Growing up in a Jewish household, Rosh Hashanah, Passover, and Chanukkah were always celebrated with particular foods. Chopped liver, gefilte fish, matzo ball soup, latkes, potato kugel, fruit compote, turkey (with matzah stuffing—an abomination), and brisket, all had to be part of our meals. To say nothing of the desserts. Honey cake, Passover mandelbrot (a kind of a biscotti made with matzah flour), macaroons, and those disgusting jelly slices that poorly mimic real candied fruit and whose only virtue is that they are parve.
Of course, many of these were also eaten at other times of the year, but one, in particular, I never made any time but Passover—matzo brei. It means “fried matzah,” and I would make it for the family the morning after the Seder and a few more times during the week, but I never made it the rest of the year. That’s despite the fact that we always had a few leftover boxes of matzah in the house that lasted until the following Passover when they were finally tossed. Matzah is second only to Hostess Twinkies in its ability to never go stale.
Matzo brei is basically scrambled eggs with chunks of softened matzah pieces, usually cooked with onions and spices, but sometimes as a sweet version with sugar. As someone enamored of fresh toast with softly scrambled eggs, matzo brei satisfies the urge for the forbidden bread without tasting like a poor substitute.
Why make this only a few specific days out of the year? It reminds me of the rhythms of a year, a need that a year of COVID isolation has made more pertinent. It specifically honors the commandment to eat matzah as a remembrance of the holiday, not as a poor substitute for bread, and ultimately, as a way of connecting me with my family history and all of the people who are no longer with us. The first taste of a latke reminds me of my tante, who, along with her sister, my bubbe, would spend Passover week with us every year. As kids, we would wait like nestlings around the stove for her to pass us a fresh-made latke, or one of her special hamburgers—tiny little pucks of meat finely minced in an ancient wooden bowl with an equally ancient mezzaluna—fried in pure schmaltz.
It reminds me of childhood Seders around the dining room table; one of the few occasions we didn’t eat around the kitchen table because the dining room was “too nice” to use. When I was older and leading the family Seder, I recall hiding the afikomen—the ritual matzah “dessert” that is part of the ceremony—in the plastic plant container in the corner only to discover last year’s afikomen was still there.
Over the years, no matter where we had holiday meals the menu had to be the same. One year in an outburst of rebellion, we replaced the turkey with roast Cornish Game Hens. My disgruntled father cried, “Get this damned pigeon off my plate!”
It took years for me to appreciate my Mom’s chopped liver (try her recipe) and I still think gefilte fish is only a vehicle for horseradish and carrots in that jelly those fish dumplings exude. Though Mom and the others are all gone, the dishes were and still are part of a family tradition that connects the present to the past. Along the way, we’ve created new traditions that will continue to connect us to our own children. That includes matzo brei. When I asked my grown daughter Rebecca before Passover (a Zoom Seder again) if she was going to make some this year, she admitted that she had already broken into the Passover matzah and made it twice.
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Rob’s Matzo Brei
This makes one generous serving. Take a square of matzah and break it into irregular chunks of about two inches square. Soak the matzah in a few ounces of milk, occasionally swirling the liquid to cover the pieces, for about 5 minutes until soft. Drain the liquid and sop excess from the matzah on a paper towel. While the matzah is soaking, crack three eggs into a measuring cup. Add 1/3 teaspoon salt and a tablespoon of sour cream and stir with a fork or a whisk until blended. Take a small onion and dice into half-inch pieces. If you like onion, you can add a lot more.
In a 12-inch non-stick saucepan, add 1 tablespoon oil and 1 tablespoon butter. When the butter froths, add the onion and coat well. Cook over medium heat until the onion softens. Add the matzah and allow it to fry in the oil. Since it is moist, it will take a few minutes, but the edges will begin to brown. Pour the eggs over the matzah and allow it to sit for 30 seconds. Begin folding the eggs and matzah together as the eggs cook, moving the liquid egg to the bottom. Cook until eggs barely set, then add a tablespoon of chopped fresh parsley and mix in. Plate the matzo brei and eat immediately.
There are many recipes for matzo brei, and, like snowflakes, no two are alike. I find balancing the amount of matzah and eggs is critical. While most recipes emphasize the matzah, making it more like crunchy French toast, I prefer there to be pieces of matzah in the eggs, not eggs in the matzah. Cooked properly, there will be fluffy curds of eggs and pieces of matzah browned at the edges yet soft in the center that exist in perfect harmony.
There are a few variations that are worth trying. For more savory, add some cut-up salami with the onions (yes, it is not kosher anymore unless you forego the milk and sour cream) and fry it a bit before adding the matzah. For a sweet version, forego the onions, soak the matzah in milk sweetened with a tablespoon of sugar, and then sprinkle cinnamon sugar over the matzo brei before serving. I will even admit to a drizzle of maple syrup.
