I’m having my first go at making challah this morning (so far so good!) and while paging through my recipes it struck me that Jewish cooking seems to use a LOT of eggs.
Now, that could be because:
I seldom use eggs for most of my cooking, so it’s a normal level of egg use but just strikes me as excessive due to my own patterns of non-use
It’s the sub-set of Jewish cooking I’m working from (Ashkenazi/Eastern Europe, mostly)
Jewish cooking really does use a lot of eggs.
Apologies for breaking with tradition and not posting after sundown on Friday when all the observant Jewish Dopers won’t be posting for 24+ hours, but hey, I’m a rebel.
Does it? Outside of challah I can’t think of much that is particularly eggy.
But Ashkenaz cooking is peasant food, and eggs were probably one of the most steady sources of animal protein available to poor farmers. And since they’re also pareve, you can use them in any dish you like.
Anecdote: I used to be a baker, and would make challah on Friday mornings. A big batch of challah dough uses so many eggs that it seems to verge on satire. I got very, very, very good at cracking eggs one-handed and straining the yolks through my other hand.
What cuisine doesn’t commonly use eggs as a “binder”? Kugels (puddings), latkes (pancakes) and matzo balls certainly use eggs in their batters. But I don’t think that recipes in Jewish cuisine that don’t use some sort of batter are particularly eggy.
I’m not Jewish, but I eat a good amount of Eastern European food which is what much of Ashkenazi food is, and I do a number of dishes associated with the Jewish culture, and, no, I have not noticed it being particularly egg-heavy at all.
I’ve always thought that was the case. Especially at passover, everything seems to have eggs in it. Matzo balls, matzo brei, all the desserts, and of course boiled eggs for the seder. Plus given how terrible passover cereal is, we tend to have more eggs for breakfast than usual.
One reason aside from passover perhaps is the milk and meat prohibition. Eggs can replace milk as a binder in a lot of recipes that involve meat. If I want to make kosher fried chicken, I need something to get the breading to stick to the chicken, and I can’t use buttermilk, hence eggs.
I’m also not Jewish but I’ve come up with the opposite conclusion. Of course, I have an egg allergy so I would notice their presence in recipes a lot more often than someone who wasn’t. I also can’t help thinking if I had been born Jewish, I probably would’ve come close to starving to death.
I’m Jewish. I don’t do a ton of “Jewish” cooking, but if I were to think, “what cuisine uses lots of eggs” it would be French, not Jewish. All the desserts, omelets, “French Toast”, crepes, etc.
Yeah, there’s an egg in the matzo ball mix. It’s not a lot of egg. Yeah, someone probably serves me matzo-brie once a year. I have French toast more often. I have pancakes a LOT more often. Challah brioche are nearly the same recipe.
I suppose the pareve thing makes eggs a handy ingredient, but it’s just not all that pervasive in my experience.
