Buñuelos de manzana

In advance of the upcoming Rosh Hashanah holiday, chef and food historian Hélène Jawhara-Piñer has kindly shared her latest culinary ideas from Sephardic cooking. She sent these details from Bordeaux, France, where she is currently based:

As with many people, I prepare Buñuelos de manzana for Rosh Hashana. But where the majority sprinkle icing sugar over them, I use instead honey, according to Sephardi custom, as it is sweeter and even more melting, but moreover because it remains the culinary flavor of Rosh Hashana.

Sufganin, isqaritin, zalābya, isfengand many others sweet dishes made with flour have always aroused discussion concerning the blessings. In his Sefer Abudraham, 14th century Talmudic commentator David Ben Joseph Ben David Abudraham of Seville says that although the Talmudic sources define sufganinand isqaritinas bread, he thinks that, because of their form and ingredients, they should be seen just as general flour foods.

However one defines them, they are no doubt delicious – and I hope you enjoy them!

INGREDIENTS :

3 apples cut in slices (0,2 inch)

1 cinnamon stick

8,8 oz Flour

½ tsp kosher salt

2 eggs (separate yolks and whites)

8,33 fl. oz milk

2,1 oz sugar

1/3 cup hot honey

Preparing apples:

1. Peel the apples and cut them into slices 0,2 inch

2. Boil water with cinnamon

3. Put the apple slices to cook for 5 minutes

4. Drain them and put them aside.

Preparing dough:

1. Mix slowly the flour, salt, 2 egg yolks. Add the milk gradually it keep it from forming lumps. It turns into a thick paste.

2. Beat the 2egg whites and and them carefully to the first preparation.

Cooking

1. Heat oil

2. Take an apple slice.

3. Dip it a into the dough and wait until there is no excess.

4. Fry 3 minutes on each side

5. Set aside and pour hot honey above the buñuelos

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Hélène Jawhara-Piñeris a PhD candidate in History, Medieval History, and the History of Food. She has been award by the Broome & Allen Fellowship from the American Sephardi Federation in 2018, dedicated to recognizing impressive academic accomplishments and service on behalf of the Sephardic community, as well as encouraging continued excellence in the field of Sephardi Studies. As a member of the Research Center CESR in Tours (France), and of the IEHCA (Institute of European History and Cultures of Food), her research interests are the medieval culinary history of Spain through interculturality with a special focus on the Jewish culinary heritage written in Arabic.