Kosher Cuisine with Marcy Goldman

Fun With Cereal ? Don’t worry, It’s All Kosher!

Summer is a perfect time to kick back your heels a bit and create great food but easy and fun food. Outside the kitchen, it is major grill time but inside, some simple sweets, made crunchy and wholesome with cereals is another way to go.

Most mainstream cereals are kosher, if not pareve, and these convenience products marry well with traditional Jewish cuisine. No wonder Jewish matrons found other ways and means to use cereals that were tasty and kosher.

Cereal-based recipes are inspired or hail from an era (50-60’s) where Jewish homemakers were using more and more convenience foods. Loving new things, always endorsing innovation, especially those that were coincidentally kosher, in conjunction with their regular recipes, gave Jewish homemakers a whole new direction to go in. Cereal crumbs replaces bread crumbs and/or streusel and were also easy at hand and ready to go.

The results of such adventures were new traditions that have made their way to the new millennium without a hitch. In branching out, they created novel and tasty things. It’s strange what added fillip a bit of crunchy grain can add to a mandelbrot, a kugel or unfried, fried chicken but strange can be good. And these recipes surely are!

Notes:

For store or private brands (unless from kosher companies), do check to make sure the cereal is kosher, and if not, pareve. The cereals also add a bit of nutrition of grain and offer a nutty texture while not being made with nuts. Interesting to note that the only exception to the cooking with cereals is that famed and popular Rice Krispie squares, made the usual way with marshmallows are not kosher – due to the non-kosher gelatin component in the marshmallows.

Recipes:

Sweet Cornflake Kugel
This is all-year-round summary food but especially nice in summer when you might appreciate a quickly made, satisfying but light casserole. I serve this for lunch or a weekend early supper with salad or a soup. You can offer fruit or sour cream on the side and consider this a blintz dish without the blintzes.

Rice Krispie Mandelbrot
A crunchy, simple, homey mandelbrot or biscotti. The Rice Krispies give it a sense of nuttiness.

Cornflake Fried Chicken
Forget bread crumbs; instead try a crispy, lightly crunchy corny chicken.
This is good hot or cold so save some leftovers for the summer picnic basket. If you like this for chicken, you’ll love the same recipe using sole or haddock filets.

Special K Vanilla Butter Cookies
I like butter cookies and when you add Special K to a simple butter cookie you get delicate cookie taste with an added crunch that is almost nut-like. A great after school or company cookie.