kashruth Commission)
1/4 teaspoon salt

Blend all ingredients well in a food processor.

I have used DynaSea’s mock-crab sticks before (in a great mock-crab-salad recipe) and of course had them in sushi-rolls, but I had never had the shrimp. I took a recipe for Spicy Grilled Shrimp from the new Grilling cookbook from the Culinary Institute of America (I’m working on a review) and substituted the mock-shrimp. A quick Asian Cucumber Salad on the side, and this was the result:

(Yes, the grilled scallions were just for effect. Turns out that they’re pretty good grilled.)

I think it looks pretty appetizing – don’t you? Unfortunately, it didn’t meet my taste-expectations. It wasn’t bad or anything – just blah. What went wrong? Firstly, mock-shrimp are not absorbent at all. They are sold as a fully-cooked product and soaked up none of the marinade. So I drizzled some leftover marinade over the finished product, improving them slightly. The larger problem was the consistency/taste of the shrimp. If I had to describe them in one word, I would say doughy. Are real shrimp like this? I imagine not. I kept thinking of gnocchi (or shliskes, if you’re in touch with your inner-Hungarian). Dense and doughy, they really didn’t convey a sense of seafood. They were more like a starchy side-dish then a main course. I’ve seen them given the cornklake-crumb/deep-fry treatment and served with cocktail sauce as a Kosher Shrimp Cocktail – I imagine they function more as a novel way to eat cocktail sauce than as a dish of their own. So much for that experiment.

Though the meat mixture felt a little loose, these meatballs fried up solidly without being tough, and the flavor was very balanced. Finally, a meatball I can be proud of!

MEATBALLS
Makes fourteen meatballs total, 3-4 servings

• 1/2 cup chicken or beef broth
• 1/2 cup fine fresh bread crumbs
• 1 lb. ground beef
• 1 large egg yolk
• 1 Tbsp. olive oil
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• 2 shallots, minced
• 1 Tbsp. Italian seasoning
• 1 Tbsp. pareve worcestershire sauce
• 3/4 tsp. kosher salt
• 1 1/2 cups vegetable oil

Combine bread crumbs and broth; let soak 10 minutes, stirring once or twice.

In a large skillet, heat olive oil over medium heat and saute garlic and shallots until soft, 5 minutes.

Combine beef, egg, Italian seasoning, worcestershire sauce, and salt in a large bowl. Add skillet contents and moistened bread crumbs. Mix with fork until smooth.

Add vegetable oil to skillet (approximately 1/4-inch high) and reheat several minutes over medium.

Meanwhile, form 3-tablespoon measures of meat into balls; use a #24 ice cream scoop for convenience.

When oil is hot, add meatballs and fry for ten minutes, turning often to cook all sides.

…and cooked them per recipe instructions. After the initial high-heat smoking, I only needed fifty minutes of 250-degree slow cooking until my ribs were the perfect combination of tender and toothsome. A quick broil for five minutes on each side and they were done…

Meaty slices of heaven. A thin, crisp coating surrounding juicy beef — it wasn’t long before half the ribs were just bare bones.

Drooling aside, I did find that the lapsang tea smoke really over-powered the flavor of the marinade. (Luckily, I had six different kinds of barbecue sauce in the fridge for enhancement.) I’ll definitely cut back next time, but overall this beats Dougie’s any day!

The Babylonian Talmud, which contains numerous discussions about the fish, specifically notes that some of its organs taste like pork (although how the sages were able to make the comparison is not clear).

The great commentator Rashi wrote that it was the brain of the fish that tasted like pig meat, and that it served as a kosher option for people who yearned to eat the forbidden meat.

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So, I’ve come to terms with the fact that no-boil lasagna noodles just don’t cut it. Both Barilla- and Prince-brand no-boil noodles are good in a pinch; if you have the time, though, boiling curly lasagna noodles is worth it for better texture and structure.

The right sauce is also critical. I’ve been happy with Barilla’s Italian Baking Sauce; great taste and widely available. When I have the opportunity, I pick up a big can of Frutta! Di Orto Marinara Sauce at Cirelli Foods; 6 lbs. 11 oz. of the chunky sauce will satisfy two hefty lasagnas.

Morningstar Farms Veggie Crumbles provide the final kick, imparting a meaty flavor and hearty texture to an otherwise limp pasta dish. Non-kosher diners think it’s ground beef, and kosher folks don’t suspect a thing.

And then we get to cheese. I’m a purist when it comes to cheese in a lasagna: ricotta, Parmesan, and mozzarella. No cottage cheese. No tofu. No muenster. Just simple ricotta, freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, and shredded mozzarella.

Put all that together, and you have a whopping 10 lb. of “Italian noodle kugel,” certainly more substantial than any back-of-the-box recipe.

TEN POUND LASAGNA

• 2 cups part skim ricotta
• 2 large eggs
• 1 Tbsp. dried parsley
• 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan
• 5 cups hearty tomato sauce
• 12 oz. (one bag) Morningstar Farms veggie crumbles
• 1 lb. curly lasagna noodles
• 1.5 lb. mozzarella, shredded

Boil lasagna noodles according to package directions. Drain and rinse with cold water.

Lay two connected sheets of paper towel over a baking sheet, and then place a single layer of noodles on towel. Cover with a sheet of wax paper, then another double sheet of paper towel. Repeat with remaining noodles, like photo above, and let cool until ready to use. If some noodles have ripped, that’s fine; use them to patch up gaps, or cut them up and eat them separately.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix ricotta with eggs, parsley, and grated Parmesan. Set aside.

Mix tomato sauce with veggie crumbles. Set aside.

Pour 1 1/2 cups sauce mixture in bottom of deep 9″ x 14″ pan. A disposable aluminum lasagna pan works admirably.

Cover with four lasagna noodles, overlapped slightly.

Spread half of ricotta mixture (approx. one cup) over noodles…

…then spread two cups sauce…

…and 1/3 of your shredded mozzarella. Repeat.

Add one more layer of noodles, two more cups sauce, and one more cup mozzarella. Sprinkle with additional Parmesan, if desired.

Wrap tightly with aluminum foil. Bake for 45 minutes.

Remove foil, bake for 15-20 minutes more, until cheese on top is lightly browned.

Remove from oven and let cool 20 minutes. Cut and serve, or let cool completely in refrigerator, cut into individual servings, wrap in aluminum foil, and freeze until desired.

It was fitting that reviewer Leah Finkelshteyn mentioned our “Tastes Like Treyf” section, as the following page features a witty tale of Adeena Sussman’s foray into the realm of vegetarian bacon. She offers a simple and delicious recipe for Pasta Carbonara — the rich spaghetti dish named for the carbonari (coal vendors) known to make it — and suggests using a tempeh-based “bacon” product from Lightlife called “Smoky Strips.” She describes them as “denser, meatier” with a “deeper smoky flavor” than the soy alternatives. I’ll be sure to try it when I sample the recipe, which I’ve included below.

PASTA CARBONARA
Adeena Sussman, Hadassah Magazine
4 to 6 servings

* 12 oz. linguine
* 2 Tbsp. unsalted butter
* 9 strips vegetarian bacon
* 1/2 cup heavy cream
* 4 egg yolks, lightly beaten
* 1 cup (4 oz.) grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
* Kosher salt
* Freshly ground black pepper

1. Bring pot of liberally salted water to a boil. Cook linguine until al dente, 8 to 10 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, heat butter in a heavy skillet over medium heat. Add “bacon” and cook until crispy and browned. Remove from skillet to drain on paper towels; crumble when cool. In a bowl, whisk cream, egg yolks, and cheese to combine.
3. Draine linguine, reserving about a cup of water; do not rinse pasta. Return to pot and add cream mixture. Cook, stirring, over low heat until sauce coats pasta nicely. If sauce is too thick, add some reserved pasta water. Add crumbled “bacon,” salt, and pepper.

About.com provides the first clue:
“Although the Buddhist vegetarian diet does permit the eating of oysters, vegetarian brands, often using mushrooms as a substitute, are available. Oyster sauce is normally sold in bottles; refrigerate after opening. If purchased in a can, transfer to a closed jar and refrigerate.”

Ah, vegetarian brands, perfect. Oh, none of them are kosher? Hmph.

For this reason alone (and only this reason) we can be thankful there are vegans in the world, who come up with implicitly kosher recipes for tasty, tasty animal products. Courtesy of vegan-food.net:

• 1 mushroom broth (boullion) cube
• 1/2 cup boiling water
• 2 Tbsp. brown bean sauce
• 1 generous Tbsp. unprocessed sugar
• 1 tsp. cornstarch dissolved in 1 tsp. cold water

Dissolve the broth cube in the boiling water. Mix with the brown bean sauce and sugar, and heat to boiling. Add the dissolved cornstarch and stir until thickened. Cool and store in a covered jar in the refrigerator.

(This site also provides a recipe, using ground dried mushrooms instead of mushroom cubes)

I assume the mushroom boullion is doable, but what’s this “brown bean sauce”? Cook’s Thesaurus tells us:

This salty brown sauce is made from fermented soybeans, and is available in cans or jars. If you buy it in a can, transfer it into a jar. It can then be stored indefinitely in the refrigerator. Chinese bean sauce isn’t as salty as Thai bean sauce. Substitutes: black bean sauce OR chili bean sauce OR awase miso

Aha! Black bean sauce, we’re there. Kosher Depot will be introducing kosher black bean sauce starting this week, so keep an eye out for it.

So, with all these pieces, we have a suitable oyster sauce substitute.

This pizza, referred to by some as “bar pizza,” is a crisp 10-inch pie, baked in a pan but not thick-crusted (it’s only a half-inch high), and loaded with delicious toppings as standard as mushrooms, onions, and peppers (the classic “MOP” combination) or as unusual as Portugese linguica and Boston-baked beans.

I probably miss this pizza the most of any treyf food out there, which makes it especially frustrating that it’s a tragically underdocumented food — to my knowledge, there isn’t a single recipe out there.

So, if my memory hasn’t been playing tricks on me, I think I’ve made a good first effort at cracking the code. I started with Peter Reinhart’s deep-dish dough recipe, which is a real cinch to make with an electric mixer. Rather than leave it thick (a la Pizzeria Uno), I divided the dough into four pieces, and rolled each quite thin (about 1/8″). I bought a couple 10-inch pizza pans for the project, which I greased liberally with olive oil before pressing the crust into it. After pricking the dough all around to nix any unruly air bubbles, I blind-baked the crust for about 7 minutes at 400 degrees. Back out of the oven, I then added a thin layer of my smooth pizza sauce, followed by a light sprinkling of shredded mozzarella, then an ample layer of chopped mushrooms, onions, and green peppers (all sauteed first, of course), a final, thick layer of mozzarella, and a sprinkling of freshly grated parmesan. This I baked at 375 for about 20 minutes until well done.

I’d say I got it about 75% right. Because my pans were shiny (not black), the crust didn’t get as nicely browned as the original, and the crust’s texture wasn’t perfect (could be a bit greasier).

This certainly won’t be my last Lynwood expermient, but if there are any kindly pizza cooks out there, you’ll have my eternal gratitude for sharing the recipe!