Making Chremslech

I like to fool myself into thinking that calories don't count during Passover.  This means that I am free to eat matzohs slathered in butter and I can make (and eat) chremslech. 

For those who don't know, and I imagine there are many, chremslech are sweet, crispy, fried matzoh fritters.  They are one of the most delicious things about Passover and though I could make them all year round I save them for these eight days of Passover.

The day before yesterday I had just finished frying a big batch of these delicious morsels as Ralph came home from work.  Like one of Pavlov's dogs, I could almost hear him salivating as he came through the door shouting, "I can smell Passover", and almost knocked me over as he rushed into the kitchen to begin wolfing down the hot chremslech.  He paused after his seventh and with a huge grin announced that these were one of his favourite foods. No surprises there.  By the end of the evening he had eaten about two dozen fritters and left four or five for the next morning.  I promised him I would show him how to make them on his next day off.

This morning was Ralph's first day off work for his Easter break .  Chremslech making day had dawned. I promised I would teach him to make one of my secret food weapons of mass seduction.  Was this to be a mistake?  Usually I keep my kitchen to myself.  I quite like to keep certain things in my cooking repertoire close to me and not reveal that the making of these little Passover delights is actually very simple.  Or so I thought...

Firstly, Ralph is quite the stickler for technique and measurements. Huh??? I just add a bit of this and a bit of that.  He seemed a little taken aback by my haphazard instructions to submerge the matzohs in water and then squeeze the water out when the matzohs were nicely mushy. Squeeze them?  How? Why? Then I literally threw in eggs, brown and white sugar, vanilla and loads of spices, a few tablespoons of ground almonds, some matzo meal and bang - finis!

I didn't so much teach as show and Ralph got to do the mixing and subsequent frying.  We disagreed about the size of the chremslech - I like small, he likes larger, but they came out great.  Now Ralph knew that making these was not such a big deal and also not such a mystery. The still outstanding question is whether he will ever make these for himself?  I doubt it, I think that they taste better when someone else makes them.

The first time I ever cooked with Ralph was in the Bronx in 1969.  We decided to make a yeast-based danish pastry dough.  Neither of us had much cooking experience and we had never attempted to cook anything with yeast.  All I can remember of this is that the dough seemed to grow and grow and grow.  We obviously added way too much yeast and in the end we threw away trays of ever-expanding pastry dough while falling about laughing.  Somewhere in our archives there are photos of the Giant Yeast Disaster of 1969.

I saw today, once again, that I am not much of a teacher.  It's tough for me to see someone taking too long to do something or not doing it my way. I'm a pretty good demonstrator.  Watch while I do something and then try it, but not while I'm watching.  Do it when I'm out of sight otherwise the urge to take over is enormous.  It surprises me that my kids ever learned to tie their own shoes or button their own shirts, but in the end I can get out of the way and let others get on with things.

It was great fun cooking with Ralph today.  We laughed and fried and ate and made dozens of chremslech. A great start to our holidays.  Tomorrow, roast lamb for lunch and Ralph makes some great roast potatoes. Maybe he can teach me his special techniques.