Week 51 - Jewish

The Week 51 challenge, Jewish, was technically the last challenge I completed in 2020. I had planned to do it earlier in the month, but just kept pushing it back since the original plan was to make challah, which is a many-hour-long affair. The time never seemed right, and then when it finally came time to make it, I just wasn't feeling it, plus we were running out of flour and I wasn't sure we would even have enough. I decided to scrap the challah plan and instead make chraime, a Sephardic fish dish I had never had or heard of before but was mentioned in the Reddit intro thread. I used a recipe from Breaking Matzo which seemed simple and tasty.

The ingredients for our version (approximations since I didn't measure anything) were:

- about 1 tbsp cumin ($0.10)

- about 1 tsp smoked Spanish paprika ($0.05)

- about 2 tbsp olive oil ($0.20)

- 1 yellow onion, chopped ($0.68)

- big spoonful of minced garlic ($0.10)

- 2 cans diced tomatoes, drained ($2)

- 1/2 of 16 oz jar of roasted red peppers ($2.50)

- juice of 1/2 lemon ($0.40)

- 1/2 cup of water ($0)

- 1 lb of boneless skinless pollock fillets ($5)

- salt and freshly ground black pepper ($0.02)

- small bunch of cilantro, leaves chopped ($0.25)

The cost for the fish was about $11.30, and we ate it with some microwave rice packets ($3.37), for a total of about $14.67. For a fish dish, it wasn't that expensive, although we had the same white rice problem we always have where we're still hungry not long after dinner. If someone knows the science for why that's the case, would love to hear it.

While making the chraime, it occurred to me that the cooking process was very similar to shakshuka. Make your tomato sauce, add the fish/eggs into the sauce, and then cook until they're done. The basic steps were:

- heat spices

- add olive oil

- add onions and cook until softened

- add garlic and cook for about a minute

- add tomatoes, red peppers, lemon juice, and water (I used less water than the recipe because I had canned tomatoes, and just added enough water to be sure there was enough sauce to surround the fish)

- bring sauce to a boil, lower heat, and simmer for 5-8 minutes

- add fish (after drying in a towel if needed, like ours did because it started out frozen)

- make little wells in the sauce and put the fish fillets in the pan, making sure the fish is surrounded by sauce

- cover and cook for about 6-7 minutes until fish is opaque and temperature is at least 145 degrees

- remove from heat, and add salt, pepper, and cilantro

- serve over rice

This dish was delicious, and I'm glad I did this instead of the challah this time around. It took far less time and made for more of a complete dinner all on its own instead of needing to figure out what else to make with the challah. B passed on it completely, so I'm not sure if I'll be making it again any time soon, but A and I thought it was really tasty. It also felt super healthy, which was much appreciated after our holiday eating.