Recipes

Making Maror

This year, I’ll make highly filtered, very strong, horehound tea.

You can make horehound cough drops:

Boil a quarter of a cup of the horehound leaves in 2 cups of water for 10 minutes; discard the leaves. Add twice as much honey as the remaining liquid and stir the mixture smooth. Then blend 2 cups of sugar with ⅛ teaspoon of cream of tartar in a saucepan, and add the honey-horehound mixture. Stir over medium heat until the sugar melts. Then lower the flame and continue stirring until a dollop of the candy forms a hard ball when dropped into cold water.

At that point you can pour the syrup into a buttered baking dish and cut it into small squares as the candy begins to harden. Finally, roll the pieces in powdered and then granulated sugar and store them in airtight containers. (Source unknown.)

In “The History of Horseradish as the Bitter Herb of Passover”, Gesher (Bridging the Spectrum of Orthodox Jewish Scholarship), vol. 8 (issue number unclear), the author Arthur Schaffer (then a doctoral candidate in the Department of Horticulture, Rutgers University), makes it clear that horseradish could not be the bitter herb mentioned in the Bible (aside from it being sharp (חריפ) and not bitter (מר). Other sources suggest that horehound, an herb, which has a bitter taste is the actual item mentioned. An additional hint that horehound is Maror is its role as a chest decongestant, something that would be efficacious during the early spring with flowing pollen.

Making Charoset

I make a lot of Charoset. We eat it throughout the week. We spread it on Matzah and share it with friends. You can freeze some and, after Pesach, spread it on filo dough to make strudel.

2001 ingredients:

Pistachios 8 oz.
Pecans 6 oz.
Almonds 4 oz.
Pine Nuts 4 oz.
Granny Smith Apples 2
Navel Oranges (whole) 1
Mango 1
Sweet White Wine enough to moisten
Fresh Ginger Root about a cubic inch
Cinnamon pinch (to taste)

Grind all ingredients separately in a food processor. The nuts should be as close to a powder as possible without becoming “butter.” Roll up your sleeves and mix it all together in a very large plastic bag. Remember, it’s supposed to remind us of the mortar used in building; it should have a smooth texture.