Kosher dinner emergency

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Hades

Cook
Joined
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Belgium
Sorry DC ladies and gentlemen, but I need some help once more... I invited a jewish (ie. citizen of the state of Israel) friend and his wife and daughter for dinner next sunday. I know that away from his family he doesn't care at all about kosher food (or anything else to do with religion). We even had black pudding with applesauce (well knowing what black pudding is!) on a business lunch once and he absolutely loved it. But he also told me that his wife is a little more conventional. So not to offend anyone, I'd prefer to put a (more or less) kosher meal together.
Is there anything else a big no-no apart from porc and shellfish?
Can I use for example passover recipe's on a regular sunday or would this be concidered offensive?
Does anyone want to share his or her's kosher recipe's?

Thanks a lot in advance everyone! :chef:

PS: living in the center of Antwerp, obtaining kosher ingredients is fairly easy. there's dozens of kosher shope and supermarkets here... it's preparing these ingredients that scares me.
 
Gosh, Kosher is such a difficult topic, because people observe the laws so differently.

I work with a man whose cousins will not eat at his house, even to the point of shunning a cup of tea. They are rabbis who adhere to the Kosher regulations very strictly.

If you cannot talk with your friend prior to the dinner to find out what the wife will eat, I would just adhere to the basics.

No meat and dairy combined.

Going to a Kosher butcher is a good idea, you cannot go wrong there. (Any meat from the rear end of the critter, i.e. leg of lamb is not Kosher, so the butcher will not be selling that.)

Other than that I would sort of just cook.

A person who observes the Kosher laws to the ultimate degree would not marry someone who pays no mind to them.

So I would honor them by doing your best as the host and relax.

Have a great time.
 
There is a bit of information in the General cooking questions forum. Do a search for kosher foods and you should find it.
 
The kasrut laws are vast and complicated. There are so many layers to them and as auntdot said each person observes them in their own way. For someone who is observing to the biggest degree, nothing made in your kitchen will be kosher so it would not matter what you cooked or didn't cook. Thankfully most people who do keep kosher know how to adapt in situations in which keeping kosher is not always possible.

The very major things to keep in mind are no mixing of meat and dairy. People who keep kosher generally have separate plates and utensils for meat and dairy. Some have separate dishwashers and even separate refrigerators.

Animals that are scavengers are forbidden.

Shellfish is forbidden.

Only animals which chew their cud and are cloven-hoofed are allowed.

Fish must have fins and scales.

Blood is forbidden to be consumed.

Again these are just some basic rules. It gets a lot more in depth than this. any attempt that you make I am sure will be appreciated.
Kosher for passover and regular kosher are different animals all together. Kosher for passover has to do with the prohibition of eating anything that rises when cooked. This is not an issue during times other than Passover.

If you want to post what you are planning on serving then we can let you know (as best we can) if it is kosher or not.
 
GB said:
Animals that are scavengers are forbidden.

Is catfish forbidden then? Ooopsy.... I once served Thai crispy catfish salad to a Jewish friend from NYC and his parents from the Poconos. They ate it anyway although now I need to know if they were just being tactful. :wacko: Somebody tell me pls..pls..Thanks!
 
I am not 100% sure, but I believe catfish is not kosher. Catfish do not have scales I don't think so that would make it non kosher right there.

Chopstix, do your friends keep kosher or are they just Jewish? The vast majority of Jews (at least in the US) do not keep kosher. I am Jewish and regularly eat pork, shellfish, meat with dairy, etc. I Know well over 100 Jews and maybe 2 of them keep kosher.
 
GB said:
Animals that are scavengers are forbidden.

Animals that are scavengers are forbidden.

Shellfish is forbidden.

Only animals which chew their cud and are cloven-hoofed are allowed.

Fish must have fins and scales.

Blood is forbidden to be consumed.

Poultry doesn't strictly meet the general guidelines listed above, however, it should be noted that there is Kosher poultry available at a Kosher butcher.
 
Aurora, as I mentioned, these are by no means all of the rules. I am assuming you are refering to the rule about only animals that chew their cud and are cloven hoofed are allowed. That really only applies to mammals. Generally, (again this is just in the US) chicken, turkey, duck and goose are the only accepted poultry. The have to be killed and prepared a certain way (as with all animals) to be considered kosher.
 
Wow, thanks so far everyone. You guys realy saved my day :chef:.
I was thinking of serving:
* Chicken broth (saw about a dozen recipe's for it on kosher food sites) made from kosher chicken ofcourse. Shouldn't be too hard to find in a kosher supermarket I guess.
* some kind of fish in a creamy (fish stock, cream, seasoning) sauce. Probably with some vermouth or white wine. The local fish shop is doing a month's special on dover sole if that's ok. (it has scales and fins... sort of)
* I was thinking of doing a beef wellington from the kosher shop but with the none-dairy rule I changed my mind to maybe a beef roast with a reduced wine sauce with the usual seasonings and a vegetable and steamed potato (avoiding cream, butter and eggs in a potato mash).
* some sort of a desert... not sure yet what it will be. I hope a combination of milk or cream, eggs, and fruits is ok.

Edit: does the meat have to be well done all over? :mellow:
 
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As far as I can tell, dover sole is kosher and I don't believe serving it in a cream sauce is a problem. You would not be able to serve the beef roast or the chicken broth though because of the cream in the sauce from the fish.

The dessert does not sound like it will be a problem.
 
GB said:
Chopstix, do your friends keep kosher or are they just Jewish? The vast majority of Jews (at least in the US) do not keep kosher. I am Jewish and regularly eat pork, shellfish, meat with dairy, etc. I Know well over 100 Jews and maybe 2 of them keep kosher.

GB, my friend (who looks and acts like Jerry Seinfeld himself :LOL:) eats anything. But he advised me not to serve pork nor shellfish to his parents. He didn't mention scavenger animals though ... His parents were very nice -- reminded me of Seinfeld's folks, more or less :LOL:
 
A lot of Jews do not keep kosher, but don't feel right breaking some of the larger rules like eating pork shellfish. Sounds to me like your friends parents probably fit into that category. I would be willing to bet that what you served was fine by them :)
 
GB,

I only mentioned chicken since it is usually very easy to prepare, there are thousands of recipes for it and it is liked by most people. And afterall, what's more stereotypically Jewish than chicken soup?:chef:
 
GB said:
As far as I can tell, dover sole is kosher and I don't believe serving it in a cream sauce is a problem. You would not be able to serve the beef roast or the chicken broth though because of the cream in the sauce from the fish.

The dessert does not sound like it will be a problem.

GB - there has to be so many hours between the consumption of dairy and meat, correct? I just want to make sure that is understood. They cannot be served at the same meal - it would have to be one or the other, right?
 
Yes I believe that is correct kitchenelf, although I do not know how many hours it needs to be. For some reason 2 hours is jumping out at me, but I could be very wrong about that.

You basically do not want to serve them together in the same meal, no matter how long the meal may last.
 
GB said:
Yes I believe that is correct kitchenelf, although I do not know how many hours it needs to be. For some reason 2 hours is jumping out at me, but I could be very wrong about that.

You basically do not want to serve them together in the same meal, no matter how long the meal may last.

I'm reading some extremely interesting stuff here that could either really help or really confuse the OP.

I light-heartedly say that during this day and age some things are done because it has been the law for so long but no one knows why it was the law anymore - they just do it because someone said to do it - wherein I'm pretty sure the term "because I said so" found it's beginnings!!:)

I have always wanted to find out more about this stuff so I'll be reading a lot.
 
Kitchenelf (or anyone else), feel free to PM me if you would like to know the reasons behind the why we have the kosher laws. There is a lot of misconceptions out there about why these laws exist for Jews (if had absolutely nothing to do with health reasons as a lot of people think).
 
GB said:
Kitchenelf (or anyone else), feel free to PM me if you would like to know the reasons behind the why we have the kosher laws. There is a lot of misconceptions out there about why these laws exist for Jews (if had absolutely nothing to do with health reasons as a lot of people think).

I, along with many people I'm sure, would be very interested to know the reasons why. Instead of confining it to PMs, can this be an open discussion? :)
 
First of all, if they were strictly Kosher, they would NOT be coming to your house for a meal, since your house is NOT Kosher.

If you're serving Chicken Soup to start, the Fish is fine for the next course, but NO cream sauce! No butter can be used in ANY preparation for a meat meal. so also that means no cake, no Crème Brulée... nothing with dairy in it at all.

Fish is neutral. You can have fish with dairy. Eggs are neutral.

It's okay to ASK your friend about this, too... it will give you a better idea of just how strictly they observe Kashrut.

Oh, and catfish is definitely NOT Kosher! Not only does it NOT have scales, it's a scavenger. But it tastes so good!
 

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