Moishe House Shabbat Table
Moishe House Shabbat Table
Shabbat is a weekly holiday in Jewish homes. Everything pauses, and people look to gather with family and friends and to recharge. Some Shabbat traditions appear in every Jewish community -- a challah or other special bread appears on every table on Friday night, and overnight dishes developed in many places to allow for festive meals while maintaining the Shabbat prohibition on lighting a fire. However, each family and community also developed unique dishes and adaptation inspired by their local environment and neighbors, a constantly evolving, living tradition.
Over the years, Jewish Food Society cooked with families from many places and traditions: some mark Shabbat with a more formal Friday night meal, while others gather for Shabbat breakfast or lunch. We are honored to highlight here the Shabbat stories and recipes from a few families we feature on our archive.
We hope you will be inspired to make them part of your Shabbat celebration.
4 recipes
Dabo (Ethiopian Bread)
Ingredients
- 1 to 1 ¼ cups warm water
- 1 packet (2¼ teaspoons) active dry yeast
- 4 cups all-purpose flour
- ¼ cup sugar
- 1 tablespoon kosher salt
- 1 ½ teaspoons vegetable oil
- 1 large egg
Escabeche de Peixe (Fish Escabeche With Peppers, Cumin, and Cilantro)
Ingredients
- ½ cup all-purpose flour
- ½ cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for shallow-frying
- 1 pound skinless red snapper fillets, sliced into 1-by-3-inch pieces
- 2 teaspoons kosher salt
- ⅛ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- ¾ cup white wine vinegar or white vinegar
- ½ medium onion, thinly sliced
- ½ cup + ¼ cup olive oil, divided
- ½ cup roughly chopped fresh cilantro
Yemenite Soup With Chicken and Hawaij
Ingredients
- 1 (3 ½ to 4 pound) chicken, cut into pieces
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- Kosher salt
- 2 large Russet or Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces
- 1 large yellow onion, roughly chopped
- 1 large carrot, roughly chopped
- 1 large zucchini, peeled and cut into ½-inch pieces
- 1 large Beefsteak tomato, roughly chopped
- 1 garlic clove
- 1 to 2 teaspoons soup hawaij
- Chopped fresh parsley or cilantro leaves, for serving
- Lachuch (Yemenite flatbread) or another flatbread, for serving
- Hilbe (Yemenite fenugreek paste), for serving
Challah With Seasonal Herbs
Ingredients
For the challah dough
- 8 cups bread flour
- 1 ½ ounces (3 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons) fresh yeast or 1 tablespoon plus 1 ¾ teaspoons active dry yeast
- 2 cups water
- 2 tablespoons + 2 teaspoons cane sugar or granulated sugar
- 1 whole egg
- 1 egg yolk
- ⅔ + cup + 1 teaspoon sunflower oil
- 1 tablespoon + 2 teaspoons kosher salt
For the egg wash
- 1 whole egg
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon water
For decoration
Herbs, vegetables or flowers like dill, fennel fronds and flowers, spring garlic, chive blossoms, lavender flowers, rose petals, etc.
Recipes
1
Dabo (Ethiopian Bread)
Ingredients
- 1 to 1 ¼ cups warm water
- 1 packet (2¼ teaspoons) active dry yeast
- 4 cups all-purpose flour
- ¼ cup sugar
- 1 tablespoon kosher salt
- 1 ½ teaspoons vegetable oil
- 1 large egg
2
Escabeche de Peixe (Fish Escabeche With Peppers, Cumin, and Cilantro)
Ingredients
- ½ cup all-purpose flour
- ½ cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for shallow-frying
- 1 pound skinless red snapper fillets, sliced into 1-by-3-inch pieces
- 2 teaspoons kosher salt
- ⅛ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- ¾ cup white wine vinegar or white vinegar
- ½ medium onion, thinly sliced
- ½ cup + ¼ cup olive oil, divided
- ½ cup roughly chopped fresh cilantro
3
Yemenite Soup With Chicken and Hawaij
Ingredients
- 1 (3 ½ to 4 pound) chicken, cut into pieces
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- Kosher salt
- 2 large Russet or Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces
- 1 large yellow onion, roughly chopped
- 1 large carrot, roughly chopped
- 1 large zucchini, peeled and cut into ½-inch pieces
- 1 large Beefsteak tomato, roughly chopped
- 1 garlic clove
- 1 to 2 teaspoons soup hawaij
- Chopped fresh parsley or cilantro leaves, for serving
- Lachuch (Yemenite flatbread) or another flatbread, for serving
- Hilbe (Yemenite fenugreek paste), for serving
4
Challah With Seasonal Herbs
Ingredients
For the challah dough
- 8 cups bread flour
- 1 ½ ounces (3 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons) fresh yeast or 1 tablespoon plus 1 ¾ teaspoons active dry yeast
- 2 cups water
- 2 tablespoons + 2 teaspoons cane sugar or granulated sugar
- 1 whole egg
- 1 egg yolk
- ⅔ + cup + 1 teaspoon sunflower oil
- 1 tablespoon + 2 teaspoons kosher salt
For the egg wash
- 1 whole egg
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon water
For decoration
Herbs, vegetables or flowers like dill, fennel fronds and flowers, spring garlic, chive blossoms, lavender flowers, rose petals, etc.
Listen to the Story
About Jewish Food Society
The Jewish Food Society is a non-profit organization that works to preserve, celebrate, and revitalize Jewish culinary heritage from around the world in order to provide a deeper connection to Jewish life. Through our digital archive of family recipes and the stories behind them, and creative public programs and our podcast that bring the archive to life, we aim to use food as a platform for engaging with Jewish Culture.
Do you have a favorite Shabbat recipe? Does your family have a Shabbat story you can share? We would love to hear about it, and so would your guests.
We encourage you to think of recipes as a gateway to storytelling around the table, a way to share your own family story and to learn about that of your guests.
Make Beejhy's Dabo recipe and read more about her family's story.
Warm up with Hila Segev's Yemenite Soup with Chicken and Hawaij, a staple of her grandmother's Shabbat table.
Esther Weyl's family traveled from Spain to Morocco to Brazil and their recipes developed along the way. Try her Shabbat Escabeche de Peixe (Fish Escabeche With Peppers, Cumin, and Cilantro).
For a fun take on Challah, see Israeli chef Erez Komrovski's Challah with Seasonal Herbs -- This is a great activity to do as a group! Make the dough and invite your guests to shape and braid challah together, weaving in fun seasonal ingredients.
Conversation:
* What dish or recipe brings up memories or tell a story for you? What would your recipe tell about you?
* What are the different pieces of your own identity and how do they fit together (or fight each other)?
* Are there dishes that speak to those different identities in your life?
* Do you mark the Shabbat in any particular way? Are there special foods or rituals that you typically try to repeat every week?
* The stories collected here highlight different dishes and rituals, ways of marking the day and making it special. There are many more examples of course, like JFS’s founder, Naama, who likes to have her family Shabbat dinner as a picnic whenever the weather allows. If you don’t already have such a practice (or if you just want to mix things up), what dish or new tradition can you imagine adding to your own life?
